Good morning. Thank you for all of the birthday wishes. It's always nice to be thought of. Looking forward to another day off from work with family. Hope you have a great day! Morning Fire #3 #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. I am in front of morning fire #2. It's 35 degrees out there. Sun just coming up in the east. When I was out at 5 the stars were shining. They're predicting a sunny day. I am thinking Hayden (16 yrs. old) and I are going to drive over to Minnesota to get some coal for his forge. I have the week off from the mail trail. It's one thing we wanted to do. Yesterday we hiked up to the top of St Pete's Dome. It took us over 2 hours. It's not as easy as it used to be. I turn 52 today. I am starting to feel it. We got home in time to catch the last 2 innings of the Brewer game. That was worth it! They were down to their last strike of the game and won it with it a hit up the middle. What an exciting season to be a Brewer fan. I am going to go and read some big ideas before my family starts to wake. I need that continuous reminder that there is a divine purpose behind all of this. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

7:36 AM There it is, .first morning fire of the year. It's 44 out there. When I was out at 6 the stars were shining. Porch wet. Earth roof dripping Noticed leaves blowing off the trees on the mail trail yesterday. Canadian geese feeding in a picked cornfield on the way home from work. On the way to work a doe feeding on the wood's edge by the Earl Cemetery. She was probably cleaning up corn they didn't get during harvest. We did a first last night. We streamed Fox One so we could watch the Brewers play the Padres. We have lived in the house for roughly 20 years and have never watched network television. The commercials annoy me. I have a hard time unwinding while there's a television running. But it worked! It was enjoyable. It's fun to get into the spirit of October baseball, especially when the Brewers are finally in the the thick of it with the possibility of making it to the World Series! Supposed to be another sunny Sunday. We will more than likely head up to St. Pete's Dome. I will post pictures later. This, I think, will be our fifth Sunday visiting a State or National park near us. Well, I don't have much else to say right now. I am glad to be writing in front of this fire. I feel connected to you who are reading this. I always have. There is something about sitting in front of this fire, mostly in the dark, with everyone asleep that I thoroughly enjoy. The fire is burned down. Time to close it off. I hope you have a great day! 🙏 Morning Fire #1

Forty seven out there. Cloudy. No fire yet. Not supposed to get above sixty today. The house will slowly cool until we can't stand it. Then it's two hour hundred and some fires later and brighter days Off to the mail trail. Hope you have a great day. #gm #coffeechain

6:30 AM. Mail jeeps warms. 33 out there. Warm in here. Frost on windshields. Stars at 5 AM. Planted 2 New Jersey Teas last evening. They won't make it through the winter in pots. Still some left if you want some. Today is our last day open. Thank you to all of you. Next May will be the next open day. On Mother's Day. Off to the mail trail. Have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

No need to wait until we die. There is more to want here than money and being famous and bites of roasted meat. ~ Rumi #gm

6:25 AM. Dark out there. No light in the east. Jeep will be running soon. Still wearing shorts. No leaves on some natives in pots. Purple coneflower in picture not purple but brown. October 1st now. Off to the mail trail. 📬 #gm #coffeechain

Moving through mist, seventy miles an hour, windshield wipers whip, seven am, I make it to work. 📬 #gm

Good morning. 6:20 AM. Foggy and humid out there. 64 degrees. Leaving for the mail trail earlier. Owls were nearby calling to each other last evening. They've been active all spring and summer. Guessing they're barred owls. That's a stiff golden rod (Oligoneuron rigidum) going to seed. I like the colors. I planted a few of them in my mom's meadow this summer. Off to the trail. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Back to the mail trail today. That''s a bee buried in bee balm. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Writing on rocks I've noticed along Lake Superior recently. #travel #water

Good morning. A recent photo of aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) from the front meadow. We still have quite a bit for sale. It's tough. It's growing in sand in various spots in the front meadow. I planted a cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) the other day. Went to plant another one yesterday and noticed the one I put in prior was eaten off even with the ground. Hoping it comes back. I collected seeds from one we might've planted 5 years ago. It's been eaten off a number of times over the years. We were surprised to see it bloom this year. That's it for now. My last day of vacation. Then it's back to the mail trail. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. I took this photo along the highway outside of Trego yesterday. Milkweed at the end of September. Afterwards I picked the pods. Enough to fill a gallon ice cream bucket. I took them home with the hope of more milkweed around me in the future. Before that I planted 3 more compass plants (Silphium laciniatum) among the Indian grasses at the corner of our driveway. I didn't get around to putting in another cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) like I wanted to. That would be among the Indian grasses too. Someday the yellow flowers will hopefully poke up above the indian grasses. Compass plants can take 5 years to bloom they say. Yesterday a customer stopped in and said they follow my writing and was interested in Bitcoin. I wasn't here. Annie said she wished I would've been. I'm starting to call those moments "shocks." There are times when I want to stop writing on here. It ebbs and flows. Recently I've wanted to hang it up. Then I get shocked by a story about someone mentioning my writing. It pushes me forward. The universe at work. We're going to take a family trip up to Lake Superior today. That'll be another shock. The beauty of the big body of water will hopefully put things into perspective. I hope you have a great Sunday. #gm #coffeechain #natives

They're ready just outside of Trego, WI. It doesn't take long to fill an ice cream bucket. :-) 🦋 #Nature #Plants #Pollinators #Natives

Good morning. I hope you have a great weekend. I took this photo at Amnicon Falls last weekend. I thought aster flower heads lying neatly on rocks was interesting and peculiar. Tomorrow we might go north and check out Lake Superior again. My sister told me about a secluded spot her and her family visit. It'll be the fourth Sunday in a row we get away and visit a public park. I read four pages out of "A Sense of The Cosmos," by Jacob Needleman this morning. It took me about a half hour. It's dense. Philosophical. I wrote down quotes in my notebook periodically. I made sure to read before I got caught up scrolling on my phone. I'm much calmer afterwards. Time seems to be moving slower. I looked up a couple of times while reading and couldn't believe how much time I had left. Back to the book. Needleman points out that no one has ever committed a crime in a sense of wonder and awe. The feeling you get when you stand under a starlit sky with little or no light pollution. That feeling came over me last weekend walking out to the lighthouse at Wisconsin point on Lake Superior. I like it. I want more of it. Maybe tomorrow. Ok. Like I said above. Have a good weekend. I am going to end it this time. :-) #gm #coffeechain

“May God us keep From Single vision & Newton’s sleep!" ~ William Blake I don't call myself a writer. If I paid the bills with what I made writing I would. I deliver mail on rural roads in and around Springbrook, WI to do that. I was at the kitchen table earlier struggling. I wanted to write something great. The thing that would draw comments, reactions, and praise. The thing that would inspire people to share their stories. Connection. I sat frozen. I stared out the window for a half hour. Mad that I wasted my time I found a picture and posted something that didn't move me. Just something. I could say I put something out there. Maybe it would satisfy the muse. It didn't. I figured I would go outside and work it off. Cutting and piling firewood usually helps. My family doesn't understand this. But they're not inside of me. So I went to put my clothes on. I took my flannel "comfortable" pants off to put on my work pants covered in dirt, sawdust, and scented with chainsaw smoke. Then it hit me. Words flowed. I put my flannel pants back on and sat back down to the kitchen table. It's not that I didn't want to live when I was in my late teens and early 20's. It's terrifying to even admit that. They medicate you for that. Maybe even lock you up. No, I was stuck. And I didn't know how to become unstuck. We all get stuck. One of the shocks to help me get unstuck was Daniel Quinn's work. His novels opened me up to ideas that I would not have been open to prior. I think there's a lot of ways to get unstuck. Hallucinogens, therapy, conversations with a friend, etc. For me it was ideas. I had to understand how words on a page could cause goosebumps and hair to stand up. Ideas are different than thoughts, you know. Ideas come to us, I think, from the divine. And it cares about us along with the rest of creation. But ideas are meant for us humans. The rest of creation aren't interested. It's the way things are. Different strokes for different folks. But the ideas saved me from single vision and Newton's sleep. In other words, I learned there was depth to this world. That there was more than one way to look at myself and life in general. It's how we interpret things. And ideas help us interpret. Without them we are blind. That's enough now. I hope you get something out of this. #Daily #Journal

Good morning. It's 8 AM. 51 out there. Still a haze in the sunny sky from the early morning fog. Not quite burnt off. We open in 2 hours. We'll be open for five more days. We've had customers the past two. You never know if anyone will show up this time of year. Putting plants in the ground is not a priority for most people in the fall. That's it for right now. Looking forward to another day off from the mail trail and working around the place and being with family. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. The gold of goldenrod on the first day of Fall (yesterday). We all need a little gold in our lives. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

It's the first day of Fall. #nature #biophilia

Grandchildren. The start of them. A woman at work said we're going to have to get you some suspenders. LOL. #Family #Life