Just after 9. Chickens feed in the front yard. A few weeks ago they wouldn't come out of the coop it was so cold. Now the ones that still lay eggs are laying them. Sophia excitedly reported we had 4 last night. Yesterday Spring officially sprung. The other evening It was a sad report. We lost one. They said it was sitting on the floor stiff like it was sleeping. Hayden and I walked it down the woods trail a ways, faced it west, and said good bye under the night sky. A few weeks earlier we did the same with another one. There was no sign of it anywhere. Nature has a way of cleaning up after itself. I have been noticing hawks flying over fields gone wild on the mail route the past couple of weeks. There's a bunch of pussy willows in a swamp I've been watching that are getting ready to burst when it warms again. We returned from Rice Lake at dusk last night to see robins running around on the ground. A first for this year here. That's it for now. We're all sick yet. Gonna get outside anyway, move around, and make some things happen. There's yardwork to do. The day always ends better after that. I hope you have a great day! Fire 169 3.21.25

I have noticed that I can become consumed by Bitcoin. There's something about it though. I go back to what Michael Saylor has said. To paraphrase, people come to Bitcoin because they're curious or desperate. I was both when it found me in July of '22. #Bitcoin

Good morning from the front of fire 168. It's just after 8. Been up for close to an hour. The third day of my 6 day vacation, or as my Supervisor called it: staycation. We're all sick with head and chest colds. Haven't done much. The usual keep the animals watered, split firewood over at my mom's with Hayden, keep the fire going here, and the occasional get sucked into this or that outrage on social media. That's the worst. I feel like a sucker most of the time. Like Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter) said in a talk I listened to recently. To paraphrase, the social media platforms are programming us. We think about and focus on what they want us to focus on. It creates division outside and inside ourselves. There I go generalizing.. It creates division outside and inside myself. How do I know what it's doing to others. It sure looks that way though. So I turn to tending plants and the land. The third option. The option that calms the inner and outer division. The option that helps me remember that death is life, and life is death. 3.20.25

Your depression is connected to your insolence And your refusal to praise. If a man or woman is On the path, and refuses to praise — that man or woman Steals from others every day — in fact is a shoplifter! ~ Rumi Sometimes she comes into work and her head of white hair is matted in back partly combed. Maybe she just got out of bed. I doubt it though. She raises sheep, cows, has lots of cats, takes care of her mother-n-,law in the house next door. One time she told me when she fires up her leaf blower to blow the cobwebs away in her basement the cats will disappear for a day. Another time she told me she tried to tell her husband their financial situation would be ok, that was before she found him behind the pole barn dead with a self inflicted bullet wound to the head. Sometimes we get to talking about her family's history when we should be working. Her grandparents were harassed by the Gestapo back in their homeland. She says the job reminds her of the stories they told. Management oversight and the tracking scanners we carry. Everybody's got their job to do Sometimes she'll say what they say about safety is all lies. We're just busy bodies. Then we'll laugh together about our lack of freedom. We work at the same pace her and I. We leave about the same time and are usually the last ones back. Nobody wants to be the last to leave and return in the office, but we're usually the ones that do. We're a service, not an assembly line putting out products. We're both approaching 20 years with the Post Office. Where did the time go?! Hope you enjoyed this piece of praise for my fellow postal worker. The world of work is wonderius at times. Fire 167. 3.19.25

We should ask God To help us toward manners. Inner gifts Do not find their way To creatures without just respect. If a man or woman flails about, he not only Smashes his house, He burns the whole world down. Your depression is connected to your insolence And your refusal to praise. If a man or woman is On the path, and refuses to praise — that man or woman Steals from others every day — in fact is a shoplifter! The sun became full of light when it got hold of itself. Angels began shining when they achieved discipline. The sun goes out whenever the cloud of not-praising comes near. The moment that foolish angel felt insolent, he heard the door close. ~ Rumi

"How important is [Strikes] lending product? We enable people to never have to sell Bitcoin ever again. People only sell Bitcoin, in my opinion, because they have to not because they want to. If you don't have to, why would you?" - Jack Mallers @ 54 to 58 min. https://www.youtube.com/live/9YgaLHZdKz8?si=sPBf38hGe6a5gLtD

Good morning from the front of 166. The first day of six days off. It feels like a near two year postal tour of duty has come to an end. We have nothing big planned the next six days. It will be time to rest, recuperate, and recalibrate. Looking forward to Annie to awaken so we can have a cup of coffee together and talk about anything and everything. This happened much more when we both worked part time, when life was more leisurely. I miss it. Life shrinks without leisure, suffering happens. I know this well. Not today though. I've seen and heard nuthatches this morning. The chickens cleaning up under the bird feeder even looked like they belong. Looking forward to the next 6 days. I hope you have a great day! 3.18.25

A reflection on sitting in front of the fire. Somewhere back there 17 years ago or so we decided to heat our house with wood only. Somewhere back there when Dad walked on I started to take pictures of the morning fire and write. A ritual came into being. Right now, if I was to pin this ritual to a lofty thought, it would be this one by Aldo Leopold: "There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace." When I logged trees turned into numbers, cords to cash. I was a kid saving money for my future. Making my way in the world. Everybody was happy for me except me. I never said thank you to those trees for what they gave me. In front of this fire I don't have to say thank you. The process grants grace. For that miracle I am thankful. 🙏 Fire 164 3.16.25

Before death takes away what you are given, give away what is there to give. No dead person grieves for his death. He mourns only what he didn't do. Why did I wait? Why did I not . . . ? Why did Ineglect to . . . ? I cannot think of better advice to send. I hope you like it. May you stay in your infinity. Peace. ~ Rumi

5:50 AM. First coffee, quiet, fire. Then off to the mail trail. Hope you have a great weekend! Fire 163 3.15.25

Friday. Fire 162. 44 out there. I heard thunder earlier, at least I hope that's what it was. I continue to train a carrier. I look forward to a few days off next week. I remember my Dad working his factory job for 30 years. He started right around the time I was born. He was union. Got paid vacation and all that. Here I am at 50, union, and looking forward to paid days off. The world of work. Off to the mail trail. I hope you have a great day! 3.14.25

Thank you to those who have zapped some of my posts since I joined Nostr. There's nothing like a zap to start my day!

Bitcoin will win. #Bitcoin

"All enterprises must be self-supporting, must pay for themselves. The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body — that so the life not be a failure. For instance, a poet must sustain his body with his poetry. As is said of the merchants, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the life of men is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied. You must get your living by loving." -From Thoreau's Journal; March 13, 1853 ### This quote really spoke to me this morning, especially the last line. One of my biggest fears, maybe my biggest, is my life will be a failure. And if I am able to disengage from the post office and make my living growing native plants and building resilient plant communities I will have achieved my living by loving. Fire 161 3.13.25

Yesterday, on the way to work, I saw a big bearded man standing next to his pickup in the distance. As I passed by him at 60 miles per hour he held up his jumper cables. The positive in one hand; the negative in the other. My first thought: I'm late already. My second: Screw it, work can wait. Up the road there was a roundabout. I went around it and headed back to the short version of Paul Bunyan waiting for a jump. I pull up next him, pop my hood, and he's already reaching for the lever to disengage it. I get out and as he's hooking up the cables he says, "Thanks man. There aren't many people that would stop to give a big bearded guy like me a jump." I looked in the back seat of his pickup and saw two little kids eating gas station snacks. A minute later his truck was running. As I unhooked the cables from the battery of my mail jeep, and he from his he says loud enough for me to hear over the hum of the engines: "Thank you, and God bless you." I was only 10 minutes late for work. No one cared. They were happy to see me Off to the mail trail in a few. Hope you have a great day! Fire 160 3.12.25

7:25 AM. I'm usually at work sorting mail at this time. Today I get to start an hour later. Someone is training on my route. I will get some time off next week. I'm a bit nervous. The past 20 months have been a grind of 6 days a week with no days off in sight. I don't know what I am going to do with myself. It might feel like the olds days when we were both working part time. When we had days together as a family. It seemed life made more sense then. Off to the mail trail. Fire 159 3.11.25

I'm a bitcoiner. I'm happy about this. One reason why: I work for a wage. I've been a full time rural route mail carrier for close to two years. I will earn a wage increase after 96 weeks of service. It's roughly an 8% increase. The dollars I work for lose 7% of their buying power a year. My wages can't keep up with inflation. Bitcoin doesn't lose its value. It only goes up in value. Why? Because there is no bank that can print more of it. It is a decentralized and secure protocol. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin. No one can change that.. True Scarcity.

"When we fall in love, we begin to imagine; and when we begin to imagine: we fall in love." -- James Hillman Good morning from the front of fire 157. It's later than usual. Talked with my 15 year old son for a while about dating, masculinity, and toxic masculinity first thing this morning. He listens to a lot of podcasts. He's got questions as he gets ready to make his way in the world. It was awkward. I want to be here for him. I want to make sure it all goes smoothly. It won't of course. I look back on my life at that age and into my midtwenties and it was rife with life altering mistakes, successes, and heartbreak. Ironically, I have been thinking about that period of my life a lot lately. It could be because I have been listening to so much Led Zeppelin on the mail route. Who knows why we do what we do. But it's a powerful period of our life, adolescence. I think it's so powerful because we follow our hearts and we get ourselves into all kinds of messes. He's getting ready to get himself into some messes, my son. I can hear the imaginings. Now I get to be like the adults that had patience and the ability to see the good and gifts in me. They helped me get through that period of my life. If he gets himself into a quarter of the messes I get myself into, it's going to be a wild ride. I am thankful for those that were there for me. 3.9.25

I have 5 minutes before I leave for work. I am going to throw a thought out here quickly. The pressure is on. In a conversation at work the other day I had someone tell me that political tribalism is the same as tribalism as a human social organization. It's not. Whether or not you identify as a Democrat, Republican, Green, or Independent has nothing to do with whether or not our species will survive into the future. Humans have only lived in two social organizations: Tribes and Civilization. We lived in tribes for hundreds of thousands of years. Civilization for roughly 10 thousand. That's the difference. One has to do with social organization in an evolutionary sense; the other is what you choose (consciously or unconsciously) to identify as. Off to the mail trail! 📬 Fire 155 3.7.25