We broke ground in 2005. We moved in 2008. During those years we lived in the old farmhouse in our front yard. Which is slowly falling down and returning to the earth, like we all do. It took discipline to build it. It's taken discipline to live in it. Wisconsin winters are long and cold. We have one source of heat: The masonry stove that the earth roof rests on. I lit Morning Fire 189 this morning. We'll break 200 like we do every year. We're already cutting firewood for next winter. We built it debt free. We were Bitcoiners back then, but didn't know it yet. Creating something of value and not spending beyond our means. My grandma, who survived the Great Depression, used to say that a lot: Don't live beyond your means! I miss that. There was a wisdom in it. I could feel it beyond the words. Yet I knew it was different times. We were encouraged to spend, go into debt for this or that, and live by impulse. After the jets crashed into the Trade Towers on September 11th, 2001 President Bush reminded us to go shopping. That's it for now. I was out in the front yard getting ready to plug my tire, looked at the house, and had to sit down and write. It's my day off. I have some space to write about place. There's power in place. I like it when I can tap into it. Until next time. 4.19.26 #daily #memoir #soul

From the mail trail: Noon and blue at Bass Patterson Lake Boat Landing. #countryliving

GM Nostr🔥 Morning Fire 179 4.9.26 #gm #coffeechain

I have stepped out into the blizzard. Done snowing, just blowing. That might be all we get after the long blizzard build up.

GM 🔥 Nostr. It's 8:30. Still feels like 7:30. Thermometer reads 46 degrees. Way above average I was out earlier dumping buckets of water for the animals. Before I got this fire going. Sunrise just happened. Chickadee song reminded me of spring. It's thinking about it, as my grandpa used to say. The rest of the family is till in bed. I don't know what we're going to do today. It's my last day off. Part of me wants to not get too far from the house. Do the usual chores. Stay inside this afternoon, admire the dog and cats curled up in their nap spots, and maybe take one myself. Tomorrow it's iback to the mail trail. Over a hundred miles of moving mail and packages. Bought some Bitcoin at 68K this morning. It's way down in price. Part of my attraction to Bitcoin, I think, is that it's way bigger than me or anyone else. Some people don't like it because the President speaks favorably of it. What they don't understand is he needs it way more than it needs him. Bitcoin submits to the laws of nature. It can't be controlled politically. We have never had money like this. I hope you have a great day. Morning Fire 149 3.926 #gm #coffeechain #bitcojn

When I listen to Michael Saylor talk about Bitcoin my worries about Bitcoin lift. My journey into Bitcoin started when Tucker ' Carlson interviewed him in 2022. He is in a league all of his own. His skill stack (Scott Adam's coined the term), I think, put him there. #bitcoin

Would you rather doom scroll or bloom scroll? Photo from Bean Brook Nursery, our backyard native plant nursery in Northwest Wisconsin. Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) #nativeplants #proofofwork

GM🔥 I noticed when I write to Nostr it feels different compared to Facebook. I don't feel like censoring myself as much. I can say what I want to say without predictable reactions. That being said I feel less inclined to post provocatively here. I don't want it to turn into a Big Tech platform. Maybe Jeff Booth is right. The current system depends on us blaming others and those up there. That way we don't have to take responsibility for our own actions that perpetuate this current system of extraction, centralization, and control. Nostr, like Bitcoin is decentralized. Outside the centralized system. Maybe that's where the hope lies. I heard Michael Saylor describe decentralizion with an analogy the other day. Attacking a decentralized system is like attacking a hornets nest with a pistol. You only end up getting hurt and the hornets nest get stronger. Anyway, just musing first thing in the morning on my day off from the mail trail. I hope you have a great day. Morning Fire 133 2.23.26 #gm #coffeechain #nostr

GM Nostr 🔥 Off to the mail trail. Let's keep building a better world. I hope you have a great day. Morning Fire 131 2.20.26 #gm #coffeechain

6 AM. GM. Back to the mail trail today. It's 26 out there. Snow and ice have been melting under the sun the past 4 days. Hopefully there'll be less ice and snow on roads, and mailboxes will start to grow taller again. Signing off from the front of Morning Fire 128. I hope you have a great day. 2.17.26 #gm #coffeechain

An eye is meant to see things. The soul is here for its own joy. A head has one use: For loving a true love. Feet: To chase after. Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind, for learning what men have done and tried to do. Mysteries are not to be solved: The eye goes blind when it only wants to see why. A lover is always accused of something. But when he finds his love, whatever was lost in the looking comes back completely changed. ~ Rumi #poetry #soul #Rumi

My wife and daughter paint these. My daughter is 13 and homeschooled. My wife a stay at home mom. This wouldn't be possible without Bitcoin. Feeling blessed. #Bitcoin #proofofwork #soul #homeschool #family

I asked Nostr what moves users to Zap. One person responds: " . . . .most of the time it‘s when I see proof of work in the form of a painting, a poem, an article, or some physical thing the nostrich made." I feel more at home here after reading this. I feel like our family were nostriches before the protocol presented itself. We started building our cordwood house 20 years ago. And 4 years ago we started a native plant nursery. #nativeplants #countryliving #plebchain

"You yourself are participating in the evil, or you are not alive. Whatever you do is evil for somebody. This is one of the ironies of the whole creation." ~ Joseph Campbell #soul #philosophy #quotes

"Why do we focus so intensely on our problems? What draws us to them? Why are they so attractive? They have the magnet power of love: somehow we desire our problems; we are in love with them much as we want to get rid of them . . . Problems sustain us -- maybe that's why they don't go away. What would a life be without them? Completely tranquilized and loveless . . . There is a secret love hiding in each problem." ~ James Hillman #quotes #soul #psychology #love

Hold, hold, hold.... #bitcoin

A memory: In reading James Hillman I learn we are Christian at heart and Greek in mind. I'm a Western man. It's the substance of my psyche. #soul #memoir #depthpsychology

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired, as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences as well as from the new sciences. With such intelligence you rise in the world. You get ranked ahead or behind others in regard to your competence in retaining information. You stroll with this intelligence in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more marks on your preserving tablets. There is another kind of tablet, one already completed and preserved inside you. A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness in the center of the chest. This other intelligence does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid, and it doesn't move from outside to inside through conduits of plumbing-learning. This second knowing is a fountainhead from within you, moving out. ~ Rumi #soul #Rumi

Any wine will get you high. Judge like a king, and choose the purest, not the ones adulterated with fear, or some urgency about "what's needed." ~®Rumi GM. It's -5 out there. I leave for the mail trail in a half hour. Feeling rested. The moon and stars were out last night. I layed in the snow and looked at them while I did stomach crunches. The lines from Rumi above remind me of the algorithms on social media and such. They serve us all kinds of wines. Some are filled with urgency to act now! I've drank them. . . and regretted it. The hard part is to judge like a king. When you fall off the horse you get back on though. There's something reassuring to know they were dealing with similar wines 800 years ago. I hope you have a great day! Morning Fire 109 1..28.26 #gm #coffeechain #soul

"If one steps out on a starry night and observes one's inner state, one asks if one could hate or be overwhelmed by envy or resentment. ... Is it not true that no man or woman has ever committed a crime while in a state of wonder?" ~ Jacob Needleman Sharing campfires with friends and family under stars in the sky . Remembering it brings warmth. Being on the back of our land, on the other side of The Bean Brook, still close to home but far enough away to call it camping, are fond memories. Good morning. I'm in front of morning fire 108 reading quotes and remembering. I leave for the mail trail in 20 minutes. It's - 2 out there according to Google. It warmed up to few degrees above zero yesterday and snowed a little. Enough, I imagine, to make the roads slippery on the way to work. I am going to get back to this fire, finish it off, then head out the door. I hope you have a great day! 1.27.26 #gm #coffeechain #plebclhain