Bought Bitcoin this morning. Like I do every morning. There is no turning back. We are moving from an analog world to a digital world. It doesn't matter if I am for or against it. I am a registered member of the digital world writing on this phone. The politicians and other noise makers can say what they want to say. This is where we're headed. But the Tao Te Ching says: "Do you want to improve the world? I don't think it can be done. The world is sacred. It can't be improved. If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it. If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it." Are we losing the world written about in the Tao as we move to the digital? #asknostr

Do you want to improve the world? I don't think it can be done. The world is sacred. It can't be improved. If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it. If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it. There is a time for being ahead, a time for being behind; a time for being in motion, a time for being at rest; a time for being vigorous, a time for being exhausted; a time for being safe, a time for being in danger. The Master sees things as they are, without trying to control them. She lets them go their own way, and resides at the center of the circle. ~ Tha Tao Te Ching

Good morning. Off to the mail trail in a few minutes. My last day of the week. It's been a heavy one delivering Amazon packages. I am taking the post card below with me. Sophia (13 yrs. old) painted it. I am mailing to Arizona. It'll leave on the mail truck this morning. I still like sending postcards. I like delivering them, too. There's thought and care put into them. A little bit of soul goes a long way in this world mediated by machines. #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. It's 6:18. At the kitchen table. Anxious. Got a full day of delivering mail and Amazon packages ahead of me. Delivered 105 of them yesterday. The office was full of them when I got there. People are taking advantage of Amazon Prime days! We had a customer stop in and buy some shrubs yesterday. A well established local nursery recommended us when they didn't carry what the guy was looking for. He told Annie he'll be back with a friend who is really into natives. He didn't know about us until yesterday. We've been in business for 4 years. Once again I am reminded things take time. In your patience is your Soul they say. I am off to the mail trail. And I might get there on time! Seeing prairie rose all over in the ditches. I hope you have a great day. #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. It's 6:15 AM. I feel like emptying out for 15 minutes. Then it's out the door to start the red mail jeep. I have 3 vehicles to choose from. The red one has the most room and is the most modern. It's Amazon Prime days. So we are expecting heavier package volume. Going to need all room I can get. Annie was telling me yesterday milkweed just don't like being in pots. It can be hard to keep them alive. We've had the native plant nursery for 4 years now. And there are times when I want to say please come buy our plants and release them from their pots! Pots just make plants mobile. When I deliver mail I notice people leave patches of wildflowers when they mow their lawns. It's hard to mow down delicacy and beauty. Sometimes I fantasize about those same people buying low growing native plants and putting a patch of them in their yard. Always start with the low growing, then work your way up to the tall ones that will flop over without the support of the low growing. Plants are stronger when they have each other to support. It's the same with us. Gotta go. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain Photo of Lance leaf coreopsis from the front meadow.

Good morning. Off to the mail trail in 2 minutes. I took this photo last evening. Butterfly weed starting to bloom in the front meadow. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Back to the mail trail today. That's what sunset looked like for us last night. A good close to a week off. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

"Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened." ~ Rumi Good morning. I googled the above quote this morning. A few key words got me there. The feelings were there of course. And I knew Rumi had something to say about them close to 900 years ago. Some things never change. He goes on to say: "Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." I didn't take down a musical instrument. Because I can't play one. LOL. What I did do is opened our living room curtains. And what I saw was the early morning sun shining on tables full of neatly labeled native plants. The fear and emptiness lightened a little. This is the last day of my 9 days off. Tomorrow it's back to the mail trail. We didn't open up Bean Brook Nursery this week. The first time we did this in the 4 years we've been open. It was 9 days of family time. Fishing, horseback riding, visiting with each other and neighbors, working on projects, napping, sharing food together, etc. A few ways "to kneel and kiss the ground." I know I'm not supposed to be talking like this. It's rare to find those who share the same immutable characterstics and upbringing quoting a Muslim mystic from 900 years ago. Oh well, the road to sanity is to find an outlet for your eccentricity as long as you're not hurting anyone. Wisdom has a way of cutting through the bull#&#+. So all in all, the more I think about it, it's been a fruitful 9 days. That's a picture of the Father's Day card Sophia (13 yrs old) painted me with 5 family signatures. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. It's midmorning now. An unusual time for me to post. I have been hanging out with my family. Usually I have a few minutes to squeeze a post out before heading to the mail trail. I try to do a daily morning post. I don't remember the last time I missed one. Why do I do them? Over the years people have told me that I have a gift to write. So, to me, I have a responsibility to the universe. It would be a sin to not use the gift given. I also enjoy the process. I enjoy connecting with people, too. In one of his shows Scott Adams layed out how he gets motivated to work out. He said if he at least gets dressed and shows up at the gym he considers it a successful workout. That's how I currently treat writing. If I get one morning post in a day amidst my other commitments I have succeeded. But the longing to write more and deeper is always there. My family comes first though. Especially during these turbulent times. That's all for now. I'm off to help Annie pot plants for Bean Brook Nursery. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain Photo of wild strawberries we have for sale. Wish the chickens would leave them alone!

If you’re skinny, you’re on drugs. If you’re fat, you need to lose weight. If you smoke weed you’re a druggie. If you drink, you’re an alcoholic. If you get dressed up, you’re conceited. If you dressed down, you’ve let yourself go. If you speak your mind, you’re rude. If you don’t say anything, you’re snobbish. If you are sociable, you’re a party animal. If you stay to yourself, you’re detached. YOU can’t do anything without being criticized. We live in a society where people can’t survive if they’re not judging the next person. Get to know people before judging. Let’s build each other up. We are all doing the best we can, in the same game called life. If you’re proud of who you are copy and paste this with a pic of you!!” ---- That's me standing next to my wife on her birthday. I was proud of who I was that evening. In the boat surrounded by my family and the countless wild creatures that live in and around the lake we were on. #gm #countryliving

Good morning. Our family went fishing on a local lake last evening. It was for Father's Day and Annie's birthday. We caught fish. Had great conversation with good food. Laughed a lot. And left the lake under a beautiful sunset. Annie said she couldn't think of a better way to spend her birthday. #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Off again today. Don't go back to the trail til Tuesday. It rained most of the day yesterday. It was sort of a lazy day. Got to spend time in the house together as a family. And I even got a nap in! After homemade lasagna for dinner we exchanged gifts for Annie's birthday and Father's Day. Then had homemade carrot cake to top it off. Earlier in the day it quit raining for a bit. Kelli had the cats out in and around our native gardens by the front deck. It's fenced in, so it kind of deters them from taking off. The penstemons caught her eye like they did mine earlier in the day. She texted me a few photos. I am sharing what I think is the best one. I am thankful to have a loving family. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. My 4th day off from the mail trail. 5 more to go. It's cloudy, cool, gently raining. I was out a few minutes ago taking pictures of smooth penstemon. I posted the best one below. Earlier I watched a hummingbird delicately go from flower to flower with its electric wings and long beak poking around for nectar. So that's what I decided to write about. Not much else is going on. Kelli says it looks like it's going to be an inside kind of day. Whether you have an inside or outside kind of day I hope it's a good one. #gm #coffeechain

"You have a king inside who listens for what delights the soul." ~ Rumi Good morning. It's 20 to 8. I sit on the couch in a quiet house. No one awake. I have written in my journal and read some Rumi poems. Rumi reminds me I have a king inside. That's why I read him. In the same poem he writes: "There are people with their eyes open whose hearts are shut. What do they see? Matter." Life gets heavy and hard when I only see matter. It got that way yesterday helping my son work on his car. Fixing the rusty steel on the exhaust and brakes that will inevitably brake down again got heavy and hard. Yet here we were in my neighbors shop being guided by his decades of experience working on vehicles, trucks, machinery, etc. Not your typical garage. Most of the time you drop your vehicle off and pick it up when they call to tell you it's done. We did a lot of the work using his tools and shop. His generosity allowed father and son time to work together on the teenager's car. Food for the king: Generosity. No mail trail for the 3rd day in a row. 6 more to go until I go again. I am happy about that. That's a photo of large-flowered beardtongue from the front meadow. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. It just got better writing to you. It's 8 AM. No mail trail today, and for the rest of the week. I think the last time I took off was before Christmas season. It's been awhile. I miss being home. I also enjoy the challenge of getting up and going to work in the world. It forces me to be around people that are different than me. This is day 2 of being off. Still easing into it. I see it as a soulful activity. Our place has its own soul. It takes me awhile to open up to it. I used to think it would be easy to walk away from the Post Office. I don't anymore. Every day I do it the incentive to stay increases. Not this week though. I am going to work on thinking and feeling into this place we've all created together. I'm off to do that. I hope you have a great day. #gm #coffeechain That's lance leaf coreopsis. There's a lot of them in the front meadow right now.

Good morning. That's harebell and the old farm house we used to live in behind it. Living in the old farmhouse with no running water was a rebellion against modern life for me. I don't know what it was for my wife and son. Just home perhaps. A paid for place we lived in while we built cordwood. Cozy I used to hear a lot. I am still uneasy with modern life. That's where the harebell comes in. It's beautiful. Older than me on an evolutionary time scale. Here long before me, and long after me. The algorithms of the Digital Age will spin me and everyone else every which way, but not the harebell. That constant is one thing that keeps me coming back to it and its relatives. Grounding and connection. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning Nostr. #gm #coffechain

Good morning. Time short. So much to say, but life gets in the way. Blooming in the front meadow now: Lance leaf coreopsis. I'm off to the mail trail. Hope you have a great day. #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Currently blooming in the front meadow. Off to the mall trail. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain