Good morning. Happy 4th of July! It's a big one. This nation is 250 years old. I'm 51 years old. And it occurs to me writing this I have always been happy to be an American. I got to play and coach baseball. My family all the way back to my great grandparents have been supportive. I have had the freedom to say what I want to say privately and publicly. We have homeschooled our kids for close to 20 years. I received a free public education. I got to read radical books without persecution. I get to deliver mail and packages in Springbrook, the community where I live. We have a native plant nursery in our front yard. I sit Zen meditation every morning. And I buy Bitcoin. Socially friends, family, and neighbors might raise their eye brows, but the powers that be have left my family and I alone. My family is starting to wake up. I'm at the kitchen table. A paid day off from the mail trail. Another thing I am grateful for. Once and awhile someone will have something good to say about these morning updates. I appreciate it. I have made it a practice. I have thought about being more private. I lived for years that way. It was a pleasure. Less stressful. Less self concern and all that. Yet this pushes my comfort zone. Challenges me to be more open and vulnerable and connect on a human level. Ok, I gotta go. I hope you have a great 4th of July weekend! Oh, the picture. Annie texted that to me while I was on the mail trail the other day. It's an early sunflower. She and our oldest son were out in the meadow identifying plants. #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. I took this photo as I was heading out the driveway yesterday morning. It's from our front meadow. I spent some time in it last evening. I never regret spending time in it. We've been planting natives in there for I think 7 years now. There's not even close to enough plants in there. The last couple years I have focused mainly on planting grasses and sedges. Yesterday I read a quote by Aldo Leopold that got me excited. It was on the mail route. The algorithm showed it to me when I turned on my phone. "This biota, through ten thousand years of living and dying, burning and growing, preying and fleeing, freezing and thawing, built that dark and bloody ground we call prairie." — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac I pulled over and started writing. There's so much in it for me. One thing I wanted to do was text my family. I don't usually ask for gifts. But in this instance I wanted to ask if somebody could watch the house for a day or two while our family went down to Leopold's shack in Baraboo, WI. It's on the Wisconsin River. One of my favorite places on earth. Been there once. I like Leopold. He question progress Gotta go. Off to the mail trail. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

November 22 of 2022 was the last day you could ever buy bitcoin below $16,000. On that day, the vast chorus on social media was predicting lower prices right around the corner. They were all wrong. One of these days, maybe it was yesterday, maybe it’s in the months ahead after a recovery from yet another dip, we will experience the last day that anyone ever buys bitcoin below $60,000. On that day, the vast chorus on social media will be predicting lower prices right around the corner. AGAIN, they will all be wrong. The vast chorus on social media is always the most bearish at the BOTTOM of a bear market, which is when they should be most bullish. ~ Joel Bomgar

Good morning. Off to the mail trail. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. It's 6:20. I have signs to put out yet. They tell people we're having a native plant sale. I'll put some out on the way to work. It cooled down a bit last night. It made sleeping tolerable. That's one of my favorite pictures from the front meadow. It's harebell. It's still blooming. I saw it mixed in with yellow flowers last evening. I had to stop and do a double take. Each year the meadow becomes fuller. We've plugged a lot of plants in there over the years. That's it for now. I'm off to the mail trail. I feel like there's something I need to say. And that usually hits me going down the interstate at 70 miles an hour. Then it's gone. Most of the time never to be seen again. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. I took this photo years ago. When I started to become drawn to natives. Or maybe when they started calling me. One never knows. It's butterfly weed on the roadside of a mail route I subbed on. That was the nice part about being a sub. I got to see a lot of country and get to know a lot of people. I did it for over 15 years. I can open the local paper most weeks and recognize a name and face in the obituary section. It's hot in this house. 80 degrees. Floors are sticky. Humid. My family is sound asleep with fans running. I'm glad they get to sleep and not have to run off to the rat race. Tomorrow is our oldest son's birthday. He'll be 27. Annie I got together on his 3rd birthday, and never looked back. Eventually, with the encouragement of Annie's grandma and dad I adopted him. That meant a lot to me. They believed in me. Her grandma payed the attorney bill. Her ashes are up on our shelf. Long story. Ok, I gotta go. That was fun to write. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. No mail trail again today. Back to work tomorrow though. Thinking of my fellow carriers out there delivering in this heat today. It's supposed to be 91, but feel like 100. Supposed to be a breeze though. Part of me wants to go in and give the carrier filling in for me a hand. So he can have an easier day today. It's been months since he's ran this route. That's a no, no though. There's no pay or insurance to cover that. Looking forward to potting plants with Annie today. There seems to be no end to what she needs to plant. I took this photo of a pale purple coneflower a few minutes ago. The ones we have for sale in 2" pots look amazing. I'm off to get the day started. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

“You know, people come to therapy really for a blessing. Not so much to fix what's broken, but to get what's broken blessed.” — James Hillman #quotes #psychology #soul

Good morning. It's 9 AM. Bean Brook Nursery is open 10 to 5 today. No mail trail for me today and tomorrow. The break will be nice. Noticing more and more black eyed susans coming up in the front meadow. There already is a lot of bright yellow lance leaf coreopsis flowers. Annie has been picking false Japanese beetles off them. They devour the flower. In years past they've devoured all of our lance leaf flowers. Hayden (16 yrs. old) and I are going to swing over, pick up my mom and grandma, and head down to Hungry Hollow. It's near Barron. A weekend event full of working vintage farm machinery and such. We've gone the past two years. Hayden likes to stop by and talk to the blacksmiths. There's just a lot of soul in the whole event. Well, that's it for now. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

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