Good Sunday morning! I have the day off today. Plus the next two! I took this picture of milkweed at work. It's next to the loading ramp against the brick wall. Along with others it grew up through cracks in concrete and rock. It's been doing that since they smothered that particular piece of earth with decorative rock and landscaping fabric 5 or so years ago. I remember when they did it. I fantasized about filling it with natives. Helping tend it. And making it one of the most pollinator friendly post offices in the United States. I was thinking Big. Anyway, without any attention to it the milkweeds came back immediately. They're some of the best looking milkweeds I have ever seen. I wish I could get them to grow in our front meadow that well! Yesterday, though, I happened to notice the milkweed in the picture. It doesn't look like that anymore. A lot of the leaves have been chewed off and the flowers are gone. At first I thought somebody sprayed it with poison. Then it occurred to me we just had a bunch of caterpillars hatch at the nursery. And they went to work chewing on the milkweed we have for sale on the table. Guessing they did the same to the milkweed in the picture. Annie and Sophia (13 yrs. old) showed me the little caterpillars on the plant tables after work a few days back. They were so happy for them. A happiness on par with if our cat had a litter of kittens. Then last evening the wasps ate a few caterpillars The two of them went to work immediately hiding plants that still had live caterpillars left on them. We'll see how they did today. There's more to this nursery than just selling plants. We've got a world to save! :-) Well, I should go now. I have pots to scrub and sterilize later this morning. Supposed to be smoky again today. I hope you have a great Sunday! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. A few feet past my last box for the day is a concrete corner curb. It's the corner of Hwy 63 and North Rd. in the tiny town of Earl, Wisconsin. Unincorporated. There's a power pole there. The ground dry and open. Not very inviting if you know a thing or two about gardening or agriculture. The black top and concrete radiate heat all day in the 95 degree heat. I imagine it would take a lot of effort to keep the sandy soil moist there. Despite all that, in the middle of modernity, were these two milkweed plants. They were crawling with insects. Why they chose to be there is a mystery to me. I will say their presence caused this mail carrier to climb out of his jeep one more time to get a picture amongst the thrum traffic headed home from work and elsewhere. Off to the mail trail. Then 3 days off! Hope you have a great day. :-) #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Pulling in the driveway after work I spotted this one fluttering around. I slowed down to see where it would land. When it landed I stopped, got out, and the rest is history. Yesterday, while looking at the milkweeds for sale, Annie started counting little monarch caterpillars. The more she counted the more excited she got. They were eggs a few days ago. As I walked away she was off to get Sophie (13 yrs. old) to show her the news. She hopes the caterpillars leave enough plant to sell. I like simple joy. Off to the mail trail. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. This is one of our favorite pictures of the nursery last year. It was just after a refreshing rain. The smoke from the Minnesota wildfires is still hanging in the air. It cooled down last night. The house cooled down 7 degrees. Better sleep than the night before. I'm off to the mail trail. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. I sit down and read Rumi first this morning. I come across some of my favorite lines: A pleasant surprise. "I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home." Nice, eh? That's a picture of a lead plant and black eyed susan from the front meadow. I put a few plants in just before dark last evening. The ground is getting dry. Nothing I haven't experienced before. I just keep them watered until the next rain. They usually make it. I have been collecting seeds off from lance leaf coreopsis and spreading them in our ditch along County E. I wan't more color out there in years to come. Gotta go already. Off to the mail trail. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Back to the mall trail. Supposed to be hot again today. 95. It was that hot yesterday. Around mid-afternoon, the hottest part of the day, I put in 3 natives. One of them was a black eyed susan (below) in a 2" pot. Watered it well and walked away. Something about the resilience of the right plants in the right places that I admire. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

"Ancient writers taught that it is the psyche or soul that makes us human—not our passions and not our visionary ideals. This is especially true of the power of psyche to reflect—it humanizes." -- Thomas Moore Good morning. Last day off from the mail trail. Looks like it's another day of surviving the heat. It's 80 out there and in here at 8 AM. I did just see when I flipped over to the weather app that it'll be a high of 80 this weekend. So there's a cool off on the horizon. Like always. Yesterday I washed pots while Annie filled them with potting soil and plant plugs. I enjoyed it despite the nineties heat.. It was good to be home working with Annie with natives. I have to admit, though, things were looking a bit down for me until a customer showed up and bought over a 100 dollars worth of plants. There's a lot of labor that goes into this little nursery, and it's nice to get paid for it. A customer a day seems to keep the fears away, maintains momentum, and expands our vision into the future. The four of us went to Hayward after we closed up, took showers, and cooled off. It was an opportunity to pick up a few groceries, ride in the air conditioned cab of the van, and stop at Dairy Queen. Earlier, when I mentioned Dairy Queen to Annie, she smiled and said, "Now you're speaking my love language." Cute. When we got home it was dusk. After helping Annie peel enough hay off the round bale to feed animals I watered the plants I recently plugged in the front meadow and along County E. I didn't want to. We hadn't eaten dinner yet. But I knew it was going to be another cooker the next day. I, of course, never regret doing it. I get to be amongst the plants. It's calming. I learn more about them. And they help me imagine a future together. Like usual I had to run back up to the house to get my phone. I saw a picture I wanted to take and share . And like usual that isn't the photo I end up sharing. This group of black eyed susans won out. I'm off to survive the heat. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Plant intelligence: They have 20 senses; we have 5. For me this was a good reminder of the Intelligence behind the creation. #plants #countryliving

Good morning. That's an old steel clothes line pole. It was here when we bought the place back in '03. I moved it from its original spot and use it as a pullup bar now. I took this picture at dusk last night. It was darker than the picture shows. Before I started my pullups Sophia (13 yrs. old) said to me, "Hey Dad, do you want to see a hummingbird nest." "Sure," I said. She and Hayden (16 yrs. old) were doing something in the shed a few feet away. She said it's hard to see. You can mistake it for a pine cone which are currently maturing on the branches of the red pine tree directly above the bar. She took a few different angles and said, "There it is. If you step over here you can see it." As we got positioned we heard the vibration of hummingbird wings. A few seconds later there she was. She floated into her nest that was barely as big as a pine cone. I couldn't believe it. There, maybe 8 feet above me, invisible until now, was the hummingbird that has been sitting in her nest watching me do pullups and hangs since she built it. An egg of hers can't be bigger than a marble. I don't know how she'd fit in there otherwise. That made my evening. I had just returned from planting lance leafed coreopsis along the ditch of County E and watering plugs to help them through the extreme heat we're in. Having my daughter make visible the invisible, in this case the hummingbird, was just what I need after 6 days of driveness delivering mail and packages in the July heat. I hope you have a great Sunday! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Last day of the mail trail. Then two days off. That's a spotted bee balm. Annie just put a bunch of them out for sale. Time is short. So I'm going to sign off. Off to the mail trail. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Day 5 of the mail trail. I hope you have a great day! From the front meadow: Rattlesnake master #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. I was out planting at dark last evening. The soil moist from the rains the night before. I am driven by color and a diversity of life. That's the only way to explain digging in the dirt at dark when I should be on bed resting for work. Coneflower from our front deck at dusk. Off to the mail trail. #gm #countryliving

After closing time the Bean Brook Nursery mowing crew goes to work. Meet Willy and April. #countryliving #nativeplants

Good morning. It rained hard last night. Puddles in the pasture and on the driveway. I took this photo at dusk last evening. Took a bunch of them. I think this was the best one. We have 3 types of coneflowers for sale. In a phone conversation with Annie yesterday she said there's going to be a lot of plants going up for sale in the next couple of days. Things are really growing. Looking healthy. Come release them from their pots. :-) Off to the mail trail. I hope you have a great day. #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. A lot of orange and yellow in the meadow right now. It just keeps getting better. Every year is a surprise. I am off to the mail trail in a few minutes. Long day yesterday. Day after a holiday mail and packages are always heavy. Two days in one. Looking forward to a shorter day today. Barring any catastrophe. I almost got creamed by a semi pulling a box trailer yesterday. Looked it in my rearview mirror. It wasn't stopping. Thankfully he eased it over to the shoulder and got around me. Smell of burning trailer brakes wafted in the window as it went by. A good reminder distraction kills. Off to the mail trail. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Off to the mail trail in minutes. Got called in. Leadplant is starting to bloom in the front meadow. They're looking so good I grabbed a couple off the for sale table and plugged them in yesterday afternoon. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. It's 8:25. No one is awake yet. I've been up since 5:30. Layed on the couch until 6:30 because I could. Most of the days the push is on. Not for the next 2' days though. I have mentioned that I buy Bitcoin. This month will mark my 4th year. I started buying the day of my Dad's Memorial Service. The goal was to hold onto it for 4 years. In a few weeks I will have made it. The price of it is way down. Things haven't been looking good for months. I never expected it to drop this low. And they say it could go lower! I have conviction though. I will continue to hold. There's promise in Bitcoin. One of the promises is that time will stretch out for those who hold it. I want time to stretch out. It's going way to fast for me right now. They call it "time preference." Where you're secure enough financially that you can plan your future doing what you want to do. Where you're not working for the man. Early retirement. Which isn't even on the horizon. Not like it was for my depression era grandparents and baby boomer parents. I can always hope though. I don't play the lottery, but it must be a similar feeling. I knew a guy one time who was in the middle of an acid trip or had smoked some powerful weed, I never knew which, who said he stopped time. That has always interested me. I used to live a life where time did stretch out. At that time I believed in catastrophe. The inevitable collapse of industrial civilization. I still do to a certain degree. This way of life it seems can't go on forever. So I put my faith not in The Machine (human created) but The Community of Life (diivinely created). The intelligence that created The Community of Life is much wiser than the human artifacts we surround ourselves with. That's the shift I keep coming back to in these musings. This search through a life lived. The pre Ishmael life and post Ishmael life. It's just past 10 now. Everyone is awake. Time to get outside. We're open 10 to 4 today. I was reluctant to post this. Yet I think there are others who struggle, consciously or unconsciously, with the question of how far modern civilized humans can push the Earth's limits. And what we'll leave behind. Gotta go now I hope you have a great day! That's a photo of a deer skull. It died on our land. My son skinned it and tanned the hide. The meat was too far gone by the time he found it. #gm #cofferchain

"My life is proof of what America makes possible. I left Vietnam as a refugee, grew up poor in America, built a career through education and hard work, and now have a wonderful wife and three children. That is the American Dream to me. It is not just wealth. It is freedom, family, opportunity, and the ability to determine your own future. "That is also why Bitcoin resonated with me. I found Bitcoin because it reflected the same principles that shaped my life: clear rules, individual sovereignty, property rights, resilience, open competition, and long-term conviction. "America gave my family freedom through a country. Bitcoin offers individuals monetary freedom through a network. One opened the door for me. The other opens a door for anyone, anywhere, to protect the fruits of their labor." ~ Phong Le #bitcoin #freedom

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." ~ Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

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