We own a small native plant nursery. It's called Bean Brook Nursery. It's in our front yard. And so are the monarch caterpillars feasting on the milkweeds we have for sale. :-) #countryliving #natives #plants

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. 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. Off to the mail trail. 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!

Good morning Nostr. #gm #coffechain

Good morning. It's 6:22. I have to be up and moving from this kitchen table in 8; minutes. What's on my mind? It's dry here. Out earth roof I'd dry and dying. The yard grasses that don't belong here are browning. The ground I run barefoot on hurts my feet and hips. Nothing major, enough to notice though. Yet I noticed the prairie dropseeds we've planted in the front meadow are lush and green. So are the sedges I notice in and out of the meadow. They're built for this. They've been through this before. Guessing it's effortless for them. It's evolution at work. At least I think so. I am still learning. Off to the mail trail. Photo of more lupines I took at dusk last evening. #gm #coffeechain

GM! From our front meadow. This caught my eye pulling out of the driveway to finish up the mail route yesterday. Hope you have a great day! 5.27.26 #gm #coffeechain

That's Hayden. He's 16. One of my sons. He built this coal forge with help from my neighbor and family. He sought out a mentor in our community and learned how to forge steel and weld. He's never been to school. Homeschooled, if you want to call it schooling at all. I don't fully understand the process. Because I spent 14 years in some sort of schooling or another. I just read about homeschooling in my mid twenties. It made sense. And I like to try things that make sense to me. So we did. I understand it's not for everybody. I am glad schools do exist. I am also thankful we have the freedom not to send our kids if we don't want to. 5.17.26 #homeschooling #proofofdad

We look to ease our pain, and this keeps civilization moving along. Fear is the architect here. Fear keeps us working near the ark. ~ Rumi GM🔥 It's ten to eight. Sunday. The fire in the photo about burned down. No one awake yet. I've been up since 4:30. That's when I get up to go to work. To deliver mail. I waited an hour and a half to start my morning routine. A cold shower, then 40 minutes of meditation. I didn't have to be anywhere on time. So I pet the cat that purs next to my head in bed. Scratch my wife's arm. Tell her I love her. She doesn't hear me most of the time. I go in and hug my 16 year old son in bed when he's sound asleep. It keeps the worry at bay. It gets me out of myself. Relationship. Touch. A way to be home again. I know I need to be tough, stoic disciplined .I do that too. That was the past 6 days.. There's that voice in back of my head telling me I have "free" time. I should be doing this, that, and every other god damn thing. Dis ease is what it is. Sometimes I think smoking weed would fix it. Drinking worked until the next morning. Then the worry would hit harder. I really could see it when I started meditating. The worry started up again when I started working full time for the Post office. That was officially 3 years ago. But as a part timer I was going full time back in 2020 already. I have spent my whole life trying to understand this worry. Because there's something inside of me that tells me it's not supposed to be there. Always concerned about a future collapse of this or that. A coworker and I got all dystopian about the data centers and AI yesterday morning. We're both middle aged men. Our kids mostly old enough to be looking at life beyond mom and Dad. Another coworker, a young woman of 24 listening in says, "I want to have kids, but with all the AI stuff happening now I don't know." The only thing I could tell her after a bit of silence was I was dead set against having kids until I was 34. Then I wasn't. And it was one of the best things I ever did. Maybe the best. That's what's on my mind right now. I look forward to being outside working around our place and helping out with our native plant nursery. I hope you have a great day. #gm #coffeechain Morning Fire 217 5.17.26

From the mail trail: "The sun is up, the sky is blue / It's beautiful, and so are you." The Beatles. Lyrics from Dear Prudence (1968) 5.9.26 #Wisconsin #mailtrail #countryliving

Not from the mail trail, but on my way home from it. Just down the road from our house. Built in 1938. Says it on the front wall. #soul #countryliving

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