Good morning. New England asters starting to bloom. They're always covered in bees. More than the mums we've bought in the past. Much more. Off to the mail trail for 4 days. Then a week off! Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Photo from Pattison State Park on Sunday. Hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Photo from Pattison State Park on Sunday. Hope you have a great day!

GM. I hope you have a great Monday!

Thank you!

Good morning. I took this photo at Pattison State Park yesterday afternoon. We drove up there as a family. The four of us. Driving home. The kids sleeping in back. Annie looks in the rearview mirror and says to me, "They are my favorite human beings in the whole world." There is something about getting away from the daily demands and spending time with water and the nonhuman world. Something sublime maybe. I notice more. My attention sharpens to the inner and the outer. There's a lightness and a heaviness to it. Heavy in that it can't be this way all the time. I used to feel the same way when my Grandpa and Grandma would take my mom, dad, sister and me camping as a kid. Why couldn't it be this way all the time I would wonder. Fishing, cooking, playing games, and sleeping together as a family. No wonder it felt right. We lived this way for hundreds of thousands of years. This experiment we're running, or being run on us (one never knows) is unsettling to say the least. Well, that's enough meandering for now. Spitballing. My neighbor is going to help me change the oil and rotate the tires on my mail jeeps in his garage. Thank you for good neighbors. 🙏 I hope you have a great day. #gm #coffeechain #countryliving

From our family trip to Copper Falls near Mellen, WI last weekend. #Wisconsin #countryliving

Good morning. I hope I haven't posted this picture yet. It's the one that jumped out at me this morning. It's a rosin weed (Silphium integrifolium). I planted it along the driveway a few years ago. It bloomed for the first time this year. I planted a couple sickly looking ones next to our mature ironweed a few weeks ago. They were in 2 inch pots. Root bound. Slowly dying. Annie said, "Go ahead plant them. No one is going to buy them." Our front meadow is full of sickly looking plant stories. Sometimes I look at it and say what a mess. But then I remind myself, it's my mess. When I'm in the meadow I am learning. And I become quiet inside. I become unsettled when I start worrying about what people are going to think of it, and of course me. Because I identify with it. Self concern leads to separation, as the Buddhists say. Quick story if you have made it this far. I used to have a life coach. She was a woman in her late 60's or early 70's. She immigrated here with her parents from Nazi Germany as a little girl. We found each other on Facebook. It was through the Ishmael Community (that's how Annie and I also got together in a roundabout way). It always comes back to that damn book. LOL. Anyway our coaching sessions would last an hour. I would drive down to Spring Lake boat landing, call her (she lived in Texas), and she would coach me. It was a master/student relationship. It lasted for maybe 5 years. It ended in 2020 along with a lot of other things in my life. Whenever I would get stuck in our sessions, which was a lot, she would say "would it be okay if life was easier," or something like that. And then we would uncover how I was getting in my own way. I remember it as worthy work. The suffering was worth it. And life would slowly become easier. Sort of like learning about native plants in the front meadow. I believe life was easier when we understood plants. When we lived more primitively so to speak. And that's the vision I try to live into. One where life is a sacred process that I am a part of. The rest will take care of itself, as my coach used to say. I am off today through Tuesday. I am happy about that. :-) I hope you have a great Sunday. #gm #coffeechain

Good morning. Off to the mail. Fifth and final day. Then three days off. Need it. That's a blazing star. I think a meadow. I hope you have a great day! #gm #coffeechain

Thank you 🙏

Good morning. That photo is from 2 years ago right around this time. Black eyed susan and bee balm. I planted my first compass plant in the front meadow at dusk last evening. It was the sickliest looking one we had for sale. Looking forward to planting more. It's a Silphium. Supposed to be well behaved.. Out of time. Time to hit the Mail Trail. Hope you have a great day. 🙏 #gm #coffeechain #countryliving