Today’s track: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) — Arcade Fire
Forty species.
We officially hit it this week — forty different birds logged in my backyard. The one that put us over the top was the indigo bunting.
Here’s the neat part: it isn’t actually blue. There’s no blue pigment in that bird anywhere. What you’re seeing is refraction — the feathers scatter light like a prism, and blue is just what bounces back to your eye. Grind one of those feathers up and the color disappears completely. The blue only exists in the light.
And we’re just getting started. Mid-July through September is some of the best birding of the whole year — migration kicks in and the movement picks up. New birds coming through all the time. If you’ve got a feeder and a little patience, you’re going to see things in your own yard you’ve never seen.
If you’re not running the free Merlin app through Claude to map out what’s actually living back there, you’re missing out. There’s a whole ecosystem in your backyard — you just can’t see all of it yet. Pull up Merlin, hand it to Claude, and let it build you a little field guide to your own yard.
Makes the backyard feel a little more magical. Ours sure does.
And that’s kind of where my head’s been all week.
Because when I think about the future of America, I think it’s largely rural America on the come up.
Transportation keeps getting easier — we’re watching fully automated cars show up in real time. And people want out of the pollution — around here that’s not abstract. Kentucky’s number one in the entire country for colon cancer. My surgeon told me straight up: the industrial pollution coming out of West Louisville has really impacted the environment around this whole city. People want quiet. They want away from the noise. And I think, collectively, the world eventually drifts their way.
You can already see the shape of it. You’ll have countries that don’t have AI plastered over everything, and people will travel just to get away from it — to go somewhere it isn’t. But I don’t think you can actually stop automation from spreading. I just don’t. Because somebody’s going to want it, and somebody’s going to have the means to bring it in. Who’s going to stop them? Right?
So the way we look at land — how we spread out, how we use technology — I think that gets reframed quite a bit over these next few years.
And it cuts both ways. Sometimes when you really unplug, it feels so good. But there are some chores I’d be happy to never do again — some automation is great, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
What I love most is this: the people who always had a harder time putting into words what they were thinking or feeling — they’ve got a conduit now. A way to express themselves and have other people actually understand them, in a more linear way. That’s awesome to me. That’s room to create. Lots of it.
I’ve also been down a daylight savings rabbit hole this week — reading, talking to friends. And I think collectively we actually like dark mornings in the winter. We’d rather have the light in the afternoon and evening — to get outside, take a walk when it’s a little warmer.
Dark mornings are just an attribute of winter. Embrace it. The dark morning is what makes the bright evening feel like something.
So I think I’m for it. We’ll see how I feel in December — but I don’t mind the sun coming up at nine. I’m up long before that most days anyway. I’ve got hours before the sky does anything.
It’s going to be an interesting week. There’s a lot moving — interest rates, oil, inventories climbing while demand softens. A genuinely interesting time to be paying attention.
So stay plugged in. That’s how you take advantage of it — stay close enough to see the problems, then go solve them for people. That’s the fun part.
Happily,
Rob Bergeron
Owner–Realtor at Award-Winning Winner Realty
Schedule a time to discuss your goals, bottlenecks, or whatever’s on your mind. https://robbergeron.youcanbook.me
The Morning Bergeron daily track playlist: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/the-morning-bergeron/pl.u-pMyl2GlSW1N3qv
PS: If you’re in a position to solve problems for people right now, and you’re looking to expand your portfolio in some way — hit me up. Reply to this email. Let’s talk.
PSS: Throwing a big industry party Friday 1-5 pm. Block off your calendar!