Thursday, April 23, 2020

An endless stream of things to mourn these days.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

The mourning dove is here now, too. It's horribly fitting; there's an endless stream of things to mourn these days.

Meanwhile, the weather and wind have my pain levels out of control, and none of it matters; I have to keep going, because the work has to get done.  I have to dig back into all our records and fine something for the accountant on our taxes, and I'm ready to scream. Meanwhile, the expenses mount: The farrier was out this morning for Miika, who (likely because the wind and weather are causing her a lot of pain, too), was obstinately uncooperative. He got her front hooves done, at least, which was the really important part. He also recommended a mild sedative that we have to get a vet to prescribe so that he can work with her better to finish the hind hooves in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, Wings is picking up the mower, and I have no idea what THAT is going to set us back, but it's going to be ugly. He hauled it down there before official isolation measures began, and we've been waiting to hear; they called last night to say it was done, but without leaving a message as to the cost. ::Sigh:: it doesn't matter; with this kind of acreage (and this kind of moisture), it's a necessity. We now know, better than most, than we cannot afford to have mosquitoes here anymore.

So I have to bring in a lot more scratch on several new levels now, too. We're still waiting to hear on how much we'll have to pay out for taxes (no, we haven't gotten any kind of stimulus check, why do you ask?), on top of all of this. On the apparent plus side, the bread machine I wanted that was in stock only last week is now sold out everywhere except for outrageously priced used versions on eBay, which is an automatic nope, so I guess I won't be springing for that. We also won't have any bread, but . . . details, details.

Anyway, the upshot is that we need to make sales. I think the fields are getting disced next week for planting; that's going to cost. So are the horses' vaxes and spring check-ups, which is tentatively scheduled for May 4th. Farrier's coming out Thursday to do more work on Miika's laminitic left front (she has to be done in stages, and yes, there will be masking and social distancing via the end of a lead). At some point, the dogs have to go in for their vaxes and so forth. And we both have doctor's appointments, which will be telemedicine via my laptop, assuming it holds, the first week of May. That's a hell of a lot of expense, over and above all the usual monthly expenses, monsoonal patterns of another sort, and I need to cover it somehow, hence the next graf:

Over the course of last week, I featured, on his site, some of his most valuable (and highest-priced) works. If we could sell them all, we could sock 90% of it into savings and be assured of making it through the rest of the year and into the next, barring disaster. I don't actually have any real hope of doing that, but if you're one of the folks who's been looking at these works and thinking that someday you might want to invest the money in one or more? Now would be the time; it would help ensure our survival through this pandemic and likely to the first of next year, and help us to be able to help other folks in our community here who are going to need it badly. So please, this week especially, share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already at virtually nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the billsThe links are here:
Note: For now, please don't buy anything off the Amazon wishlist; to do so would be crossing a picket line, and some of their workers have struck this morning to fight for safer working conditions because their lives are being put at even greater risk during this pandemic. If you find one of the items elsewhere, wonderful (there's even a wishlist function where you can note that it's been purchased somewhere else).

Other than that, please share everything. Thanks.


All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used 
or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

No comments:

Post a Comment