The real marker of spring.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

It's the first day of spring here!  The meadowlark came and sang for us this morning, and that's always the real marker of spring. 

The other marker is the freaking wind, which is howling outside now. The air is brown with dirt, and the topsoil-stripping is epic. I was going to use a photo of the 5" strands of aspen pollen blowing horizontally, but I figured meadowlark yellow was more indicative of the work going on around here. That was yesterday; the wind is enough worse today that he's had to abandon it for now. For those of you who don't know what that is, that's Wings with a post driver, a smaller, somewhat lighter-weight one than our old cast-iron tube version, which was a horror to lift overhead, never mind drive steel posts into the ground with it. [How do I know? Because I've done my share of it over the years. There isn't a damn chore on this entire operation that I haven't done from driving steel posts to hauling and stacking hay bales to turning earthen dams for irrigation, standing calf-deep in freezing running water at midnight with a headlamp around my hat. Most of it I can't do now for health reasons, but I've done it all over the years.] We have to fence off that west boundary, because the pups are always following scents over that way, and we can't have the risk of them getting out. If we could only find someone to help with the work, but no one's interested in heavy manual labor anymore, even given the high rates we pay.

The tiller is on order, thank all that's holy and certain folks who made it possible. They say possibly next Monday for it to arrive in the local store for pick-up. The timing will be good, because right now, tilling's going to impossible for the next few days. We have state-wide burn bans because of the winds (and of course, some jackass to the south was burning away this morning, smoke plume clearly visible from here, and no, you can't get a permit for it right now). Along with the winds will be another upward ratchet of my pain levels, and the attendant inability to sleep, so for me it's gonna be the kind of week for which the work "interesting" was invented. Meanwhile, I still have to make sales [and I will have three new works later on today, so be on the lookout for them].

That should be easy, especially since Wings has three new pieces dropping today or tomorrow, most likely: two new pairs of earrings and one new cuff. But it's year two of the pandemic, it's tax season, and our sales have been nearly nonexistent for more than a year now.

Speaking of which, the taxes are the big thing still hanging over my head, as well as a bunch of other stuff for the year to come.  And then there's Wings's hearing aids, because I think he's finally convinced that we need to make the investment. And, of course, we have to get hold of Pojoaque Pueblo's bison program to see how much it will cost to buy a share of a buffalo. Early research suggests around ~$2K, so we may need to crowdfund that. The thing about it is that it won't feed only us; it'll get shared with other folks.I 'm going to need to set up PayPal pools to fund all of these things if we can't make a whole bunch of sales now. It's endless, and I am so tired just thinking about it.

We need sales. Sales, sales, SALES.

SALES. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS RIGHT NOW, AND I CANNOT GET ANY TIME TO MAKE SALES.

The last couple of years have required us to dig deep and ante up to help others at a level we've never done before. This year? The first two and a half months of 2021? Has already buried that. But as I said about that being why we do what we do, especially now in these days of pandemic, it's become abundantly clear that too often, there IS NO tomorrow, and the only chance you might have to help someone stay alive is TODAY. Things are bad locally; no economy, nothing. No vaccines for most folks dependent on the state system, either. We have lost SO much to 2020 (and already in 2021), so very, very many people, and the gifts and the talents and the knowledge and the wisdom they carried too often lost with them. People have needed so much more help than we could give them, but we did as much as we could, even when it put us in a bind, and we will need to do much more of that this year. People continue to need help, and we give it, but we're up well over $2 grand in just that one week, and a whole lot more before and since. 

I've got to find it again somewhere. Part of my work involves me reorganizing the Web site and then promoting the hell out of everything again. That's on top of all the other work I need to do around here, and I have been mostly useless, largely due to the recent flurry of episodes with my health. For every episode, it takes me multiple days to recover, all while hoping that another one doesn't set me back even further. That's not good. Too many people need help, and the government remains determined to see us die. There's work to do. This is why I've had to stop doing some things; there are just not enough hours in the day anymore, and I've got to make it all of this up somewhere. So:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities are LaminaSaver for Miika & metal/glass cleaners);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

And if you've been contemplating a purchase? This would be a very, very good time to do it; I've got to make up this staggering outlay somehow. There's even new work, here and here and now here, among other new pieces from 3 weeks ago, too, so please watch for them and share the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.