Drought.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

By seven-thirty in the morning, the sun's already high in the sky here. It gets hot early, and even if we get clouds late to cool it off, before sunset it's sweltering again. And as you can see, the drought robbed us of the aspen on the right; it's killed half of another, and smaller amounts of several more, while all of the willows are struggling just to survive now.

If you wonder why we want rain every day, this is why. Twelve-hundred-year drought now, indeed.

Sales drought, too, and I need to find more hours in the day to work on fixing that. I have fewer than two weeks to come up with about $3,500 to cover everything, and I haven't even begun. July is second only to January in terms of one- or two-off expenses, and it's always our second-most costly month of the year, mostly because of quarterly taxes, vehicle insurance/registration renewals, and Web hosting fees. But I also have a lot more than that this year, because I have an exceedingly costly blood draw coming up on Tuesday, which is going to set me back several hundred dollars, possibly more. Under three weeks from now, I will have to shell out a similarly large bundle for the punch biopsy, and probably a whole lot more yet for the path analysis. 

The last two months have been hellaciously expensive, with all of the imaging and doctor's appointments I've had to pay for just to have them rule out something extremely nasty; what it IS has everyone stymied now, and it's likely going to cost even more to rule whatever that is in, but it has to be done. I'm also down 3-4 Patreon patrons since May 1st, which puts a BIG dent in what covers our monthly bills. And as of July 1st, I've had to stop posting every single day on Patreon, because I don't have the time and my health can't take it, so I expect to lose more. And my Patreon is what pays our utilities and other monthly bills, so, yes, I'm worried. I'm also exhausted after the last week, and barely functional, so here we are.

But as I said, Wings will have several new pieces out soon, too, possibly as early as tomorrow or mid-week: at least one major necklace posted last week here, and a minimum of four new Warrior Woman (three actually; one's already sold, but the others will likely be ready and posted tomorrow) and three new Pueblo pins (those last three, with a very cool new twist, and the third one's been done most of this week, but I only had time to get it posted last night, here). I posted the first two Pueblo pins last week; one has already sold, but you can see the other here. Seriously, go check out the necklace; it's incredible. There's also, unexpectedly, a brand-new sterling silver cuff that I also got posted last night, also here; it's simple, but absolutely dazzlingly beautiful.

I'm skipping all the rest of it because I'm tired constantly, and frankly I don't have the focus right now for anything else. One thing: The mosquitoes are out in force now thanks to the rain, and as you know from the loss of Wings's nephew last year to West Nile, they can be deadly for folks like us. Wings has to spend an inordinate amount of time outdoors right now, and he needs to be able to take repellents with him that are not toxic, so I've added a bunch of them to the wishlist, and they are urgent, especially the 2nd and 4th items on the list. Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities are all the mosquito-prevention items, especially the portables and the patio-surface ones, because Wings can take them around the land with his as he works);
• 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 lots of fabulous new work, so please share all of 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.