The deep freeze is done; so is the snow.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

Even the roof is happy with the snow.

That was yesterday, with another flawless blue sky above. By sunset, we had some wide bands of clouds to the west, and today we've got a few remnants of the shelf clouds that were here at dawn. Normally that would mean a change in the weather, but it looks as though the deep freeze is done; so is the snow, and we'll be a good 20 degrees too warm for the next fifteen days.

We need more winter weather. We also need to be able to stay home. It's dangerous out there right now, and I find myself shutting off completely. Certain people absolutely refuse to engage in anything resembling a boundary, and I don't want them in my space, I don't want them talking to me, I don't want to carry on a conversation about my bag or his coat or all the garbage takes they have on Indigenous topics. I want to be Garbo, and I want to do it with snow falling outside and a decent snowpack accumulating for spring. I have never felt so antisocial. And, I should point out, the nonsense is all coming from one segment of the population, and it's not the Indigenous one. The state couldn't be bothered over the weekend plus Friday, so yesterday's numbers included four days' worth of reports, reports that are always artificially low by virtue of it being the weekend and made lower yet because of the holiday. More than 3,300 cases state-wide, in a state of less than 2.3 million; 87 reported locally, in a county of fewer than 33K. And still the colonizer population insists on killing us, the land, everything, and they're accelerating it daily.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to get caught up on things that I had to let slide with the pressures of the holidays. New calendar year, but no signs that the country is going to do a single thing to get us out from under the death sentence it so gleefully seems determined to enforce. But this is our most expensive month of the year (followed very closely by July; I'm not even including April, which is tax month, in all of this). So while we had a far better holiday sales season than I could ever have hoped, we still have to keep the cycle going. This is our livelihood, after all, and there's a lot of expense ahead, medical and otherwise (and this has to be the year the drill the well because there's no other option at this point; "first thing," indeed).

So, as always, it comes back to that: more sales. A lot more, because we have two years' worth of a shattered pandemic economy to make up for, by which I mean we need to gain more ground ourselves financially to be able to be sure of making it through the winter and the rest of the year. I've posted a ton of Wings's new work lately, and there will be more in the days and weeks to come. If I could sell one of the big works, like one of the belts, maybe I could get us on the drill list for the well that is the only thing that's going to keep this land alive. But I've got way too much to do and too few hours and other resources to do it. Which means that I'll be stepping back significantly in terms of my online presence, because there's just too much else to do, and I am no longer well enough to maintain the kind of pace I once did.

So, since we have to continue to make sales, so links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities are first and foremost, the ladders);
• 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 cover all this staggering outlay somehow and get us through twelve whole months of a new year, plus put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring. And 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, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.