It wasn't enough.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022;
all rights reserved.

In the end, it wasn't enough.

Miskwaki left us today at 11:46 AM MDT. That's the hair from his mane that I braided, the red and white together from his glorious red-paint coat; it's sitting right here beside my laptop now. I'll write the memorial post later this evening, but right now I have too much else to do and not enough left in my brain, never mind my broken heart. I'm shattered, and so is Wings. 

And it's not just emotional; we're shattered physically from the effort, too. I have been walking him for hours, for three days straight, walking back and forth, running sometimes to retrieve things or check on him, wrangling him while he underwent sometimes-painful indignities to try to get this thing under control. And, of course, just the constant of stress of knowing that failure was always the likeliest option, and knowing that loss was imminent.

I don't have the heart or the focus to include even the usual right now. Suffice to say that the last three days will wind up setting us back a hellish amount of money at the worst possible time, when we already needed every bit to cover tax and medical expenses and don't have enough. The burial alone was $400 ($300, but it wound up being a difficult one, with a lot more physical labor for the guy than has been the norm, so we gave him an extra $100 because he really went above and beyond). I don't have the vet's bill yet, but something like seven farm calls, several doses of pain meds, the multiple tubings, the final series of injections this morning? It's going to be sky-high. I need to be focusing o sales, except I can't focus; the physical pain alone is more than enough to ruin that, never mind the grief.

So we need all the help we can get. All the links are here; please, share them:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priority is first and foremost, the other ladder; also sheets);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

We're still hoping to put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring, too, Nah, we've given up on the well. No one's available to drill before late next year at the earliest, and this year's tax burden means we would never be able to afford it anyway. But it's even more of a good time to make a purchase, because Uncle Sam is a vindictive colonizer, and my current stress levels about paying it all are off the charts. And there's lots of fabulous 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.