It's not a good sign.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

You see that? That's that little piñon on the north side of the house, the one that used to grow over the door of the RV those years we were stuck in the toxic tin can. I have never, NEVER seen that many cones on it.

It's not a good sign.

I know; it's counterintuitive. You'd think it was a a sign of a healthy, lushly fertile tree, but it's actually a sign of a stressed tree trying to ensure reproduction and survival of its kind in the deadliest of droughts. It's what they do when they don't have enough water, can't grow roots properly, can't reproduce any other way: They produce outrageous numbers of cones, that eventually drop and scatter all over the ground. It's an evolutionary adaptation, designed to help coniferous species survive killing droughts, the hope being that some of those cones will wind up someplace that can turn them, eventually, into actual trees.

Most of our conifers — the ones that are still alive, that is — have been doing this for a good while now. It's terrifying.

It's been an incredibly rough week, after a whole string of successive bad weeks, and next week will be hard, too, because Stormy goes in to see whether she needs surgery or just meds, and if it's the former, I have no idea how we afford that right now (I don't even know how we afford next week, if it requires an ultrasound or, worse, a laparoscopy). Especially after my Patreon subscriptions dropped this month (i.e., the payout for June on July 1st,) by more than $250 (around $270, actually), a huge monthly hit that we can't afford, and the fact that now I may not have a Patreon at all anymore, if they won't fix the e-mail issue, and we really can't afford that. There are still all of next year's taxes that need quarterly prepayments, and I only just got this year's paid off. No matter how hard I work, we can't catch a break. Every time I think I have a handle on whatever's immediately in front of us, two or three or four new things pile on.

But the dental stuff is going to be $25k before we're done, and for us, thats all in cash, and . . . $25K. I don't even have words. Or anything else. I'm just numb.

But I can't let Wings go without this dental work; aside from the damage to his quality of life, for a diabetic? It's a medical issue, and two different dental institutions have spent years jerking him around and risking his health and well-being. 

So I have GOT to bring in more sales, NOW. But our Web site hits are down drastically from what they should be in any given month, never mind the middle of the year. This despite the fact that there's a lot of new work on the site already, including Wings's absolutely phenomenal new cuff, which you can see from all angles here (and you want to see it from all angles, believe me). I posted the two new pairs of earrings here the other night, and the new gemstone bead trio featured lasts week, here. Meanwhile, he has more silverwork in rotation, too (two cuffs, more earrings). And . . . $25K. I don't have any other way to do this for him, especially with losing Patreon subscriptions at this rate; that's been our only "guaranteed" monthly income. All the links are listed below, so please share:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (current priority still the Zero-Odor sprays, because these days we're back to wet dogs again; and the liquid soaps, which we can't get locally); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

There's lots of fabulous work on the site, and things are grim here, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.