The rain can't get where it needs to go.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

That thunderhead? An hour ago. Now, an hour later, it's a wall the color of that dark gray at the base.

The trouble is, it's over the burn scars from last year's megafire, rather than here, where it's needed. There's already a flash-flood warning out for those areas for today. Meanwhile, the soil here is the consistency of ash.

The rain can't get where it needs to go.

Seems to be true of the other kind of rain this year. I was talking to the woman who runs the bead store where we get our stock, and she said their year has been the same: promising in March, then dropped off drastically to absolutely nothing. The billionaires are raking in money hand over fist here, though:  real estate, putting locals out of their homes; cannabis dispensaries (17 at last count, and growing), putting local businesses out of their locations; and that stupid ski valley and airport expansion, both stealing water, land, and every other resource imaginable.

While the rest of the population dies, or the next thing to it.

And it doesn't matter; the work still has to get done. As I said on Monday, I managed to get two big things paid last week, and we paid the third big one then (but over $100 more than I was expecting, thanks to rates raised drastically since last year). I thought we'd be okay though the end of the month, but I didn't realize that I would need to re-order Miika's meds yesterday. And with my Patreon down by a few hundred a month coupled with the platform's carelessness in switching to a new payment processor without notifying anyone (and thereby causing a lot of banks to label the whole platform as fraudulent), it seems that I can probably expect a much lower payout yet on September first. We have to make up a LOT of ground financially over the next four months. A LOT. I really need to make another sale this weekend. If I could just sell today's featured work, that would take care of the rest of this month, and most, probably all, of next month too.

As I've been saying, there's a lot of new work on the site: Last week, I posted Wings's six new works (2 rings; 4 pairs of earrings [one of which is sold]); all items share the same price point, $425 each. And, of course, there are the new gemstone bead trios, one completed just the other day and featured here. The other night, I got the new cuff posted here, and it's incredible (and it's Wednesday's feature, too); selling that alone would do a lot right now. He also has several new pairs of earrings in the design stages, probably a half-dozen or so. Sales have been terribly slow all year, and now we are quite literally at the point of not being able to make it if we can't keep pace weekly with steady sales (never mind the dental stuff; he's unilaterally decided to push that back yet again). Given the Patreon mess and my health issues, I don't have any way to solve any of that outside of making sales, so I'm begging folks, please: All the links are listed below, so please share:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (apparently the sponges are unavilable, but the other two things I need that I can't get here are the Bar Keeper's Friend coffeemaker cleaner and descaler; we're entirely out of both); 
• 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.