The ground is soft, the earth can breathe, and the corn is still growing.

Photo copyright Aji, 2025; all rights reserved.

When I said elsewhere that today was glorious, I wasn't kidding. I also wasn't kidding when I said it feels much more like late September. Most years, by San G at the end of September, the monsoon season is over and those two days usually feature a sudden temperature spike, with perfectly clear air. Even the maple leaves are beginning to turn.

That what this is like.

But it's only the second day of August. Which I take to mean that both fall and winter might be early this year. Wings thinks it means we'll get real snow this winter; I'm not so confident, but I hope he's right.

We certainly got real weather yesterday. The forecast was for only a very small chance of showers; instead, we got wave after wave of extreme thunderstorms, the kind that dump who sheets of hard-driving water from the sky, rapid-fire changes of wind direction, lightning bolts that hit the ground very close to us and thunder louder and more earth-shaking than we've had in a while. We were lucky; north of here, they lost power, and they had another mudslide on the highway between Questa and Red River lots of small boulders being washed across the road in a muddy flood. [Yes, literal "small boulders," not "the size of" ; IYKYK.] 

So the ground is soft, the earth can breathe, and the corn is still growing. I'll take it.

You look for your blessings where you can find them. We're losing our doctor [and indeed, the whole practice is being taken over by unnamed unknown quantities; I just hope our PA remains]. I did as I said yesterday and skipped my chemo dose in an effort to determine whether that's what's making me feel so much worse. If how lousy I feel today is any indication, that's not it, but we'll see what the next few days bring. At the moment, it's just awful; no sleep, blinding fatigue, pain ratcheting up in every joint system. 

And, of course, there's still our biggest problem, one that now dates back almost six full weeks to June, that is still not fixed. It's this stupid well issue. Wings finally spoke with the driller last Friday morning, and he said he should be out sometime this week, but it's more than a whole week later now, and not a peep out of him. I left a message yesterday, emphasizing that the pressure pump is failing ever more rapidly by the day now; nada. I would really like to get this done before it dies again.

And all that expense to come, whenever it actually comes, means that we still need shares, and we most definitely still need sales, several grand's worth of sales, until I can get everything covered that has to get covered. Which means I have to get caught up on the work somehow, but the problems we've had to deal with all year and the pace we've had to maintain are putting us both constantly behind. Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (current priorities are, first and foremost, the sly spray for Miika at the top, and secondarily the Soapbox soaps, which I can't get locally); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year last year, and the first half of this one at least as bad, we urgently need to move 2025 onto a better footing, because taxes to this Nazi administration have already tapped us out and we still owe more anyway, so please share all of the links.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2025; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.