Hobbling. Horses and vets and cuts. Bills. Materials. Shares needed. Updated.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

Crew's back, but down a man today; one of the guys had a dentist's appointment. The other two got the rest of the way around the kitchen wall with the plaster, and started on the painstaking trimwork around the pantry door. Tomorrow, they'll finish the trim around the area under the stairs on both sides, that narrow front wall with the nicho in it, and the coat closet, then head for the back wall, downstairs bath, and utility room. If we're really lucky, they'll finish the interior plaster this week, but they may not get it all done before next Monday.

As it is, it's been a day. I woke up this morning with my right hip seizing up, and it's since spread all the way across my back to encompass both hips. This is not a new issue; normally, it happens multiple times during winter and spring. Probably in part thanks to the mildness of the winter, and in part thanks to my recent spurt of activity (the painting), I'd escaped it until now. But horses don't wait for my hips to recover, nor do humans, and since Wings had a previously-scheduled appointment that it was too late to change, I had to spend an hour and a half holding Shade while the vet debrided one of the wire cuts. It's at the hind left knee in the front, virtually impossible to keep bandaged properly, and despite our best efforts, it wasn't healing properly. And, of course, the blood vessels on horses' legs are very close to the surface, and the debridement necessarily impinged on a very small narrow artery, which spurted everywhere; nothing to worry about, other than the mess, which was not insignificant. Fortunately, Shade has mellowed drastically, and she was very cooperative for probably the first time ever. But right after we got her taken care of, Tony slipped with the trowel, and so I patched him up and sent him off to get stitches. Nothing life-threatening, but it caught him along the side and under the top of the nail on the pad, and it's not a place that's amenable to suturing itself back together. [UPDATED:  Eight stitches. Just got out of the ER. We offered to pay, but he says he's covered. Still, he won't be able to work the rest of the week.] So . . . yeah. Not the best start to the week, but everyone will be fine, and I'm indoors now with the heating pad on my back and hips.

And besides the vet bill, we shelled out a small fortune on the electric today, with more due on Thursday. There goes our last sale, up in smoke (or power and blood, at least). The amount of scratch we'll save on heating once we get into the house? Like the commercials say: Priceless. Seriously. You can't imagine the cost to keep everything going in this tin can. It's several times what the old house cost in all but the hottest months, and the old place was more expensive than the new one will be.

We need sales, and we need shares, and we need folks to push both, consistently:

• Wings's PayPal account, for donations to the house fund (out of a $30K goal, we've raised an even $4 grand, leaving a balance yet to raise of $26,000). If that link doesn't work, it's tied to his e-mail address: wingsoftaos [at] newmex [dot] com. Also, that link? It's a direct one now, rather than via the "Donate" button, so it should work better.
• His Web site, for sales (always preferable, and the base upon which the whole project hinges anyway, along with paying our day-to-day living expenses) — and just by the way, he's got some really incredible new works up now.
• Our Amazon wishlist, which contains Lowe's cards that will allow us to purchase some materials more cheaply than here in town, and also allow us to divert the extra funds to labor costs.

I'm extra slow today because I'm bent almost double and hobbling, but I have to get back to work here soon. Many thanks to everyone who's helped us get this far. I hope we can make raise enough this week to cover materials (more Structo-Lite, first and foremost), and next week's labor.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.