Almost enough to make you believe in The Revelation. Almost.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Shot during yesterday's weather, but that's not the salient point. You'd have to be able to enlarge it while mostly still maintaining the focus to be able to see it, but there's an awful amount of brown up there. Up until now, we'd managed to keep the bark-beetle infestation at bay on these peaks, but I guess the deepened drought of the last two or three years allowed it to move up from the area south of Talpa and up toward Peñasco. The horror of this particular development is that once the beetles get at the trees, there's no bringing them back. They're genuinely dead. And that is very near the summit of that particular peak.

Blood tides and famines and plague and pestilence. It's almost enough to make you believe in The Revelation. Almost.

So, we got our second confirmed case here yesterday, a woman in her 70s who's been, you guessed it, traveling.  STOP THAT. Also, we learned late last night that the local rag's reporter got it all wrong on the timeline of the first case. That motherfucker showed up on Wednesday the 11th from "the East Coast," apparently in the company of four other people (? only three of whom also got tested), and so WELL after it was abundantly clear that no one should be traveling now. They stayed at one of the "spa" lodges, so probably used the hot tubs; went skiing and so used lodge and lift and slopes, and no doubt lots of the restaurants, etc., in town. He started feeling bad on the 14th, not the 17th, as previously reported, and didn't go to get tested until the 15th, and even though he was positive, he went back and stayed "in isolation" at the hotel for TWO MORE WHOLE DAYS before he presumably went and infected multiple flights and airports on his way to "self-isolate at his home," which is on the East Freaking Coast.

No, sorry. I'm not letting this go. Wings and I have known for a cool month-plus that travel and mass gatherings were pure folly from an epidemiological standpoint. If we can figure that out, so can colonizers, but the arrogance that underlies the whole thing makes them think they're immune, not only to the virus but to the rules governing contagion management. It is most certainly not okay for privileged, arrogant white folks to come here and infect an Indigenous population.  ANYWHERE, and that includes Peru (and those of you who know what I'm talking about with that comment have no business rec'ing that white-savior, supremacist, appropriative nonsense).

On the plus side, we're still okay for the moment. Wings had to go pick up scrips, but he wore gloves and the lighter, smaller mask he uses for smithing. While there, they had him unmask long enough to check his temperature, and he has NO fever, so it's all good. I wrote out checks for the rest of the month's bills (ugh), and with one of them, I sent a post-dated check for next month, as well, plus two self-addressed, stamped envelopes for them to mail the receipts back to us. minimizing exposure as much as possible. We shouldn't need to go anywhere at all for the next several days, which is a relief. I might even be able to get going on our taxes (we're doing them on the usual schedule rather than delaying). On the not-so-plus side, I had a really, REALLY bad episode this morning that threw me back to November 10, 2017. I got through it, but it was more frightening than usual knowing that 1) this other thing is lurking out there, and 2) as bad an idea as it is to go to this hospital anytime, it's REALLY bad now, so I need not to get anywhere near dying again.

My concern now is the bills. As I said yesterday, we got the farrier out and also got hay delivered, so the horses are set, and it wasn't even as costly as I was expecting, but still, we have to make up the difference. We've spent far more than we would ordinarily have done over the last two weeks, getting ready to quarantine ourselves, because we saw what was coming even if the so-called "leadership" of this country still refuses to acknowledge reality. We also shot what is for us an extraordinary amount of cash to various folks, mostly Indigenous and disabled, over the last few weeks, precisely because we could see what was coming, and most of them don't have the privilege we do of an isolated home with natural resources and hard experience to help keep us going.

And so the $700 for the vehicle stuff last week and the $300+ for medical and the unexpected need to help some other folks and the costs for the farrier, the hay, and the discing of the land to prep for reseeding this year are all combining to set us back a great deal. To add to it, we've had three sales total all year. Yup, 3. That's not going to keep us alive, and we still have taxes and other expenses to pay. At this point, I need to bring in about $4K in sales, subscriptions, Ko-fi, any source possible just to cover all of that. So please share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is going to be next to nothing otherwise, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. Also, I added some new items to the wishlist, so that breakfast is less boring, and because I'm going to have to return to sewing (supplies, mending, etc., and eventually maybe other stuff for local folks). The links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here;
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

Please share everything. Thanks.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.