Actual spring.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Actual spring. That was the view yesterday from near the driveway, looking north: almost no clouds in a cornflower sky, green everywhere (and all the pollen with it). Today, notsomuch; there's a wide-banded webwork of pale gray clouds everywhere, as though applied by some spirit's paintbrush, barely dipped in the paint and skipping here and there to reveal the blue canvas beneath. 

The pollen, though? Oh, that's here in a big way. Fortunately, at least it's warm, near 80 the past two or three days and again today. 

The tax bill wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Not that it was good, you understand, but I'll take what we can get. The $3,300 I'd set as a goal? Will cover the balance of 2019 and the first two quarters of 2020. If I can just sell one or two of Wings's big pieces, we've got it handled until October's payment comes due. None of that allows, of course, for all the costs coming shortly. We need sales badly now, so please share the links, and if you've been thinking about buying something for a while? Now would be the time.

Several days ago (over a week now?), my laptop blew an A/C port, which means 1) I can no longer cool it while running it, and 2) if I need to plug any kind of USB thing into it, I have to take it to battery power. In the process, it borked both my sleep mode AND my e-mail, so if you've sent me a message and haven't heard from me, that's why; I can get incoming, but can't send outgoing. I tried to fix that the other day, got it to work briefly, but now? Who knows? It seems to be hosed all over again. Tonight will be spent trying to get it to work again. It's all complicated by the fact that, without that extra port, I have to stop using the laptop after short periods of time to let it cool, which is really disruptive to any kind of real work. And today, it suddenly blew up the post I was working on half-way through it, and despite autosave and a supposed one-button restore function, I had to restore two hours' worth of work manually. [No, I did not touch anything. The screen suddenly jumped, it refreshed itself to to very first version with no text, and would not let me restore a thing. I'm at the end of my rope on it, and I cannot be without a computer. It's our whole livelihood, wrapped up in this little metal envelope-type thing.]

On top of all of that, my camera is on its last legs, there's no such thing as a bread machine anywhere (the one I really want, and cheaper, too, is this one, but out of stock until mid-June everywhere, apparently) and barely any paper towels to be had. We can't get the scrip for Miika unless and until the vet can come out and see her in person, and that may not even be on the 4th. The mower repair Thursday was just shy of $500, cash on the barrelhead. We still have to pay Ivan to till and disc and plant the fields. And we still don't know what our taxes are going to be (and no, we have NOT gotten any stimulus check, natch). Add onto all of that my current wild autoimmune flare (thanks for nothing, cottonwoods; you really didn't need to do this a month early), and the excruciating pain that is its inevitable result, already here in my joints in full force, and, yeah, I feel like flipping off the world, too.

Anyway, the upshot is that we need to make sales. I think the fields are getting disced next week for planting; that's going to cost. So are the horses' vaxes and spring check-ups, which is tentatively scheduled for May 4th. Farrier's coming out again next month to do the work on Miika that she wouldn't let him do the other day, because the weather had her laminitis flaring and she was in too much pain to put full weight on that hoof to let him do her hind feet (she has to be done in stages, and yes, there will be masking and social distancing via the end of a lead). At some point, the dogs have to go in for their vaxes and so forth. And we both have doctor's appointments, which will be telemedicine via my laptop, assuming it holds, the first week of May. That's a hell of a lot of expense, over and above all the usual monthly expenses, monsoonal patterns of another sort, and I need to cover it somehow, hence the next graf:

Two weeks ago I featured, on Wings's site, some of his most valuable (and highest-priced) works (concha belts, necklace, earrings, etc.). If we could sell them all, we could sock 90% of it into savings and be assured of making it through the rest of the year and into the next, barring disaster. I don't actually have any real hope of doing that, but if you're one of the folks who's been looking at these works and thinking that someday you might want to invest the money in one or more? Now would be the time; it would help ensure our survival through this pandemic and likely to the first of next year, and help us to be able to help other folks in our community here who are going to need it badly. So please, this week especially, share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already at virtually nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. The links are here:

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

Note: For now, please don't buy anything off the Amazon wishlist; to do so would be crossing a picket line, and some of their workers have struck this morning to fight for safer working conditions because their lives are being put at even greater risk during this pandemic. If you find one of the items elsewhere, wonderful (there's even a wishlist function where you can note that it's been purchased somewhere else).

Other than that, 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.

#TBT: A Raining, Rippling Promise of Rebirth

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

It's #ThrowbackThursday at The NDN Silver Blog, with a work commissioned by one of our dearest friends for another, a piece intended not precisely to replace something lost, but rather to accompany the wearer in a journey of renewal. It's the spiraling blues of a coil bracelet in all the cooling, healing shades of the water, a raining, rippling promise of rebirth.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. This work obviously will never be duplicated exactly (that is especially true of commissioned pieces), but if the style speaks to your spirit, simply inquire via the site's Contact form; Wings can create a version uniquely your own. And, as always, sales are very much needed (with an unusually huge cluster of bills and expenses for the first four months of this year, plus taxes now, and the pandemic having reduced our sales to near zero), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

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

Sometimes you have to take time for the vulnerable ones.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

That's a parent/uncle/aunt up there, but this morning, I had to revive a barely-beyond-fledgling pine siskin baby who grazed the window.  She went to sleep in my hand, and 20 minutes later, I was putting her in the feeder. She pecked and rubbed her head on my finger to say thank you. Sometimes you have to take time for the vulnerable ones.

And I'm short on time today. We're about to head into the tax preparer to sign/file/pay, and I'm worried. I need to bring in about $3K to cover today, at a best guess. Actually more like $3,300, most likely, but I'd be happy just with the lower number. None of that allows for all the costs coming shortly. We need sales badly now, so I'm begging you: Please share the links, and if you've been thinking about buying something for a while? Now would be the time.

Several days ago (over a week now?), my laptop blew an A/C port, which means 1) I can no longer cool it while running it, and 2) if I need to plug any kind of USB thing into it, I have to take it to battery power. In the process, it borked both my sleep mode AND my e-mail, so if you've sent me a message and haven't heard from me, that's why; I can get incoming, but can't send outgoing. I tried to fix that the other day, got it to work briefly, but now? Who knows? It seems to be hosed all over again. Tonight will be spent trying to get it to work again. It's all complicated by the fact that, without that extra port, I have to stop using the laptop after short periods of time to let it cool, which is really disruptive to any kind of real work. And today, it suddenly blew up the post I was working on half-way through it, and despite autosave and a supposed one-button restore function, I had to restore two hours' worth of work manually. [No, I did not touch anything. The screen suddenly jumped, it refreshed itself to to very first version with no text, and would not let me restore a thing. I'm at the end of my rope on it, and I cannot be without a computer. It's our whole livelihood, wrapped up in this little metal envelope-type thing.]

On top of all of that, my camera is on its last legs, there's no such thing as a bread machine anywhere (the one I really want, and cheaper, too, is this one, but out of stock until mid-June everywhere, apparently) and barely any paper towels to be had. We can't get the scrip for Miika unless and until the vet can come out and see her in person, and that may not even be on the 4th. The mower repair Thursday was just shy of $500, cash on the barrelhead. We still have to pay Ivan to till and disc and plant the fields. And we still don't know what our taxes are going to be (and no, we have NOT gotten any stimulus check, natch). Add onto all of that my current wild autoimmune flare (thanks for nothing, cottonwoods; you really didn't need to do this a month early), and the excruciating pain that is its inevitable result, already here in my joints in full force, and, yeah, I feel like flipping off the world, too.

Anyway, the upshot is that we need to make sales. I think the fields are getting disced next week for planting; that's going to cost. So are the horses' vaxes and spring check-ups, which is tentatively scheduled for May 4th. Farrier's coming out again next month to do the work on Miika that she wouldn't let him do the other day, because the weather had her laminitis flaring and she was in too much pain to put full weight on that hoof to let him do her hind feet (she has to be done in stages, and yes, there will be masking and social distancing via the end of a lead). At some point, the dogs have to go in for their vaxes and so forth. And we both have doctor's appointments, which will be telemedicine via my laptop, assuming it holds, the first week of May. That's a hell of a lot of expense, over and above all the usual monthly expenses, monsoonal patterns of another sort, and I need to cover it somehow, hence the next graf:

Two weeks ago I featured, on Wings's site, some of his most valuable (and highest-priced) works (concha belts, necklace, earrings, etc.). If we could sell them all, we could sock 90% of it into savings and be assured of making it through the rest of the year and into the next, barring disaster. I don't actually have any real hope of doing that, but if you're one of the folks who's been looking at these works and thinking that someday you might want to invest the money in one or more? Now would be the time; it would help ensure our survival through this pandemic and likely to the first of next year, and help us to be able to help other folks in our community here who are going to need it badly. So please, this week especially, share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already at virtually nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. The links are here:

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

Note: For now, please don't buy anything off the Amazon wishlist; to do so would be crossing a picket line, and some of their workers have struck this morning to fight for safer working conditions because their lives are being put at even greater risk during this pandemic. If you find one of the items elsewhere, wonderful (there's even a wishlist function where you can note that it's been purchased somewhere else).

Other than that, 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.

While We Pray For the Water, We Plan For the Work

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's a pair of works with more than a passing resemblance, each embodying different aspects of the gift of the water. They remind us that both a respect for elemental power and a willingness to put in the labor required are needed, and so while we pray for the water, we plan for the work. 

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. And, as always, sales are very much needed (with an unusually huge cluster of bills and expenses for January, February, and March, all the same plus taxes for April, and the pandemic having reduced our sales virtually to zero looking ahead to rest of the year), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

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

Me, at the whole world today.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Me, at the whole world today.

No, I don't know why his glove is flipping the world off, too. He had to wash them yesterday, and he set them up on the stair rail outside the studio to dry, and all the fingers flopped over except the middle one. It's definitely a message. 

And I'm feeling it today. More laptop problems (see below), and the loss of two hours as a result today. Got a call first thing this morning from the tax preparer; we go in tomorrow to sign and file and write out two massive checks, one for what's left on '19 and one for the first quarter of '20. And I cannot let myself think too long about the fact that we are paying fucking TAXES to this colonial government and the orange Nazi fraud running it [into the ground], because if I do then I'll have to think about all the people he's continuing to kill to salve his fragile ego and then I will spontaneously combust and exit the plane in a puff of smoke.

Yeah, I know there are people who would love that, but fuck 'em.

But I need to bring in about $3K to cover tomorrow, at a best guess. Actually more like $3,300, most likely, but I'd be happy just with the lower number. None of that allows for all the costs coming shortly. We need sales badly now, so I'm begging you: Please share the links, and if you've been thinking about buying something for a while? Now would be the time.

Several days ago (over a week now?), my laptop blew an A/C port, which means 1) I can no longer cool it while running it, and 2) if I need to plug any kind of USB thing into it, I have to take it to battery power. In the process, it borked both my sleep mode AND my e-mail, so if you've sent me a message and haven't heard from me, that's why; I can get incoming, but can't send outgoing. I tried to fix that the other day, got it to work briefly, but now? Who knows? It seems to be hosed all over again. Tonight will be spent trying to get it to work again. It's all complicated by the fact that, without that extra port, I have to stop using the laptop after short periods of time to let it cool, which is really disruptive to any kind of real work. And today, it suddenly blew up the post I was working on half-way through it, and despite autosave and a supposed one-button restore function, I had to restore two hours' worth of work manually. [No, I did not touch anything. The screen suddenly jumped, it refreshed itself to to very first version with no text, and would not let me restore a thing. I'm at the end of my rope on it, and I cannot be without a computer. It's our whole livelihood, wrapped up in this little metal envelope-type thing.]

On top of all of that, my camera is on its last legs, there's no such thing as a bread machine anywhere (the one I really want, and cheaper, too, is this one, but out of stock until mid-June everywhere, apparently) and barely any paper towels to be had. We can't get the scrip for Miika unless and until the vet can come out and see her in person, and that may not even be on the 4th. The mower repair Thursday was just shy of $500, cash on the barrelhead. We still have to pay Ivan to till and disc and plant the fields. And we still don't know what our taxes are going to be (and no, we have NOT gotten any stimulus check, natch). Add onto all of that my current wild autoimmune flare (thanks for nothing, cottonwoods; you really didn't need to do this a month early), and the excruciating pain that is its inevitable result, already here in my joints in full force, and, yeah, I feel like flipping off the world, too.

Anyway, the upshot is that we need to make sales. I think the fields are getting disced next week for planting; that's going to cost. So are the horses' vaxes and spring check-ups, which is tentatively scheduled for May 4th. Farrier's coming out again next month to do the work on Miika that she wouldn't let him do the other day, because the weather had her laminitis flaring and she was in too much pain to put full weight on that hoof to let him do her hind feet (she has to be done in stages, and yes, there will be masking and social distancing via the end of a lead). At some point, the dogs have to go in for their vaxes and so forth. And we both have doctor's appointments, which will be telemedicine via my laptop, assuming it holds, the first week of May. That's a hell of a lot of expense, over and above all the usual monthly expenses, monsoonal patterns of another sort, and I need to cover it somehow, hence the next graf:

Two weeks ago I featured, on Wings's site, some of his most valuable (and highest-priced) works (concha belts, necklace, earrings, etc.). If we could sell them all, we could sock 90% of it into savings and be assured of making it through the rest of the year and into the next, barring disaster. I don't actually have any real hope of doing that, but if you're one of the folks who's been looking at these works and thinking that someday you might want to invest the money in one or more? Now would be the time; it would help ensure our survival through this pandemic and likely to the first of next year, and help us to be able to help other folks in our community here who are going to need it badly. So please, this week especially, share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already at virtually nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. The links are here:

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

Note: For now, please don't buy anything off the Amazon wishlist; to do so would be crossing a picket line, and some of their workers have struck this morning to fight for safer working conditions because their lives are being put at even greater risk during this pandemic. If you find one of the items elsewhere, wonderful (there's even a wishlist function where you can note that it's been purchased somewhere else).

Other than that, 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.

Red Willow Spirit: Life, From the Sacred Lake to the Great River

Photo copyright Wings, 2020;
all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's an edition of Red Willow Spirit to remind us of the force of the First Medicine and the healing powers of the hoop. It's the waters as spokes of the wheel here, healing and healed: life, from the sacred lake to the great river, and all the points in between.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. As always, his photos are available in any of the usual three formats; to order them or the wearable art shown, simply inquire via the site's Contact form. And, as always, sales are very much needed (with an unusually huge cluster of bills and expenses for January, February, and March, all the same plus taxes for April, and the pandemic having reduced our sales virtually to zero looking ahead to rest of the year), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

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

Two years since this sweet girl left us.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

It's been two years today — at 9:27 this morning, to be exact. After all that's happened over these two years, it seems impossible that so much time could have passed, but it's true. Two years since this sweet girl left us.

in the same way that Raven was slightly more my dog, She-Wolf was slightly more Wings's. Not unusual for female dogs to bond more, or at least differently, to male humans and male dogs to female humans, but She-Wolf was such pure love that it never felt less, only different. She tagged after Wings while he worked; when she was sick, she came to me for help. And she fought so much in her life just to live.

She showed up one day at the shop while I was there, not yet a year old, scrawny, starved, a pint-size bag of bones that would eventually grow into a 65-pound healthy dog. She was whip-smart, having absolutely no commands but nevertheless understanding instinctively what was wanted, and she would come to be fed and then lie at my feet or by the fire to escape the cold. She went home with us on the day before Thanksgiving in 2008, still more puppy than not, full of energy and mischief.

By the fall of 2013, she wasn't feeling so hot, and we suspected we knew what it was; her formative months, filled with starvation, come back to haunt her by way of a damaged metabolism. It took a few weeks to get her in to the vet; sure enough, she was diabetic, and he warned us that she had no more than two months' worth of sight left at the outside, probably less, because in retrospect we knew that she had been showing symptoms for a while. He also grilled me about whether we were prepared to take on the "burden," because apparently a lot of folks would rather put their dogs down than deal with it. But we're both intimately familiar with the disease, and we knew what to do.

She got tested twice a day, and injected twice a day. Normally, I did it at 9 AM and 9 PM, and if I got busy and too many minutes passed beyond the 9:00 mark, she would come and find me, because her internal clock was scary-accurate, and she knew it was time for her test and her shot. She never fought the needles, never whimpered; the first insulin injection in the vet's office had made her feel SO much better in the space of five minutes that she made the connection instantly and never looked back. And with a lot of work, we saved her eyesight for more than three years. Even once it was, for all practical purposes, gone, she navigated just fine in daylight, knowing her home sand land so well that she didn't need to see it.

We didn't know that something worse was on the way.

At the very end of 2017, the last day or next-to-last day of the year, we came downstairs to find what looked like a little blood on the dining room rug, with perhaps some urine. We couldn't tell whether it had come from her or Raven, or indeed what it actually was; both were perfectly capable of getting into thing outside and winding up with nicks or scratches, too. Everyone seemed fine, so we didn't worry unduly, but we kept watch.

It appeared again a few days later, and still we couldn't tell which dog was responsible. I followed them both as much as possible, and we eventually determined that it was She-Wolf. We were hoping diabetes- related UTI (and worrying about diabetes-related kidney failure). What it was was much worse.

She had interstitial carcinoma of the bladder, a very aggressive, very fast-moving, very lethal form of cancer in dogs. By the time we knew anything was wrong, it was already too late. The vet (our regular vet's partner, who treated her all the way through it, and was wonderful) warned us to expect her to have days at most.

We gave her three months. Good ones.

When the night came that she threw up blood, we knew. We called the vet at dawn, and our regular vet came out with the tech, who She-Wolf knew well and loved. Together, we held her in our arms, and through their own tears, Ted and Natalia helped us send her to the spirit world, where she would have no more pain. It was time, and it was easy, and she had no pain in the process.

And she is still in our hearts every single day. When I say She-Wolf was pure love, I mean exactly that. She just . . . LOVED. Everybody. Everything. But especially her pack and her world. And I miss her terribly. And so today I did as we always do, and I took her sweet spirit her offerings: cedar and smoke, tobacco, water. Wings left her some jerky, too.

We love you, She-Wolf. The gift you gave us, sweet girl, doesn't disappear; you and it live in our hearts.

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.

Planting season.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Planting season.

That young Ponderosa pine and a beautiful cedar went where that one section of fence by the propane tank got blown down by that monster dust devil last month. It was time for it to go: Wings put it up in the first place as a wind break for the RV, because that's where the pilot was, and it was constantly getting blown out. When it was windy? Impossible to relight. But the old posts that held it in place had rotted through, probably an artifact of everything else related to that thing; the earth where it sat is only beginning to recover a bit. Even though only the tires were sitting on the ground (well, on blocks), it was as though the very presence of that thing poisoned the trees and soil. They're coming back now.

Anyway, one of Wings's friends who deals, among other things (all legal things; I'm talking about trees and plants and herbs of the decidedly non-psycho-affective variety) in trees needed some help. [Among other things, I gather he got screwed on a deal he made with a business to provide trees. And he does all the heavy labor himself, from harvesting and digging up and preserving root balls and planting and whatever, so if someone doesn't keep up their end of it? That's a hit, especially now.] So they worked out a deal and a trade, and we have some new trees. They planted these close to where that section of fence used to be, and they already will serve as a bit of wind break for the propane tank's enclosure, the bird feeder, the red willows' fence, and that corner of the house. We'll have birds nesting in them soon, probably. And this is one of the many reasons we love being home.

Then there's . . . everything else. We had four errands to run today, and the number of people who STILL refuse to mask up or glove up, or to maintain any semblance of social distancing in public . . . . We are not willing to get sick for their bullshit, but wow, does it make for some difficulties trying to maintain proper social distance ourselves when we can't avoid going out (and we couldn't; post office, scrip pick-up, hardware store, and dropping off docs at the tax preparer's all had to get done). With luck, though, we'll be in for the rest of the week, except maybe a post-office check at the end of the week.

Still, even here at home there are . . . issues. Several days ago (over a week now?), my laptop blew an A/C port, which means 1) I can no longer cool it while running it, and 2) if I need to plug any kind of USB thing into it, I have to take it to battery power. In the process, it borked both my sleep mode AND my e-mail, so if you've sent me a message and haven't heard from me, that's why; I can get incoming, but can't send outgoing. I tried to fix that the other day, got it to work briefly, but now? Who knows? It seems to be hosed all over again. Tonight will be spent trying to get it to work again. It's all complicated by the fact that, without that extra port, I have to stop using the laptop after short periods of time to let it cool, which is really disruptive to any kind of real work.

On top of all of that, my camera is on its last legs, there's no such thing as a bread machine anywhere (the one I really want, and cheaper, too, is this one, but out of stock until mid-June everywhere, apparently) and barely any paper towels to be had. We can't get the scrip for Miika unless and until the vet can come out and see her in person, and that may not even be on the 4th. The mower repair Thursday was just shy of $500, cash on the barrelhead. We still have to pay Ivan to till and disc and plant the fields. And we still don't know what our taxes are going to be (and no, we have NOT gotten any stimulus check, natch).

Anyway, the upshot is that we need to make sales. I think the fields are getting disced next week for planting; that's going to cost. So are the horses' vaxes and spring check-ups, which is tentatively scheduled for May 4th. Farrier's coming out again next month to do the work on Miika that she wouldn't let him do the other day, because the weather had her laminitis flaring and she was in too much pain to put full weight on that hoof to let him do her hind feet (she has to be done in stages, and yes, there will be masking and social distancing via the end of a lead). At some point, the dogs have to go in for their vaxes and so forth. And we both have doctor's appointments, which will be telemedicine via my laptop, assuming it holds, the first week of May. That's a hell of a lot of expense, over and above all the usual monthly expenses, monsoonal patterns of another sort, and I need to cover it somehow, hence the next graf:

Two weeks ago I featured, on Wings's site, some of his most valuable (and highest-priced) works (concha belts, necklace, earrings, etc.). If we could sell them all, we could sock 90% of it into savings and be assured of making it through the rest of the year and into the next, barring disaster. I don't actually have any real hope of doing that, but if you're one of the folks who's been looking at these works and thinking that someday you might want to invest the money in one or more? Now would be the time; it would help ensure our survival through this pandemic and likely to the first of next year, and help us to be able to help other folks in our community here who are going to need it badly. So please, this week especially, share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already at virtually nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. The links are here:

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

Note: For now, please don't buy anything off the Amazon wishlist; to do so would be crossing a picket line, and some of their workers have struck this morning to fight for safer working conditions because their lives are being put at even greater risk during this pandemic. If you find one of the items elsewhere, wonderful (there's even a wishlist function where you can note that it's been purchased somewhere else).

Other than that, 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.

Monday Photo Meditation: Hoping For the Water

Photo copyright Wings, 2020; all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's photo meditation for the start of a week dedicated to the beauty and force of the waters of earth and sky, and of a day dedicated to a small departed spirit of similar healing powers. It's an image of love in its purest form in her beloved pond full of the First Medicine, a pond show grasses are now, like us, hoping for the water to return.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. As always, Wings's photos are available in any of the usual three formats; simply inquire via the site's Contact form. And, as always, sales are very much needed (with an unusually huge cluster of bills and expenses for January, February, and March, all the same plus taxes for April, and the pandemic having reduced our sales virtually to zero looking ahead to rest of the year), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

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

What joy looks like.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

I think this must be what joy looks like in its pure form. Spirit knows there's precious little of it out in the world these days. Every single day, I'm profoundly grateful that we finally have a home again, that it's here, where we can be naturally isolated, and that we have all these beautiful beings to share it with us.

Then there's all the rest of the crap that filters in from outside. It was made much worse this past week by the fact that several days ago, my laptop blew an A/C port, which means 1) I can no longer cool it while running it, and 2) if I need to plug any kind of USB thing into it, I have to take it to battery power. In the process, it borked both my sleep mode AND my e-mail, so if you've sent me a message and haven't heard from me, that's why; I can get incoming, but can't send outgoing. I tried to fix that yesterday, got it to work briefly, but now? Who knows? It seems to be hosed all over again. And I have to stop using the laptop after short periods of time to let it cool, which is really disruptive to any kind of real work.

On top of all of that, my camera is on its last legs, there's no such thing as a bread machine anywhere (the one I really want, and cheaper, too, is this one, but out of stock until mid-June everywhere, apparently) and barely any paper towels to be had. We can't get the scrip for Miika unless and until the vet can come out and see her in person, and that may not even be on the 4th. The mower repair Thursday was just shy of $500, cash on the barrelhead. We still have to pay Ivan to till and disc and plant the fields. And we still don't know what our taxes are going to be (and no, we have NOT gotten any stimulus check, natch).

Anyway, the upshot is that we need to make sales. I think the fields are getting disced next week for planting; that's going to cost. So are the horses' vaxes and spring check-ups, which is tentatively scheduled for May 4th. Farrier's coming out again next month to do the work on Miika that she wouldn't let him do the other day, because the weather had her laminitis flaring and she was in too much pain to put full weight on that hoof to let him do her hind feet (she has to be done in stages, and yes, there will be masking and social distancing via the end of a lead). At some point, the dogs have to go in for their vaxes and so forth. And we both have doctor's appointments, which will be telemedicine via my laptop, assuming it holds, the first week of May. That's a hell of a lot of expense, over and above all the usual monthly expenses, monsoonal patterns of another sort, and I need to cover it somehow, hence the next graf:

Over the course of last week, I featured, on his site, some of his most valuable (and highest-priced) works (concha belts, necklace, earrings, etc.). If we could sell them all, we could sock 90% of it into savings and be assured of making it through the rest of the year and into the next, barring disaster. I don't actually have any real hope of doing that, but if you're one of the folks who's been looking at these works and thinking that someday you might want to invest the money in one or more? Now would be the time; it would help ensure our survival through this pandemic and likely to the first of next year, and help us to be able to help other folks in our community here who are going to need it badly. So please, this week especially, share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already at virtually nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. The links are here:

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

Note: For now, please don't buy anything off the Amazon wishlist; to do so would be crossing a picket line, and some of their workers have struck this morning to fight for safer working conditions because their lives are being put at even greater risk during this pandemic. If you find one of the items elsewhere, wonderful (there's even a wishlist function where you can note that it's been purchased somewhere else).

Other than that, 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.

In Sun, In Rain, a Flowering

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's a work built around an extraordinary stone that reminds us of the strength that underlies vulnerability, sufficient to withstand the storm. It reminds us, too, of our own responsibility not merely to survive but to thrive, to cultivate and pollinate, to rebuild a better world: in sun, in rain, a flowering.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. And, as always, sales are very much needed (with an unusually huge cluster of bills and expenses for January, February, and March, taxes ahead for April, and the pandemic having reduced our sales virtually to zero); if we could sell all of last week's featured pieces, we'd be good into 2021), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

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

One beautiful thing.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020;
all rights reserved.

Sitting here staring at these right now, one beautiful thing among a few at the end of what's otherwise been mostly a really lousy week. Wings had to run three errands yesterday — scrip pick-up, hardware store, and the third involved the grocery store, so he brought me these as a gift. A couple at the back of the vase were still only buds, but they're all open and in full flower now.

This week, though . . . . It was made worse by the fact that several days ago, my laptop blew an A/C port, which means 1) I can no longer cool it while running it, and 2) if I need to plug any kind of USB thing into it, I have to take it to battery power. In the process, it borked both my sleep mode AND my e-mail, so if you've sent me a message and haven't heard from me, that's why; I can get incoming, but can't send outgoing. I tried to fix that yesterday, got it to work briefly, but now? Who knows? It seems to be hosed all over again. And I have to stop using the laptop after short periods of time to let it cool, which is really disruptive to any kind of real work.

On top of all of that, my camera is on its last legs, there's no such thing as a bread machine anywhere and barely any paper towels to be had. We can't get the scrip for Miika unless and until the vet can come out and see her in person, and that may not even be on the 4th. The mower repair Thursday was just shy of $500, cash on the barrelhead. We still have to pay Ivan to till and disc and plant the fields. And we still don't know what our taxes are going to be (and no, we have NOT gotten any stimulus check, natch).

Anyway, the upshot is that we need to make sales. I think the fields are getting disced next week for planting; that's going to cost. So are the horses' vaxes and spring check-ups, which is tentatively scheduled for May 4th. Farrier's coming out Thursday to do more work on Miika's laminitic left front (she has to be done in stages, and yes, there will be masking and social distancing via the end of a lead). At some point, the dogs have to go in for their vaxes and so forth. And we both have doctor's appointments, which will be telemedicine via my laptop, assuming it holds, the first week of May. That's a hell of a lot of expense, over and above all the usual monthly expenses, monsoonal patterns of another sort, and I need to cover it somehow, hence the next graf:

Over the course of last week, I featured, on his site, some of his most valuable (and highest-priced) works. If we could sell them all, we could sock 90% of it into savings and be assured of making it through the rest of the year and into the next, barring disaster. I don't actually have any real hope of doing that, but if you're one of the folks who's been looking at these works and thinking that someday you might want to invest the money in one or more? Now would be the time; it would help ensure our survival through this pandemic and likely to the first of next year, and help us to be able to help other folks in our community here who are going to need it badly. So please, this week especially, share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already at virtually nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. The links are here:

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

Note: For now, please don't buy anything off the Amazon wishlist; to do so would be crossing a picket line, and some of their workers have struck this morning to fight for safer working conditions because their lives are being put at even greater risk during this pandemic. If you find one of the items elsewhere, wonderful (there's even a wishlist function where you can note that it's been purchased somewhere else).

Other than that, 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.

A Blossoming Light

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's a pair of earrings that look deceptively gentle, silvered petals and rays of light set with the bold fire of the sun. They are, in fact, the embodiment of this warming world and season in a world that grows darker by the day, the gift of a blossoming light that is nothing less than life itself.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. And, as always, sales are very much needed (with an unusually huge cluster of bills and expenses for January, February, and March, taxes ahead for April, and the pandemic having reduced our sales virtually to zero); if we could sell all of this week's featured pieces, we'd be good into 2021), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

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

Everything falling down around us.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

That old tree across the road, still in the same place, is a good metaphor for this week, and frankly for the whole world right now: everything falling down around us. Yesterday's so called "press conference" hit a new low, and our media faithfully transcribes it all. Meanwhile the Albuquerque Journal is intent on trying to prove that COVID-19 cases in the state are "leveling off," and today, "have hit the peak," and yet we hit a record number, by a good margin, of new cases yesterday, and the Indigenous population, which constitutes FORTY-FOUR PERCENT of all cases in this state, continues to spike drastically, and testing is still criminally low.

But the Journal has been a racist colonial rag for years, and they love erasing us, except when they can portray us as criminals.

Meanwhile, things are breaking here, too. It's the end of a shitty week in a lot of ways, and it got made worse by the fact that a few days ago, my laptop blew an A/C port, which means 1) I can no longer cool it while running it, and 2) if I need to plug any kind of USB thing into it, I have to take it to battery power. In the process, it borked both my sleep mode AND my e-mail, so if you've sent me a message and haven't heard from me, that's why; I can get incoming, but can't send outgoing. I tried to fix that this morning, got it to work briefly, but now? Who knows? [And SR: I saw your lovely, kind, thoughtful message last night and we are so grateful. I tried replying from a different e-mail, but it may be in your spam filter. Or today's reply may have worked; I can't tell. (And if nothing comes through, the button is in the upper right of this page.)]

My camera is on its last legs, there's no such thing as a bread machine anywhere and barely any paper towels to be had. We can't get the scrip for Miika unless and until the vet can come out and see her in person, and that may not even be on the 4th. The mower repair yesterday was just shy of $500, cash on the barrelhead. We still have to pay Ivan to till and disc and plant the fields. And we still don't know what our taxes are going to be (and no, we have NOT gotten any stimulus check, natch).

Anyway, the upshot is that we need to make sales. I think the fields are getting disced next week for planting; that's going to cost. So are the horses' vaxes and spring check-ups, which is tentatively scheduled for May 4th. Farrier's coming out Thursday to do more work on Miika's laminitic left front (she has to be done in stages, and yes, there will be masking and social distancing via the end of a lead). At some point, the dogs have to go in for their vaxes and so forth. And we both have doctor's appointments, which will be telemedicine via my laptop, assuming it holds, the first week of May. That's a hell of a lot of expense, over and above all the usual monthly expenses, monsoonal patterns of another sort, and I need to cover it somehow, hence the next graf:

Over the course of last week, I featured, on his site, some of his most valuable (and highest-priced) works. If we could sell them all, we could sock 90% of it into savings and be assured of making it through the rest of the year and into the next, barring disaster. I don't actually have any real hope of doing that, but if you're one of the folks who's been looking at these works and thinking that someday you might want to invest the money in one or more? Now would be the time; it would help ensure our survival through this pandemic and likely to the first of next year, and help us to be able to help other folks in our community here who are going to need it badly. So please, this week especially, share all of our links, because while we're all in isolation? Income is already at virtually nothing, and we can survive the isolation, but not the inability to feed the maw of all the bills. The links are here:

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

Note: For now, please don't buy anything off the Amazon wishlist; to do so would be crossing a picket line, and some of their workers have struck this morning to fight for safer working conditions because their lives are being put at even greater risk during this pandemic. If you find one of the items elsewhere, wonderful (there's even a wishlist function where you can note that it's been purchased somewhere else).

Other than that, 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.