This year's birthday gift. Another seven bangles for my other wrist, alternating stamped and plain, all wrought of copper, and all square. These were harder than it looks, because they began life as copper ingot; he cut them himself and milled them all by hand, then stamped four in a chased pattern all the way around, then shaped all seven into squares. They GLOW. And they feel so good on my wrist. He created them to balance my other set of seven that were last year's gift, but he chose copper specifically to help with my constant hand and wrist pain (he's made me three or four copper cuffs over the years for the same purpose).
Farrier's coming out in about forty minutes, so that'll be another expense. This is the one who specializes in laminitis, the one who worked with us early on with Cree years ago. He's more expensive, obviously, but Miika needs someone who knows how to deal with the specific pain and problems that she faces, and however nice and earnest the other farrier is, he doesn't get this kind of thing. It's not going to be particularly pleasant, though; overnight, the wind shifted, and we have smoke everywhere. The fire has spread; after trying to insist that it was below 7K acres yesterday, they've admitted this morning that it's mapped at about 10,600 acres currently and growing. Zero containment. Folks in the fire zone are spending today prepping for evac. Meanwhile, we're praying that the smoke is all we get from it. Not everything that glows is good.
Also meanwhile, I have to get us through the rest of the year safely. My next big thing is finding a way to cover Wings's aids, because this is one of those things that urgent now. One sale of 3 grand would do it; selling today's feature and last Wednesday's feature would also do it. Whatever, I have to raise it, and so I'm going to be back to flogging sales daily, hard.
My laptop is still slowly dying, as is my camera, both of which are integral parts of our work. I hope they make it through year's end, but they may not. The laptop is down to one working port, and if I lose that, I'm screwed. I was also reminded a few days ago that at some point, we need to buy hay for the horses for winter before 1) the price skyrockets even more than it already has, and 2) there's none left to buy at all. We used to have the best hay in the county; we could've sold it for top dollar, but we fed it to our own horses. The drought, though, which, as I said, has brought us less than no precipitation of any sort and is looking like it will bring us none for winter, either, has meant that nothing grows (which is why we need to drill the damn well). So somewhere, I also need to come up with ~$1,550 to cover 100 bales of decent-quality hay for them. Yup. $15.50 a bale for just "decent"; not outstanding, not the stuff we used to be able to grow, just the kind that won't make them sick with mold and whatever other contaminants are in the cheap stuff. That's where this drought has put us now. We had the horse vet out yesterday with Miika's meds; farrier tomorrow, for even more expense And of course, I still need to figure out how to cover the ~$15K for drilling the well, so that maybe in future years, we won't be over this particular barrel. I have no idea how I'm going to do all this, but I do know that we need to make steady sales to survive.
We paid the last of the regular monthly bills last week, including the monthly payment on my medical loan. No car tow and repair, though: Now we've discovered a place where the mice are getting in, yes, courtesy of the plumbers' fuckery, and since mice here carry hantavirus and plague, we have to get that fixed. We'll no longer be able to put anything aside for next month, in all likelihood, because while Wings has done the physical block-off and clean-up, we have to get Nano out next week, if at all possible, to resolve the plumbing issues; it can't wait any longer. But that's going to be another grand that I need to raise from somehwere. I still say that if you're planning on making donations to Indigenous folks on this day, please choose those who are unhoused, whose housing or food security is precarious, who have children who need things, who need to get medical care or prescriptions filled or a vehicle repaired. But if you're in the market to buy, please consider us, because two episodes of nearly dying were more than enough, but this year is already damn near killing me, and I have to get us through into next year safely somehow.
Winter is coming, though, and neither the drought nor the pandemic is going anywhere. Nor is all the fallout from it (see above), nor the big-ticket items I have to replace due to simple age and wear (also see above). We will need to continue to make consistent sales through the end of the year (because normally, it's our holiday-season sales that see us through the whole first half of the following year, although I doubt we'll make anything like that this year). So please share the links, and when you're in the market for gorgeous, authentic, Spirit-infused Indigenous wearable art, Wings will have something perfect for you. The links are here:
It's still my birthday month, and the best gift I could have would be to make some steady sales, now, and in the days and weeks to come. Thanks.
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