Yesterday afternoon, with the beginnings of the thaw. Today, the mercury's well into the mid-forties, and the melt is well under way, having already taken several inches off the top of everything by early this morning. Now, thanks to Wings have plowed as much as he could yesterday before the winch the holds the plow blade broke (one more thing we'll need to pay to have repaired, and we don't have it), there's already earth showing through along the paths.
Yesterday was hellish on a number of fronts, and today's more of the same. Yesterday morning, I discovered that someone had somehow gotten hold of our debit card info (a wealthy white woman in NJ, to be precise, because a white woman in a house worth nearly $700K obviously needs OUR money for video games so much more than we rez NDNs trying to stay alive in a global pandemic) and had run up $180 in Playstation card charges. They expected us to get it back, but we may not now, because after two more attempts at fraud overnight, the issued canceled the card and issued us a new one today. We can't afford to be out that kind of money, though.
And then there's the broken winch for the plow, and I'm back to tearing my hair out, because I'm already buried under an avalanche of looming expenses, with no sales to cover them.
I'm scared. Our Web site hits are down by 60-70% daily now, and the pandemic is worsening here fast. In our tiny county of fewer than 32K people? We've had 76 new cases in the last 16 days; 47 of them in the last FIVE. Several businesses are shut down, and it's not because of the weather; it's because everyone has to quarantine. It's going to get very much worse before it gets better, and at this point? I genuinely don't know how we make it. I have got to bring in some sales, and there's nothing.
It's no longer a question of winter coming; winter is HERE, and in a very big and dangerous way. It's a good thing, after months with no precipitation of any kind and the land dying literally, visibly, around us. We're warm and housed, but this on top of the pandemic? Is going to make things very much worse in the short term, and probably the longer term of what remains of fall and all of winter into spring, too.
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 is urgent now. One sale of 3 grand would do it; whatever, I have to raise it, and so I'm going to be back to flogging sales daily, hard. I also have to cover Miika's hoof work, the hay, and more immediately, the plumbing.
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. We cannot live without either one, because they are both necessary for our work at the most very basic level. 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. 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, which means I have got to make sales somehow. It's all on me, and I can't do this alone. So please share the links, and if/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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