 |
| Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. |
This is the first year ever that the jays, both scrub and piñon, have spent the entire winter with us right here on the land. Of course, it's also the first-ever winter that the grosbeaks and goldfinches have spent here, and it's all due to the ravages of climate change and drought. It's a gift to know that they find refuge here, but it's a wild kind of sanctuary, one in which we attempt to keep them alive and their numbers good by making consistent food and water available, but still keeping our distance sufficiently not to upset the delicate balance of their existence as creatures of and in the wild.
Normally, we wouldn't worry about it much beyond putting out basic food, but as with the elk, the whole thing driving them down here is lack of food, courtesy of drought and climate change, but also driven by encroaching colonial overdevelopment, too. In recent years, the elk have been so hungry that they have ventured out onto the highway at night, crossing it in search of sustenance somewhere, anywhere. That puts them at risk of being hit, yes, but it also puts them squarely in poachers' sites, and the wild herd is small enough (and at risk enough) as it is. So as long as they know they can come here and find enough to stay alive, they come down at night, remaining squarely of this side of the highway's dangers, and vanish back up into the lower back country before dawn.
If only it were so easy to keep people safe. New year, and people are still being thrown out into the streets, which is why I keep running Twitter threads daily. I don't always have the time to RT them all myself, but I make an effort. Folks in desperate need of housing, food, heat, medicine and medical care. It's an abomination, but here we are, because this society's structure depends upon marginalizing certain populations out of existence if possible, into pathologizing and criminalizing them if not.
I do have to bring in sales, because we are facing extraordinary costs this month, but I am mindful of the fact that we will not freeze or starve, and that puts us in a position far more fortunate than too many folks in families this winter, in the middle of a deadly global pandemic currently raging unchecked here.
As I said yesterday, January is always the hardest month of our year (July runs a close second, but it's not as bad as January). We have a ton of annual or biannual expenses that come due, some insurance but mostly business-related. That fact doesn't make them any less necessary, nor any less urgent, and this year winds up being the most expensive yet. To cover everything I absolutely have to cover, I have to bring in $3,000 now. Most of them will not recur (save a couple in July) until next January, but we made exactly four holiday sales this year, an all-time low, and as terrible as things are here for everyone? They're about to get a lot worse. On top of it all, my Patreon payout last night was down $400 from its actual subscription level (again); $100 of it I was expecting, folks having let me know in advance that their financial situations had changed and that they needed to unsubscribe as a result, but the other $300 have apparently simply not gone through. And they may not go through at all; everyone's struggling. But that's a big hit for us in a month like this.
There is no economy now. There's nothing. People are literally dying all around us from the government's failures, and I don't know how we keep them, or us, alive unless I can cover the bills. We have lost SO much to 2020, so very, very many people, and the gifts and the talents and the knowledge and the wisdom they carried too often lost with them. Because this state has followed the lead of the country and refused to do what was required, we are about to see a very big spike in new cases, probably as early as two weeks from now; the current spike in deaths remains sustained daily. People have needed so much more help than we could give them, but we did as much as we could, even when it put us in a bind, and we will need to do much more of that this year. But I am entering 2021 already carrying an enormous burden, and I have to get the $3K in expenses handled. So:
The January avalanche of outsized expenses has already begun this morning. This is going to be our toughest one yet, in terms of sheer cost, and our worst month of the entire year in that regard. I need to bring in that $3K very fast to cover it all, so please share all of our links. And if you've been contemplating a purchase? Marking the birth of 2021 would be a very, very good time to do it. There's even new work, here and here, so please share the links.
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
No comments :
Post a Comment