Today's been a lot already.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

Yesterday's light. It's gray again out there now, after a mostly sunny start. Fortunately, the wind's only begun to pick up in the last half-hour or so, so I was not standing out there holding Miskwaki for the vet and simultaneously being battered by it.

Which is good, because today's been a lot already. It looks as though he's probably okay, just problems with the quality of the hay available in this long-term drought plus the ongoing after-effects of his early abuse and neglect, which included long-term starvation and dehydration. Still, he's ~20 years old now, so the vet drew blood, and he's sending it out for a basic workup, as well as doing a fecal analysis, just to be on the safe side. He's coming back in late April to do annuals for both horses, which includes shots and deworming. The cost for all of it was significantly less than with our old horse vet, so that's a plus.

The minus was the now-urgent need to find good-quality grass hay, and there has been NONE available. Wings has been trying all winter long, and the best we've been able to do is grass with some alfalfa mixed in, the latter of which of course is not good for either horse. He's also been picking out the alfalfa as much as humanly possible, but it's hit or miss. Meanwhile, what's left? The drought has made the quality of the grass hay around here frankly terrible.  It's been a mix of two years' worth of old stuff, non-hay mixed in, fairly frequent mold, etc. And the cost? Is now completely inverted; where top-grade alfalfa (like ours) used to go for $12-20 a bale, now that the cost of grass, and alfalfa is like $7 a bale.

But Wings finally found some this morning, courtesy of a guy he went to high school with. He made us a deal at $12/bale, which is still $600 for $50 that we had slated for other expenses. But the good news is that folks stepped up for Miskwaki and Miika, and it's now entirely covered. The guy's son will deliver it tomorrow. [I did have to add LaminaSaver for Miika's laminitis back on to the Amazon wishlist, and that one's urgent. Each tub is a 3-month supply, and we only need 1 every 3 months.]

The freezer's supposed to be delivered tomorrow, too, which means that sometime soon we'll need to get hold of Pojoaque's program and see how much it will cost to buy a share of a buffalo. Early research suggests around ~$2K, so we may need to crowdfund that. The thing about it is that it won't feed only us; it'll get shared with other folks.

Also, yesterday, we submitted an application to the state for a grant that, if we're lucky enough to get it, will cover about 2/3 of the cost of the well we have to drill as soon as possible ("as soon as possible" being months in the offing yet, because $15K total for the whole operation, and also they're booked for several months already). And then there's Wings's hearing aids, because I think he's finally convinced that we need to make the investment. I'm going to need to set up PayPal pools to fund them, absent making a whole bunch of sales now. It's endless, and I am so tired just thinking about it.

Meanwhile, I'm way behind, still have to deal with taxes, second vaccine dose due day after tomorrow, and assuming it comes off as scheduled, I have to be prepared to be useless for several days thereafter, and I don't have that kind of spare time. Meanwhile, like the expenses, the work keeps piling on, and we're not making any sales (2 since the first of the year, and there's no way we survive on that, never mind help anyone else). The last couple of years have required us to dig deep and ante up to help others at a level we've never done before. This year? Has already buried that. But as I said about that being why we do what we do, especially now in these days of pandemic, it's become abundantly clear that too often, there IS NO tomorrow, and the only chance you might have to help someone stay alive is TODAY. Things are bad locally; no economy, nothing. No vaccines for most folks dependent on the state system, either. We have lost SO much to 2020 (and already in 2021), so very, very many people, and the gifts and the talents and the knowledge and the wisdom they carried too often lost with them. 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. People continue to need help, and we give it, but we're up well over $2 grand in just that one week, and a whole lot more before and since. 

I can juggle for now, but I've got to find it again somewhere. Part of my work involves me reorganizing the Web site and then promoting the hell out of everything again. That's on top of all the other work I need to do around here, and I have been mostly useless, largely due to the recent flurry of episodes with my health. For every episode, it takes me multiple days to recover, all while hoping that another one doesn't set me back even further. That's not good. Too many people need help, and the government remains determined to see us die. There's work to do. This is why I've had to stop doing some things; there are just not enough hours in the day anymore, and I've got to make it all of this up somewhere. So:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (LaminaSaver for Miika is now urgent);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

And if you've been contemplating a purchase? This would be a very, very good time to do it; I've got to make up this staggering outlay somehow. There's even new work, here and here and now here, among other new pieces from 3 weeks ago, too, so please watch for them and 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.