A little sunshine.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021;
all rights reserved.

A little sunshine on what has begun as an absolutely terrible day. No, it's far too early for sunflowers here; somebody has a greenhouse operation. Wings brought it home from the store for me yesterday; it has my beloved Peruvian lilies and golds and magentas and burgundies among the mums and carnations and a single bluebell and that brilliant sunflower. And it just made me happy, so there's that.

Because this has been a ghastly couple of weeks, and today has already been absolute trash. I went out this morning to collect eggs, only to find that Petunia had keeled over dead in the night, presumably of the same heart failure that we're sure took her sister, Poppy, a couple of weeks ago. So for the first time in years, we're down to single digits in our chicken population: only nine.

The wind is murderous, howling through here at 45 mph and more. And Wings and J were out working in it on that damn fence until half an hour ago, at which point it just got to be too much. Meanwhile, for me it's a migraine, dislocations in all major joints systems, and last night, my left knee and left ankle were so badly out of place that my ankle and foot ballooned to double their usual size. The pain is unmanageable now. Oh, and IKT had a power outage that lasted for an hour and ten minutes while I was trying frantically to get my work done, so there's that.

The autoimmune stuff is bad right now. And by "bad" I mean "absolutely crippling" in the literal sense of that word. As I said, I'm having major problems with subluxations and dislocations and full-body muscle cramping and pain that's off the charts completely now. By now, we've pretty well established that at least some of this is not just what I go through every spring, but enhanced substantially by the longer-term effects of a vaccine whose manufacturers apparently deliberately excluded a certain population from its trials (those with rheumatic/inflammatory autoimmune diseases, precisely because they weren't sure how it would react). Yeah, it's still better than the alternative, because COVID-19 will kill me, no question. But it's a real problem in more ways than I can even identify yet, and it's causing me indescribable pain and fatigue and lack of functionality now, at a time when I need it most. 

And this is why I'm out of contact with folks right now, because I can't even think straight, the pain is so bad; conversations are beyond me at the moment. It's also why I can't seem to get anywhere on my own work. And now, I have to come up with sales to cover one more thing, which will be about $500, maybe $550 now $400 now $300 once shipping is said and done. Wings's grinder and buffing wheel have been babied along for years and years and years; we replaced part of the whole contraption about . . . seven years ago, I think it was. But it's very old, and there are things on the higher-end polishing front it can't do, things that he needs to be able to do, and Rio Grande has the option he needs.  At $475 + tax and shipping. So I need to sell something worth that much now; selling anything, actually, would be very helpful right now. And there's a bunch of new work on the site.

Because in addition to the new machinery for his work, the taxes are the big thing still hanging over my head, as well as a bunch of other stuff for the year to come.  And then there's Wings's hearing aids, because I think he's finally convinced that we need to make the investment. And, of course, we have to get hold of Pojoaque Pueblo's bison program to 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.I 'm going to need to set up PayPal pools to fund all of these things if we can't make a whole bunch of sales now. It's endless, and I am so tired just thinking about it.

We need sales. Sales, sales, SALES.

SALES. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS RIGHT NOW, AND I CANNOT GET ANY TIME TO MAKE SALES.

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? The first two and a half months of 2021? 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'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 (priorities are LaminaSaver for Miika & metal/glass cleaners);
• 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.