Killing the land in front of us.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

That's the top of the basin of the Spoonbowl. There is no snow. NONE. But the ski resort insists on opening Thursday, which means that ALL the snow will be man-made. You know how they do it? They blast water into the freezing air. Apparently to cover something like 20K square feet with 6 inches of man-made snow requires 75,000 gallons of water.

There IS no water.

They need to close that place down. Permanently. Stop all development. The land can't support it. But colonizers don't care, and they're literally killing the land in front of us.

Between the colonial invasions, the raging pandemic (spiking anew daily and about to get far worse), and the climate change catastrophe that colonialism is inflicting on this land up close and in real time, prospects for this winter are absolutely terrifying. There is no water; no rain; no snow; and still they keep doing the same damn thing as though nothing matters. I suppose to them it doesn't; colonialism is a particularly violent form of nihilism, after all.

But we have to live with the results. And we still have to get the work done.

Today was going to be, we thought, one last day of constant running, barely enough time to breathe, before settling back into something a little more routine, but NOPE: Two things we couldn't do today, one because of an unexpected closure and one simply because of lack of time, so they have to be handled tomorrow. Yes, this is our busiest time of year, but that's the nature of what we do; from October 1st through year's end, it's 16-hour+ days, seven days a week. No breaks. And because of the shipping mess, we're in crunch time already. For those folks having us hold items, we need to get this wrapped up now because of said shipping mess. Wings has new pieces in the works, too, although at the moment he's tied up with more immediate orders; I expect that some of the new items will be available next week or the week after.

Yes, it always comes back to needing to make more sales. A lot more, because we have two years' worth of a shattered pandemic economy to make up for, by which I mean we need to gain more ground ourselves financially to be able to be sure of making it through the winter. And again, if you're planning on commissioning gifts for the holidays, DO IT NOW. [And that includes just ordinary orders for the holidays, too.] Yes, I mean NOW. We're dealing with the same supply-chain issues as everyone else, and at some point soon, Wings is going to have to get silver and stones to produce holiday inventory, and I'm hearing that the price is already spiking on the metals. More to the point of what customers care about, we also can't guarantee shipping times this year, because see above. But I've posted a ton of Wings's new work lately, and there will be more in the days and weeks to come. If I could sell one of the big works, like one of the belts, maybe I could get us on the drill list for the well that is the only thing that's going to keep this land alive. But I've got way too much to do and too few hours and other resources to do it. 

Anyway, I have GOT to continue to make sales, so links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities are first and foremost, the ladders, because see above, and coffee coffee coffee, which we're finding it harder and harder to get locally);
• 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 cover all this staggering outlay somehow and get us through what's left of the year. And right now? I have no way to do it.  But there's lots of fabulous new work, so please share all of 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.