Helping. Or not.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

Wings was working on the Ford yesterday, and of course, nothing happens in this household with those two helping. Or not, as the case may be. It's always something here, and they always have to be involved.

I'm beat.  The pain is really wearing me down, leaving me absolutely no buffer between it and all the things I need to get done. And of course today was more expense. The rest is all the cut-and-paste, but the upshot is that I need to bring in at least three good sales this week to cover the immediate expenses that can't be delayed (my medical stuff? that's being delayed. again.). Three sales. That's what I need to bring in this week. And the next. Actually, make it four for this week, because the torch kit and tank refill and associated costs came out of what I was expecting to use on medical/tax stuff, except, hey, never mind, they said they had two in stock, but called today to say that "since it's backordered," they'll have to call us when one comes in. So no torch. Which means no new silverwork. Which has me really pissed off at the moment, because I wouldn't have bothered if they hadn't said they had two in stock. I'm at my wits' end.

If you haven't been reading daily, you won't know that I've been forced off the lupus meds entirely, because they were dropping my blood glucose to dangerously low levels. Those were D-MARDS (disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs), which have immune-modulating characteristics, which helps ameliorate immunosuppression. I dn't have that anymore; now I have only a wholly inadequate supply of pain meds, and prednisone, which does suppress my immune system, making me far more susceptible to things like COVID (and which we have both managed to avoid for nearly three years now, because we take every conceivable precaution available to us).

The other part of it? Is the PAIN. The moment I went off the meds, my immune system kicked straight into high gear again, and now in addition to all the other lupus symptoms, the pain resulting from the damaged connective tissue around my joints is murderous. It's hard to do anything normally, and not only are we now entering our busiest season of the year, but I am also seriously under the gun to make sales because of everything ahead of us, especially these next two weeks.

We were blessed to make two sales over the weekend, with the promise of another later this week. Top-of-the-head calculations suggest that if I could make three sales a week, every week for the rest of the year, we'd be okay for now. That's an average and a guess, but a pretty close one, I think. So I need to make three more sales between now and this Saturday, then do it all over again each week thereafter.

Put that way, it doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot. But I have to do something. For one thing, Wings is going to need to buy silver to create inventory for the holiday season, and silver prices have literally TRIPLED this year. A lot of Native jewelers and smiths are going to put out of business by that. it's my job to make sure that doesn't happen to him, but I can't do it single-handedly. I need folks to share his work, our links, their testimonials if they own his work already.

Because tomorrow begins the appointments rounds all over again, this time his. Mine are being delayed.

So please, share them. All the links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priority is first and foremost, the other ladder; also sheets);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

We're still hoping to put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring, too, Nah, we've given up on the well. No one's available to drill before late next year at the earliest, and this year's tax burden means we would never be able to afford it anyway. But it's even more of a good time to make a purchase, because Uncle Sam is a vindictive colonizer, and my current stress levels about paying it all are off the charts. And there's lots of fabulous work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                                   

Beneath the Braided Sweetgrass Sky of Fall

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's a work for this bright threshold season with both the land and the four corners of the sky in full abundant flower. It's a cuff built around an etraordinary cabochon of finely webbed turquoise, set upon a twinned and woven band, capturing the beauty of these first early days beneath the braided sweetgrass sky of fall.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. We badly need to make consistent sales to make it through the rest of this third year of pandemic and loss (with an outrageously costly couple of weeks immediately ahead of us), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.  

Probably not.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

Every now and then, they show us what they really think. It's a Say's phoebe, sitting atop an old giant piece of petrified wood. he'd been looking at me, and I guess he decided to see if we humans look any less weird from an extreme angle. 

Probably not.

Today's appointment got rescheduled, so that left time for other problems. One of which was Wings discovering that he needed to refill the tank for his acetylene torch, because the gauge on it finally gave up the ghost after . . . what? Only thirty-five, forty years. Which is a really good run, but it meant thathe had to refill the tank, which isn't exactly cheap, and I had to order him a new gauge kit, which, by the time tax and shipping were added on, came to $180 cash that we weren't expecting to have to spend this week. And until. it arrives, he won't be able to work in the studio, because it's not just soldering; it's also annealing.

Tomorrow is more expense. I've had almost no sleep for the past four or five days, which ratchets up my pain levels drastically. And as I said yesterday, this week and next are going to be very hard, and very costly. But as I also said, I don't have the resources, physically, mentally, or otherwise to repeat or revise any of it right now, so the rest is all the cut-and-paste, but the upshot is that I need to bring in at least three good sales this week to cover the immediate expenses that can't be delayed (my medical stuff? that's being delayed. again.). Three sales. That's what I need to bring in this week. And the next. Actually, make it four for this week, because the torch kit and tank refill and associated costs came out of what I was expecting to use on medical/tax stuff.

If you haven't been reading daily, you won't know that I've been forced off the lupus meds entirely, because they were dropping my blood glucose to dangerously low levels. Those were D-MARDS (disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs), which have immune-modulating characteristics, which helps ameliorate immunosuppression. I dn't have that anymore; now I have only a wholly inadequate supply of pain meds, and prednisone, which does suppress my immune system, making me far more susceptible to things like COVID (and which we have both managed to avoid for nearly three years now, because we take every conceivable precaution available to us).

The other part of it? Is the PAIN. The moment I went off the meds, my immune system kicked straight into high gear again, and now in addition to all the other lupus symptoms, the pain resulting from the damaged connective tissue around my joints is murderous. It's hard to do anything normally, and not only are we now entering our busiest season of the year, but I am also seriously under the gun to make sales because of everything ahead of us, especially these next two weeks.

We were blessed to make two sales over the weekend, with the promise of another later this week. Top-of-the-head calculations suggest that if I could make three sales a week, every week for the rest of the year, we'd be okay for now. That's an average and a guess, but a pretty close one, I think. So I need to make three more sales between now and this Saturday, then do it all over again each week thereafter.

Put that way, it doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot. But I have to do something. For one thing, Wings is going to need to buy silver to create inventory for the holiday season, and silver prices have literally TRIPLED this year. A lot of Native jewelers and smiths are going to put out of business by that. it's my job to make sure that doesn't happen to him, but I can't do it single-handedly. I need folks to share his work, our links, their testimonials if they own his work already.

Because tomorrow begins the appointments rounds all over again, this time his. Mine are being delayed.

So please, share them. All the links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priority is first and foremost, the other ladder; also sheets);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

We're still hoping to put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring, too, Nah, we've given up on the well. No one's available to drill before late next year at the earliest, and this year's tax burden means we would never be able to afford it anyway. But it's even more of a good time to make a purchase, because Uncle Sam is a vindictive colonizer, and my current stress levels about paying it all are off the charts. And there's lots of fabulous work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                                   

Red Willow Spirit: In the Embrace of the Spirit of the Autumn Sky

Photo copyright Wings, 2022; all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's an edition of Red Willow Spirit for these days of fall overlapping summer's end. It's three images and two new works of wearable art, completed only days ago, that speak to the medicine of this season when the land, and we, rest in the embrace of the spirit of the autumn sky.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. As always, his photos are available in any of the usual three formats; simply inquire via the site's Contact form. We badly need to make consistent sales to make it through the rest of this third year of pandemic and loss (with an outrageously costly couple of weeks immediately ahead of us), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.        

Downright scary.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

Good to have friends come to visit. Like that one up there, yesterday. Circled overhead for a while in those gorgeous blue skies, just skreeing away happily.

The skies got really dark in the evening, though. Wild weather; down a tree on the highway itno town. All we got was a short shower, but there was rotation in thoe winds, and it was downright scary.

I also have a lovely black eye, a gift from Daffy, one of the chickens. [No, it's short for Daffodil, because her feathers are light yellow, but it fits the other way, too.] She didn't want to go into the coop last night, and I bent down to herd her in and she levitated, the little shit. I didn't know she was capable of jumping that high. Talons knocked my sunglasses off and raked down the inside of my right eye, from lid to end of the side of my nose, missing the eye itself by the width of an eyelash. I'm lucky to have nothing more than a black eye and a cheekbone that seems to be missing (behind the swelling) out of it.

But this is gonna be a hard week, and so is the next one. I don't have the resources, physically, mentally, or otherwise to repeat or revise any of it right now, so the rest is all the cut-and-paste, but the upshot is that I need to bring in at least three good sales this week to cover the immediate expenses that can't be delayed (my medical stuff? that's being delayed. again.).

If you haven't been reading daily, you won't know that I've been forced off the lupus meds entirely, because they were dropping my blood glucose to dangerously low levels. Those were D-MARDS (disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs), which have immune-modulating characteristics, which helps ameliorate immunosuppression. I dn't have that anymore; now I have only a wholly inadequate supply of pain meds, and prednisone, which does suppress my immune system, making me far more susceptible to things like COVID (and which we have both managed to avoid for nearly three years now, because we take every conceivable precaution available to us).

The other part of it? Is the PAIN. The moment I went off the meds, my imune system kicked straight into high gear again, and now in addition to all the other lupus symptoms, the pain resulting from the damaged connective tissue around my joints is murderous. It's hard to do anything normally, and not only are we now entering our busiest season of the year, but I am also seriously under the gun to make sales because of everything ahead of us, especially these next two weeks.

We were blessed to make two sales yesterday, with the promise of another later this week. Top-of-the-head calculations suggest that if I could make three sales a week, every week for the rest of the year, we'd be okay for now. That's an average and a guess, but a pretty close one, I think. So I need to make three more sales between now and this Saturday, then do it all over again each week thereafter.

Put that way, it doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot. But I have to do something. For one thing, Wings is going to need to buy silver to create inventory for the holiday season, and silver prices have literally TRIPLED this year. A lot of Native jewelers and smiths are going to put out of business by that. it's my job to make sure that doesn't happen to him, but I can't do it single-handedly. I need folks to share his work, our links, their testimonials if they own his work already.

Because tomorrow begins the appointments rounds all over again, this time his. Mine are being delayed.

So please, share them. All the links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priority is first and foremost, the other ladder; also sheets);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

We're still hoping to put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring, too, Nah, we've given up on the well. No one's available to drill before late next year at the earliest, and this year's tax burden means we would never be able to afford it anyway. But it's even more of a good time to make a purchase, because Uncle Sam is a vindictive colonizer, and my current stress levels about paying it all are off the charts. And there's lots of fabulous work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                                   

Monday Photo Meditation: Dancing On the Threshold of Autumn

Photo copyright Wings, 2022; all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's a photo meditation for the last Monday of meteorological summer, and for the sometimes-melancholy medicine of the flowers of an early fall. It's a reminder, too, to recalibrate how we view the world now, to remember that while we are dancing on the threshold of autumn now, the flowers will return, reborn, next year.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. As always, his photos are available in any of the usual three formats; simply inquire via the site's Contact form. We badly need to make consistent sales to make it through the rest of this third year of pandemic and loss (with an outrageously costly couple of weeks immediately ahead of us), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.     

It's a lot.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

That was yesterday, and it's very far from the only one, or from being the most yellow, either. I told yoou the trees were turning already; it was four days ago, maybe five, that I found the first yellowed aspen leaves already on the ground. 

There are a lot more of them now.

Fall is already here. It doesn't matter what the calendar says; it's here, and all signs so far point to an early and heavy winter. That will be good for us, because it will be good for the land, but physically, it will also be hard. And Spirit knows we've got enough to worry about already.

If you haven't been reading daily, you won't know that I've been forced off the lupus meds entirely, because they were dropping my blood glucose to dangerously low levels. Those were D-MARDS (disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs), which have immune-modulating characteristics, which helps ameliorate immunosuppression. I dn't have that anymore; now I have only a wholly inadequate supply of pain meds, and prednisone, which does suppress my immune system, making me far more susceptible to things like COVID (and which we have both managed to avoid for nearly three years now, because we take every conceivable precaution available to us).

The other part of it? Is the PAIN. The moment I went off the meds, my imune system kicked straight into high gear again, and now in addition to all the other lupus symptoms, the pain resulting from the damaged connective tissue around my joints is murderous. It's hard to do anything normally, and not only are we now entering our busiest season of the year, but I am also seriously under the gun to make sales because of everything ahead of us, especially these next two weeks.

We were blessed to make two sales yesterday, with the promise of another later this week. Top-of-the-head calculations suggest that if I could make three sales a week, every week for the rest of the year, we'd be okay for now. That's an average and a guess, but a pretty close one, I think. So I need to make three more sales between now and this Saturday, then do it all over again each week thereafter.

Put that way, it doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot. But I have to do something. For one thing, Wings is going to need to buy silver to create inventory for the holiday season, and silver prices have literally TRIPLED this year. A lot of Native jewelers and smiths are going to put out of business by that. it's my job to make sure that doesn't happen to him, but I can't do it single-handedly. I need folks to share his work, our links, their testimonials if they own his work already.

Because tomorrow begins the appointments rounds all over again, this time his. Mine are being delayed.

So please, share them. All the links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priority is first and foremost, the other ladder; also sheets);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

We're still hoping to put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring, too, Nah, we've given up on the well. No one's available to drill before late next year at the earliest, and this year's tax burden means we would never be able to afford it anyway. But it's even more of a good time to make a purchase, because Uncle Sam is a vindictive colonizer, and my current stress levels about paying it all are off the charts. And there's lots of fabulous work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                                   

The First Forest Light of an Early Fall

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's one of Wings's newest works, a pendant of extraordinary color and shimmer and mysterious morning glow. It's a pine cone as you've never seen it before, lit from within and without by a golden sun, in the first forest light of an early fall.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. We badly need to make consistent sales to make it through the rest of this third year of pandemic and loss (with an outrageously costly couple of weeks immediately ahead of us), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.  

So little time.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

All right, I'm re-upping these because they got posted fairly late last night, and I want them to get more traction: Wings's four newest works, three fabulous pendants and a ring. The pendant in the lower left (square rutilated quartz above triangular rhyolite) is already spoken for. The other two and the ring remain available, as well as the other new pendants from a few days ago.

And I need them to find their homes.

I also need to get onto some other things, including chasing sales, but other work besides. There's so much to do and so little time, and there's even less when disability and chronic pain and insomnia and fatigue steal even more hours from me every damn day.

As I said yesterday (and yes, the rest is cut-and-paste; I'm beat) I am staring down the barrel of a very deadly fall and winter, and dealing with all the practicalities of it falls to me and me alone, and if I do not bring in some decent sales this weekend and next week, we are well and truly fucked. Mostly me, because, again, I'm the one who deals with it, and also, I'm the one with several ridiculously expensive medical appointments in the offing over the next two weeks, and if nothing changes this weekend, every last one of them is getting canceled. All of it. I am so fucking tired; people have no idea.

Last Thursday set us back the $350+ that we have to come up with every 8 weeks to cover the farrier and horse vet for Miika. The animals come first, because this was done to them (by someone else) and they depend on us to fix it. But that puts me in a bind for other stuff. And there's a lot coming down the pike in the next few weeks for us, on a lot of fronts. There's the current tax bill, the regular installment payment for '21 taxes, due more or less now; there's the quarterly '22 payment due by mid-September. There's all the outlay last week on the last of the monthly bills and on medical stuff, and four figures' worth of medical stuff between now and the first week of September just for me, plus the cost of injections for Wings's shoulder next week. It all has to be paid in full at the time. In cash.

And I hope very soon I'll have the fundraiser info to promote for Wings's son, because he needs all the help we can give him with this.

But I need help to bring in sales to cover it all. Going off the lupus meds has immediately and drastically worsened my connective tissue problems, and now it's not the meds keeping me awake, but the pain. It's hard to function, especially since the effects won't be clear of my system before the end of the year, probably, and that means I'm still dealing with intermittently dangerously low blood glucose levels, too, on top of the way my pain has insnttly been jacked along with my mobility also dropping through the floor. But I have to chase sales, and I can't do this alone. I really, really need some help.

Meanwhile, as you can see, Wings is still cranking out new inventory when he can, but he's suddenly having to be much more mindful of what he creates, given the crisis-level spike in silver prices. As I said earlier, we just learned that both silver suppliers in this state have more than tripled their silver prices (for some types of silver, much more), which has left me pretty badly shaken. And it's across the board; even small things, like findings and earring wires and backs, have gone way, way up. He's got enough for now to do what he needs to do, but nothing's going to change anytime soon, given that the justifications for it will be "supply-chain issues," "fuel prices," "war in Ukraine," and "inflation"; these prices are here for the foreseeable future. It's going to put a lot of Native smiths and jewelers completely out of business, and to make sure that Wings does not become one of them, I have GOT to make some sales. That's especially true with the holidays coming; these silver spikes are going to make this fall a crisis point for a lot of jewelers. Unfortunately, I'm being hobbled by everything else. All the links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priority is first and foremost, the other ladder; also sheets);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

We're still hoping to put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring, too, Nah, we've given up on the well. No one's available to drill before late next year at the earliest, and this year's tax burden means we would never be able to afford it anyway. But it's even more of a good time to make a purchase, because Uncle Sam is a vindictive colonizer, and my current stress levels about paying it all are off the charts. And there's lots of fabulous work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                                   

The Protection of the Wildflower Petals

Photo copyright Aji, 2022;
all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's a masterwork for these late days of summer, a talismanic shield of beauty and medicine. It's a necklace from Wings's signature series, The Four Seasons, this one manifest in all the shades and shapes of healing and the protection of the wildflower petals that mark these weeks before official fall.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. We badly need to make consistent sales to make it through this third year of pandemic and loss (and a spectacularly costly couple of months, with much more to come), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.  

Completed just today, four incredible new works by Wings.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

I said I might have four new pieces for you tonight, and here they are: Completed just today, four incredible new works by Wings. It's three pendants and one ring, and of the pendants, I don't think I could choose a favorite if my life depended on it. They're all unique, and all absolutely extraordinary in very different ways.

First up is the one shown above, and I honestly cannot stop looking at it. This one is called The Dance of a Desert Sun, and it's nearly indescribable. The entire pendant is all one piece, all cut freehand, and with the stones bezel-worked onto the surface. At the top is a positively gel-like square of golden rutilated quartz, sunny yellow included through ice. Beneath is a ribbon skirt of Apache sage rhyolite, and yes, it is a regional form that naturally occurs in those "red desert landscape" effects. It's edged on all sides by five fiery garnets, four shimmering pink mussel shell cabs, and five coolly chatoyant gray moonstones, and it is a phenomenon unto itself. You can read its full description here.

The second work, also a pendant, bears stylistic resemblances, but color and feel are completely different:

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

This one is a flower; it's also earth and sea and sky. It's called In the Sky's Embrace, and again, it's a single backing, cut and scalloped freehand to follow the arc of what would eventually be sixteen small stones ringing that fabulous outsized chrysocolla at the center. That focal stone is unusual for chrysocolla, which normally has some bright sky-blue turquoise-like shades in it. This is all greens, spruce and emerald marbled with jet, and it's as mysterious as the forest and ocean depths. Around it are arrayed the clear desert sky shades of the Sleeping Beauty Skystone, along with the stormier thunderhead hues of lapis lazuli. It's also pretty phenomenal. You can read its full description here.

And then there's the third pendant, where the stone is almost everything:

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

This one is built around what is perhaps the most extraordinary specimen of modern Morenci turquoise I've ever seen. The one is called, simply and aptly, Sky Medicine, and nearly the whole of it is that fabulous stone. The cabochon is actually an even deeper blue than it renders on my screen here, and don't let the computers fool you: There's not an ounce of green in the matrix; it's all iron pyrite, ranging from flecks the color of bright silver to shadowy dustings that look almost like jet. It's the freeform egg shape you see here, courtesy of the master lapidarist from whom we acquired it, with only a scalloped bezel, twisted silver, and a pair of handmade sterling silver ingot "raindrops" for adornment. You can read its full description here.

A couple of things about the pendants: These are far more complex than the ones of a few days ago (or, in the case of the third one, built around an ultra-high-grade [and thus ultra-high-cost] stone), so the price points are naturally higher. Also, as each individual description notes, each ships with an 18" sterling silver snake chain, but they're sold as pendants, no beads or more complex accessories.

And speaking of complex (again), here's the fourth work, the ring:

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

This one is another two-stone ring, but it's quite a different from the rest. This one is a spiral ring called Rising On the Smoke, and it's a tribute to transformative spirits: Water Serpent (the coiled body, made of heavy sterling silver half-round "wire"); Water Bird (stamped in pairs, freehand, down its convex surface); along separate halves of the inner band, flowing water and Butterfly. It's wrapped twice on the underside, once at the top, and each end terminates in a fabulous faceted rainbow moonstone that refracts plenty of blue. It's currently a size 13 . . . but it's sizeable! Wings will simply detach the bezels, rewrap it to the appropriate size (with more coils, accordingly), and then solder them back into place and reset the stones. You can read its full description here.

One other thing: I really cannot emphasize enough how badly we need to make sales right now. We have a couple of huge (for us) must-pay expenses due now (this year's last tax payment plus quarterly for next year) at the same time as we both have a bunch of very costly medical stuff that needs to be done. If I could sell all four of these pieces and the five others from the past week (three pendants, pair of earrings, wristband)? We'd just about be able to cover all of it.

Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. And given the desperate need to make sales now, shares of the site links are much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.       

Not in its finished form.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

One of about four new pieces that I may be able to post yet tonight. That one is not in its finished form, however much it appears to be; at the moment, Wings's is out in the studio hard at work on this and two others, plus a ring.

Speaking of not in its finished form, neither is anything else these days. Yesterday was demoralizing, finding out the hoops of money, time, and battle with the crooks at the lab corp just to get this new treatment, and that assumes that the labs don't wind up excluding me on a genetic deficiency, and also that it has a hope in hell of working. Because by last night, the pain and fatigue were completely out of control, and it's only gotten worse today. 

I can't do this. There's too much breathing down my neck, and there's no help from any quarter, and I am at my wits' fucking end right now. The rest is cut-and-paste, because no, I don't have the spoons (and I hate that fucking infantile term, but it's what everyone knows), and I also know tht most folks haven't even bothered to read it the first time around. I am staring down the barrel of a very deadly fall and winter, and dealing with all the practicalities of it falls to me and me alone, and if I do not bring in some decent sales this weekend and next week, we are well and truly fucked. Mostly me, because, agian, I'm the one who deals with it, and also, I'm the one with several ridiculously expensive medical appointments in the offing over the next two weeks, and if nothing changes this weekend, every last one of them is getting canceled. All of it. I am so fucking tired; people have no idea.

Last Thursday set us back the $350+ that we have to come up with every 8 weeks to cover the farrier and horse vet for Miika. The animals come first, because this was done to them (by someone else) and they depend on us to fix it. But that puts me in a bind for other stuff. And there's a lot coming down the pike in the next few weeks for us, on a lot of fronts. There's the current tax bill, the regular installment payment for '21 taxes, due more or less now; there's the quarterly '22 payment due by mid-September. There's all the outlay last week on the last of the monthly bills and on medical stuff, and four figures' worth of medical stuff between now and the first week of September just for me, plus the cost of injections for Wings's shoulder next week. It all has to be paid in full at the time. In cash.

And I hope very soon I'll have the fundraiser info to promote for Wings's son, because he needs all the help we can give him with this.

But I need help to bring in sales to cover it all. Going off the lupus meds has immediately and drastically worsened my connective tissue problems, and now it's not the meds keeping me awake, but the pain. It's hard to function, especially since the effects won't be clear of my system before the end of the year, probably, and that means I'm still dealing with intermittently dangerously low blood glucose levels, too, on top of the way my pain has insnttly been jacked along with my mobility also dropping through the floor. But I have to chase sales, and I can't do this alone. I really, really need some help.

Meanwhile, as you can see, Wings is still cranking out new inventory when he can, but he's suddenly having to be much more mindful of what he creates, given the crisis-level spike in silver prices. As I said earlier, we just learned that both silver suppliers in this state have more than tripled their silver prices (for some types of silver, much more), which has left me pretty badly shaken. And it's across the board; even small things, like findings and earring wires and backs, have gone way, way up. He's got enough for now to do what he needs to do, but nothing's going to change anytime soon, given that the justifications for it will be "supply-chain issues," "fuel prices," "war in Ukraine," and "inflation"; these prices are here for the foreseeable future. It's going to put a lot of Native smiths and jewelers completely out of business, and to make sure that Wings does not become one of them, I have GOT to make some sales. That's especially true with the holidays coming; these silver spikes are going to make this fall a crisis point for a lot of jewelers. Unfortunately, I'm being hobbled by everything else. All the links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priority is first and foremost, the other ladder; also sheets);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

We're still hoping to put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring, too, Nah, we've given up on the well. No one's available to drill before late next year at the earliest, and this year's tax burden means we would never be able to afford it anyway. But it's even more of a good time to make a purchase, because Uncle Sam is a vindictive colonizer, and my current stress levels about paying it all are off the charts. And there's lots of fabulous work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                                   

Friday Feature: A Healing Earth Flowers With Medicine

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

It's our Friday Feature at The NDN Silver Blog, with a trio of works that serve as a symbolic tribute to the wildflower beauty of the summer season and the formative clay that makes it all possible. It's the first in Wings's final collection of seasonal gemstone bead works, The Summer Elementals:  Earth, brilliantly illustrating the truth that a healing earth flowers with medicine.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. We will still need to make consistent sales to make it through this third year of pandemic and loss (and a spectacularly costly couple of months, with much more to come), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.  

Wait until you see what's coming.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

That was yesterday (in the photo). Wait until you see what's coming. He has three currently in the works, done possibly as early as todayl we'll see. They wold have been, actually, had our morning not be taken up with a run into town for what turned out to be nothing.

Today was suppoesd to be my first MAH treatment. I was told to ask for the stick test first, to make sure that I do not have a very specific enzyme deficiency (it appears mostly in certain people of central and southern African ancestry, but that larger pool includes me, so . . .), because if I do have it, the treatment becomes deadly. Except that they're no longer doing it via stick test, but full-on blood draw, sending it away, etc., etc. Lab guy was gone. The M.A. could've taken it and sent it out, but there's a billing issue that would never be resolved if I didn't wait for the lab guy. Also, it now takes seven days to get results, so I won't be undergoing the screening before Monday, won't have results before the following Monday, and won't have my first treatment, if I'm even eligible, until the middle or latter half of September.

Gaaahhhhhhh.

But maybe it gives me time to bring in some sales to cover all of it (it'll be more costly now, obviously, than I was initially told), plus my pain therapy next week.

Last Thursday set us back the $350+ that we have to come up with every 8 weeks to cover the farrier and horse vet for Miika. The animals come first, because this was done to them (by someone else) and they depend on us to fix it. But that puts me in a bind for other stuff. And there's a lot coming down the pike in the next few weeks for us, on a lot of fronts. There's the current tax bill, the regular installment payment for '21 taxes, due more or less now; there's the quarterly '22 payment due by mid-September. There's all the outlay last week on the last of the monthly bills and on medical stuff, and four figures' worth of medical stuff between now and the first week of September just for me, plus the cost of injections for Wings's shoulder next week. It all has to be paid in full at the time. In cash.

And I hope very soon I'll have the fundraiser info to promote for Wings's son, because he needs all the help we can give him with this.

But I need help to bring in sales to cover it all. Going off the lupus meds has immediately and drastically worsened my connective tissue problems, and now it's not the meds keeping me awake, but the pain. It's hard to function, especially since the effects won't be clear of my system before the end of the year, probably, and that means I'm still dealing with intermittently dangerously low blood glucose levels, too, on top of the way my pain has insnttly been jacked along with my mobility also dropping through the floor. But I have to chase sales, and I can't do this alone. I really, really need some help.

Meanwhile, as you can see, Wings is still cranking out new inventory when he can, but he's suddenly having to be much more mindful of what he creates, given the crisis-level spike in silver prices. As I said earlier, we just learned that both silver suppliers in this state have more than tripled their silver prices (for some types of silver, much more), which has left me pretty badly shaken. And it's across the board; even small things, like findings and earring wires and backs, have gone way, way up. He's got enough for now to do what he needs to do, but nothing's going to change anytime soon, given that the justifications for it will be "supply-chain issues," "fuel prices," "war in Ukraine," and "inflation"; these prices are here for the foreseeable future. It's going to put a lot of Native smiths and jewelers completely out of business, and to make sure that Wings does not become one of them, I have GOT to make some sales. That's especially true with the holidays coming; these silver spikes are going to make this fall a crisis point for a lot of jewelers. Unfortunately, I'm being hobbled by everything else. All the links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priority is first and foremost, the other ladder; also sheets);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

We're still hoping to put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring, too, Nah, we've given up on the well. No one's available to drill before late next year at the earliest, and this year's tax burden means we would never be able to afford it anyway. But it's even more of a good time to make a purchase, because Uncle Sam is a vindictive colonizer, and my current stress levels about paying it all are off the charts. And there's lots of fabulous work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                                   

#ThrowbackThursday: The Green of Leaf and Petal In the Late-Summer Light

Photo copyright Wings, 2022; all rights reserved.

It's #TBT at The NDN Silver Blog, with a #ThrowbackThursday featured work dating back eleven years, wrought in a deliberately vintage style to evoke designs of a half-century and more ago. It's a ring with a beautifully heavy band and a very unusual focal, a manifestation in silver and stone of the green of leaf and petal in the late-summer light.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. This work obviously will never be duplicated, but if elements of the style speak to your spirit, simply inquire via the site's Contact form; Wings can create a version uniquely your own. We will still need to make consistent sales to make it through this third year of pandemic and loss (and a spectacularly costly couple of months, with much more to come), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.    

Haunted.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

Fall's early this year. You can see it in the haunted light, in the edge to the wind and the thinning leaves, in the way Cricket chases spirits we can't see. Makes me think it will be an early winter, and a heavy one.

We can only hope.

Right now, I'm haunted by far more immediate, tangible problems, chief of which is how to cover ~$5K+ worth of expenses in the next 3 weeks. The rest explains, but it's all cut-and-paste, because I am still just too wiped out and in too much physical pain to write anything new right now. I don't know how I'm supposed to cope with this level of pain and still function, and in truth, I'm not doing a very good job of it.

Last Thursday set us back the $350+ that we have to come up with every 8 weeks to cover the farrier and horse vet for Miika. The animals come first, because this was done to them (by someone else) and they depend on us to fix it. But that puts me in a bind for other stuff. And there's a lot coming down the pike in the next few weeks for us, on a lot of fronts. There's the current tax bill, the regular installment payment for '21 taxes, due more or less now; there's the quarterly '22 payment due by mid-September. There's all the outlay last week on the last of the monthly bills and on medical stuff, and four figures' worth of medical stuff between now and the first week of September just for me, plus the cost of injections for Wings's shoulder next week. It all has to be paid in full at the time. In cash.

And I hope very soon I'll have the fundraiser info to promote for Wings's son, because he needs all the help we can give him with this.

But I need help to bring in sales to cover it all. Going off the lupus meds has immediately and drastically worsened my connective tissue problems, and now it's not the meds keeping me awake, but the pain. It's hard to function, especially since the effects won't be clear of my system before the end of the year, probably, and that means I'm still dealing with intermittently dangerously low blood glucose levels, too, on top of the way my pain has insnttly been jacked along with my mobility also dropping through the floor. But I have to chase sales, and I can't do this alone. I really, really need some help.

Meanwhile, as you can see, Wings is still cranking out new inventory when he can, but he's suddenly having to be much more mindful of what he creates, given the crisis-level spike in silver prices. As I said earlier, we just learned that both silver suppliers in this state have more than tripled their silver prices (for some types of silver, much more), which has left me pretty badly shaken. And it's across the board; even small things, like findings and earring wires and backs, have gone way, way up. He's got enough for now to do what he needs to do, but nothing's going to change anytime soon, given that the justifications for it will be "supply-chain issues," "fuel prices," "war in Ukraine," and "inflation"; these prices are here for the foreseeable future. It's going to put a lot of Native smiths and jewelers completely out of business, and to make sure that Wings does not become one of them, I have GOT to make some sales. That's especially true with the holidays coming; these silver spikes are going to make this fall a crisis point for a lot of jewelers. Unfortunately, I'm being hobbled by everything else. All the links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priority is first and foremost, the other ladder; also sheets);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

We're still hoping to put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring, too, Nah, we've given up on the well. No one's available to drill before late next year at the earliest, and this year's tax burden means we would never be able to afford it anyway. But it's even more of a good time to make a purchase, because Uncle Sam is a vindictive colonizer, and my current stress levels about paying it all are off the charts. And there's lots of fabulous work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                                   

The First Flowers of Summer's Dance With Fall

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

Now posted at The NDN Silver Blog, it's a masterwork for the wildflower season, including the one that comes near the end of this time of warmer winds. It's a necklace in timely shsades of gold and hints of purple to honor the first flowers of summer's dance with fall, a time of beauty and abundance, color and medicine.

The post is here. Wings's main page is here. Inquiries via the site's Contact form. We badly need to make consistent sales to make it through this third year of pandemic and loss (and a spectacularly costly couple of months, with much more to come), so shares of the site links are much appreciated.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.