A little bright spot for stormy days.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022;
all rights reserved.

A little bright spot for stormy days. No, these aren't the ones I planted, although with all this rain, they're at long last trying to come up now. We might actually get a few blossoms before the snow flies. These are some Wigns brought home for me. They look a little more orange in the photo than they actually are; in truth, they're a perfect shade of scarlet.

It was simultaneously sunny and cloudy most of the morning; by the afternoon, most of the low clouds were gone, It was back to hot and humid just in time for the farrier and horse vet to get here. They managed everything in record time today, in and out in a half-hour flat. We;ve managed to get 30-40 pounds off Miika (she was overweight when she came to us, and her endocrine and metabolic problems have only exacerbated that). As a result, and as a result of the hoof care every 8 weeks or so, she's walking much better, and she has much healthier hoof tissue now. That's relative, of course; it's still very thin and friable, but compared to the blood-soaked shreds from before, its great. It means she's building sole, and he thinks the coffin bone has reattched, with no further rotation. 

But it's a hell of a lot of work, and I have to make sure I set aside about $350+ every 8 weeks to cover it. 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. But I have to chase sales, and I can't do this alone.

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.