Extractive work.

Photo copyright Aji, 2023; all rights reserved.

One of the Western scrub jays, realizing that he's struck gold (in the form of dried corn and seeds, anyway). Those long dagger beaks are great for extractive work.

They're all happy; we have a whole small clan of them this year, plus regular visits from the piñon jays, whose clan size is much larger but who are individually quite a bit smaller than their scrub cousins. We also have several house sparrows, mated pairs, for the first time in several years; plenty of chickadees, both black-capped and mountain varieties; sparrows and finches, including goldfinches that are wintering over for the second time in a row, apparently because they've calculated that it's safer to stay here than risk migration; and of course all the ubiquitous magpies and crows and ravens. And the young redtail, more often on his own lately, but he's getting bigger, so it's time.

And, of course, the elk. They showed up very early last night; Stormy apparently thought it would be fun to chase them. Then about 12:30 AM, we were awakened by obnoxiously blinding spotlights arcing through the window and out across the land, which sent the whole herd stampeding back up to the mountains. Cops, speaking of "extractive." Not, apparently, looking for anything specific to the elk or to us, but after someone, probably the same someone the Statie helos were searching for overhead yesterday morning that was reported on social media as a "missing person" ("missing" because they're a suspect/fugitive, most likely). And no, it's not likely to have anything to do with the Pueblo, other than the fact that colonizers on the run think they'll hide out here (nope). Of course, getting ripped out of sleep like that meant that I was awake until 5 AM or so, and I've had precious little since then.

So much to do this week; so little time. Tomorrow's the next round of Wings's dental nightmare. We'll see how it goes. Wednesday and Thursday are other problems. Meanwhile, the fridge is still leaking, so I'm on that duty once again in between the other things that demand my attention. Still no fucking phone service, four days later. And the winds are bitterly, viciously cold today, so my joints are screaming at me.

And still, I need to bring in one sale a week to break even. All of our links are here; emphasis on sales and testimonials for now (and subscriptions, if you're looking for that; I'll have more on that to come in the next few weeks, hopefully with some changes):

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priority right now is the liquid soaps, any fragrance);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

There's lots of fabulous work on the site (and there will be more to come for Valentine's Day), so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2023; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.