Looking less likely by the day.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

That sight is what greeted us this morning: smoke rising from some sort of fire just up the road around the curve from us. It as probably either part of the prescribed pile burn from last week, or someone burning their own weeds or trash or whatever, but in this tinderbox, it's still too close for comfort. Fortunately, it seems to be out now. Still hoping for snow from the bomb cyclone/atmospheric river, but it's looking less likely by the day, certainly with it getting up to 60 degrees every single day when it should be, you know, 30 with five inches of snow on the ground.

I've spent the day trying to catch up on the most basic of tasks right now. This week was entirely disrupted bu the whole jury summons/medical exemption nonsense, as well as a couple of other things that kept me on the go and on my feet, whether out in the cold or indoors on too-hard surfaces. My whole body is screaming at me, and while there are technically a couple of errands we should have run today, I'm glad we didn't. I need some down to recover from all of this, because this kind of pace is very literally killing me.  The idea that I could go into town every day for weeks  and stand in lines and sit on hard seats packed in like sardines with unmasked people spreading COVID and everything else is laughable; my body wouldn't make it through the first day. But that's what this world expects.

One interruption from yesterday could turn out to be good, IF we can make enough in sales to swing it. One of Wings's old friends stopped by; he's got really good quality grass hay, a little alfalfa mixed in for flavor, for sale.  Grass is running $18-20 a bale here now, thanks to the drought and winter coming, and he'll let us have it for $10 a bale . . . IF we take his whole supply. Which would set us back $800. So I need to bring in $800 in sales tonight, if possible.

And the housing crisis worsens daily. Go here, buy something, or several somethings, off the outreach group's wishlist, and you will literally be saving a life, probably more than one. It's not really possible to overstate how bad it is out there, nor how great the need is. I've sorted it in their Priority order, but they've given out so much stuff this week that they now have new priorities: hand warmers, snacks, tarps, duct tape, two-person tents [only $22 each!], the safety stuff like flashlights and pepper spray; they also need large-size men's stuff, socks, and large- and extra-large-size dog stuff, like collars and harnesses and dog coats, further down on the list.

And then there's my own actual work. WE NEED SALES. As always at this time of year, I'm already putting in 12- to 16-hour days every day, 7 days a week, because the work won't wait, and for us, being able to help anyone else starts with us making those sales, of course. But beyond that? I also am finding myself unexpectedly under the gun on another front; besides needing to bring in enough in seasonal sales to repay a big chunk on our '24 taxes, the election has made the need to replace my laptop NOW absolutely mandatory, before the end of the year, because the price, already hellish for the one I need, will skyrocket at the first of the year. So if you're contemplating buying? Now would be a really, really good time. Our laptop is our whole work, everything, and it fails me on the daily now.

Today's feature is a collective one again, four pairs of traditional concha earrings with extraordinary freehand work [two round, two oval; two set with blues, two with golden tiger's eye], all shown here. We have lots of other concha earrings available in the Earrings Gallery, particularly on page 2, but here, I'd like to feature two unusual ones set with the color of the dawn:

• "Prairie Evening Primrose," is a pair that is hand-domed like traditional conchas, but these are saw-cut freehand into big, bold, petaled blossoms [1"-plus long and wide], sterling silver set with glowing pink mussel shell, here; and 
• "A New Light," a pair of small silver medallions, only barely domed, with spare sunrise stampwork above shimmering rose quartz cabochons, here.

There's more on the way very soon; he's got something like four more cuffs [an incredible one posted here Saturday], a couple of pendants, several new pairs of earrings [again, one, a small tiger iron pair, done yesterday and slated to go up by tonight, really, this time, or not, depending on how long I last tonight], and eventually all the new coils he'll need for holiday inventory. And I need to sell them all, because I still need to make sales weekly for us to catch up on the year and cover all the stuff still in the pipeline that needs covering [laptop, roof next year, more medical, always prepaid taxes, etc.]. So: GO BUY! Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Priority is the liquid soaps and Amazon cards, probably most useful at this point); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year, this one already far worse than the last, we really need to get what's left of 2024 onto a better footing before it ends, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.