Winter is coming. Ice Blue needs to stay in her home.

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Yeah, I know that this is normally the point in the day where I'd post the link to our crowdfunding page for the house. I'll get to it tonight, never fear, but for today, when traffic is higher, someone else's fundraiser needs to be at the top of the page.

Those of you from the GOS know her as Ice Blue. She is, if memory serves, a fellow horse person. She's also faced more than her fair share of obstacles in recent years. One of those has been debilitating: She survived a massive stroke a few years ago, and has spent the time since doing all she can to recover her health, but she is permanently disabled. If you've had stroke survivors in your family, as we have, you know that that is an extraordinarily difficult task even under the best of circumstances. 

Now, she's faced with an enormous and entirely unexpected expense: Her county zoning board has informed her that her septic system is no longer up to code and must be replaced entirely before May of 2017. If she fails to do so . . . I gather that the ultimate result was left hanging, but the threat of homelessness is very real. We know a little bit about what that feels like, too.

Despite an excellent credit rating, her bank refuses to allow her a home equity line of credit to pay for it. She has no family resources upon which she can call for financial assistance. She's already made inquiries and has been given an estimate of $4,525 for what's described as "a basic system," which she says is a good deal, and I believe her. It's about $3K less than the cost we'll be facing when we have to replace ours in a few weeks, once our home is nearly complete (the old one was installed incorrectly seventeen years ago, and cannot be salvaged, so for us, it's both replacement and relocation, hence the higher cost).

But no matter how good a deal it is, it's useless if you can't raise the scratch. What a decade or two ago would have been obvious options for a lot of people simply don't exist anymore for much of the population. You can thank your Republican officials for that. In the meantime, winter is coming, as ASoIaF fans would say, and since she lives in a part of the country where winer is much like ours, that whacks about six months out of the year that are open for the actual replacement work. You take the entire winter season out of the equation, and next May gets here very, very fast.

I don't want her to spend the winter wondering whether she'll be homeless in the spring. I also don't want, Spirit forbid, to have her septic system decide to give up the ghost between now and then.

She's trying to raise $4,750 to cover an eventualities that crop up over and above the quoted price. Personally, I'd rather see her pull in about $6K, just to make sure everything's covered all the way to the end. We can do this. We've raised this much and more in the past; this shouldn't take long at all, provided people, yes, keep sharing the link to her fundraiser.

Here's the GoFundMe link.

You know what to do.

She's got $65 toward it, thus far; the dear friend who brought this to my attention kicked in some, and so did we. If 100 more people match the $65 total, she's got $6,500, and she's got the septic system covered plus a cushion for whatever eventualities are pretty much guaranteed to crop up during the process.

Surely we can find 100 people able to give $65. Or even $50. We've done it before; I know we can do this, too. Here's that link again; please join us in giving what you can, and please share her GoFundMe link with all of of your networks.

Thanks.


All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Thirty-Four Below

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

I was awakened just before 5:00 AM. The temperature was thirty-four degrees below zero.

No, not the wind chill. The actual temperature was THIRTY-FOUR BELOW.

Three hours later, after the sun had been up for two solid hours, we were at seven below. We're still not at zero yet.

Think about what that means in this place. This drafty uninsulated sheet-metal tin can, I mean. Really think about it. Nobody reading this fully grasps it; I can guarantee you that.

Everything will be late today. I can't get even minimally warm, and if I can't get warm, I can't function. I don't know how we're going to get some of the things done that need to be done right now, especially those out of doors. And we still have no washing machine; it's been a whole week, and the repairman still hasn't come out. Functionality is at a standstill right now on a lot of fronts.

We haven't had cold this deep since our first winter in this place. That exceeded this by a few more degrees yet. Then again, we could match that tonight, so who knows? The one saving grace is that this time, for the first time in these temps, we still have water.

I would really like everyone to think about what you have as you go through your days, what never occurs to you, what you take for granted, and what your life would be like if it were to disappear. Because, you know, we've been living that for a while now. And then maybe understand why I'm out of patience.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Two Grand In Two Weeks

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

So I've been utterly unavailable for just about anything for the last couple of weeks. There are reasons for that.

With my particular complex of autoimmune conditions, I have only so many resources at my disposal. Around here, there are things that absolutely have to get done, no matter the circumstances. Pile enough of those on top of each other, and I have nothing left over for basic social engagement. For people who don't deal with these kinds of things, I realize that it's essentially impossible to understand how it is that I can write, but can't exchange basic conversation. The latter is much, much harder than the former, and infinitely more draining. Times like this? I ain't got it. And I've quit putting myself through the torture of trying to force-fake it.

Just so people understand the kind of thing that pushes me to this point, here's the deal: I've said that, since the first of the year, it seems that we've done nothing but shovel snow, shovel horseshit, and treat Cree's near-deadly case of founder. That's accurate as far as it goes, but it's not all of it. The rest is over the jump; proceed at own risk.

So, this is what "3-5 inches" looks like:

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Eighteen inches and counting. At least one piñon has a major branch broken beneath the weight of it. I've cleaned off three of the trees, but there are many more to go. Unfortunately, even when you're as tall as I am, when the snow is still up to your knees (and getting inside your knee-high waterproof boots), It's incredibly laborious. You have to stop to rest and dry off periodically.

Oh, and it'll all be ice tomorrow, natch. Winds today; single digits tonight.

Everything will be late today, obviously.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Seasons and Moons

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Yeah, you read that caption right. This one is mine. Of course, the only reason I was able to do it is because Wings taught me a new setting on his old camera. But I got it.

One day off full. You can't really tell by the photo, but in the night sky, it's clear that it's not quite there yet. Definitely a winter moon, though; the air outside is so cold and clear that it feels like the edge of a gigantic piece of broken glass.

The snow is more than half gone already; when the mercury hits the mid-forties for most of the day, it melts fast. Wings spent much of the last two days plowing, and so for now we have mud, but it'll dry much more rapidly this way. The snow itself he piles strategically so that the melt goes where it's needed most. He's been doing this a long time, and he's gotten good at maximizing weather and climate conditions — all the more important these days, obviously.

As happened last year, the natural world is completely confused. It's not too big a deal that the horses are shedding constantly, that the dogs have almost completely shed their own winter coats already, that the chickens are both molting and laying simultaneously. We can keep the animals safe. But the trees are another matter. Like last year, they're already budding out, and pretty thoroughly, too. Only the earliest stages, but it's enough; in the light, the branches are no longer silver, but gold. Daytime temperatures feel like May, and the snow on the peaks is already dissipating.

I had always thought that the truly obvious real-time effects of climate change would manifest after we were gone. That timetable has obviously accelerated, hard. I know we're now projected to be ground zero for extreme heat and drought in only a few more years, but in a desert at 7,500 feet, you see a lot of incremental changes along the way. If you're looking, that is.

We're luckier than most; we have an artesian well, and so the lowered run-off in the spring doesn't affect us as much as it does many others. Still, the lines are now affected by the high spring winds, so it's pretty clear that we need to be concerned about our water supply. 

So, even though it's only the beginning of February, there's a lot to do to get ready for the growing season. The gardens need to go in early this year, and I'm planning on being a lot more comprehensive; missing out on it last year for the first time in memory was a huge hit. 

For now, though, we'll take what we can get, and be grateful for it.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Journey

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

I awakened this morning at home

Or so I thought

Not this home,

But one from long ago, on the land where I was born

Where my people have lived for ten thousand years and more

Climate change is speeding up

In the space of one day, we have gone

From below zero to 49 degrees.

And so last night, we had fog

In January

Something I would have thought impossible here

At 7,500 feet, 

At the foot of mountains that dwarf those tiny hills of my childhood

Fog, and an east wind

And overnight, it crystallized

Tiny geometric fragments, perfect in design

White-hot ice

Closed around every branch, every leaf, every blade of dormant grass

At home, this would be spring

April

The catkins as fuzzy with snow-like crystals as with their own gentle covers

The branches weighted and freighted, white over silver gray

The willow by our old pond, the one where I was not allowed to play

Drooping, dropping, dripping, draping its ice-heavy branches 

Gracefully over the surface of the earth

Like a frosted blanket

But no

This is here

And the fog has turned the high desert mountains into 

My old home

Just for a day, a dawn

And like that child I was

I play in it,

Transported

Until my fingers turn to ice like the willow's gentle arms

A journey in time

In space

In season

In distance

Magic

Copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

Willow Ice

Photo copyright Aji, 2014; all rights reserved.

That's what it looked like 3.5 hours ago. About a half a foot of snow on the ground, melting fast early on, freezing hard overnight. It's going to get very cold tonight.

I know I owe e-mails to a bunch of y'all.  I promise to try to get to as many as possible tomorrow. I still seem to be fighting this bug, and between that and the effects of drastic weather changes on my AI disease, everything takes me longer right now. And, of course, there are all the time pressures of this season for us. Just bear with me.

For now, I'm about ready to pack it in. I've got gallery-related stuff to write before I fall asleep over my laptop. I'll have more posts to be shared starting tomorrow morning, and of course, we hope that makes a few much-needed holiday sales. See you in the morning, after I've set up strong coffee on an IV drip.