Well, the aggravating hijacking of Fur Affinity aside, I won't be able to post my comics pages on Wednesdays for a while, as I've had to drop back to publishing just one cartoon an update day due to a series of overwhelming real-life events.

It's been a tough two months. The heat was brutal here, exacerbating the drought we're enduring. We did get two inches of rain a couple of weeks ago, which encouraged the grass in the pasture to start growing, but it's not enough to feed the sheep, and now it's drying up again.

My tractor, which was born the same year I was, needed new spindle bearings in its front right wheel, which had fallen over into the spindle column so that it could not move. Without a tractor I could not put out rolls of hay for the sheep, which meant I had to buy square bales, which was vastly more expensive--almost $300 to feed them for just ten days. We did finally coordinate with the mechanic to get the tractor repaired, and that cost us $940, plus a towing bill of $125.

Prior to this, my husband blew a tire on his car, and we then had to replace all four tires because they were worn. Another $350. Plus $90 for the emergency tire change on a dark road in the wee hours of the morning when he was heading in to work.

Then our freezer died. I didn't realize it at first because I still heard the motor running and the light came on, but the compressor had literally flamed out. It's a lucky thing the garage did not catch fire. Although I had smelled smoke that morning, I only realized what had happened when I got a popsicle out and it bent over.

So we had to find and buy a new freezer, for another $1000, and get the old one hauled off. Luckily my husband got one the next day, so we didn't lose anything in the old freezer (which we kept closed.)

And during these two months, in the heat wave, we lost five sheep. Out oldest ewe, Fawn, fell over dead, and I had to take her to be cremated ($90). Two sheep could not stand up, so we called the vet. Eventually the older ewe, Romana, was able to walk again, but the younger ewe, Bonnie, never got up, and we had her euthanized. We lost one young lamb to a bizarre accident where he got a foot stuck in an old set of steel bedsprings next to the fence, and pitched forward, pinning his neck under his body and suffocating himself. A second lamb wasn't looking so good, so we took him to the vet's (an emergency call on a Sunday afternoon) and despite much effort, it was clear by the next day he was not going to make it, so we took him back and had him euthanized, and autopsied, as well as had his head sent in for rabies testing (it was negative, thank God.)

The third lamb--ironically, the twin brother of the one that died on the bed springs--was found a few days later next to the water trough, dead. I had his fecal sample tested for worms. He had barberpole worms, but I think he died due to enterotoxemia, even though I'd just vaccinated the lambs for it a few days earlier. He probably was already succumbing to it when I vaccinated him.

So the bill for all the vet work came to $1700.

And I had to get our new Pyrenees pup her second set of vaccinations. At $275.

When I sent the eight late spring lambs I'd held back to market, they only brought $900 because the market was down due to the drought, and so many 4H fair lambs hitting the market now, flooding it. I was hoping to get around $1500 for them.

That much unexpected expense has really hit our finances hard. I had to swallow my pride and ask my Patreon supporters for help. Some increased their monthly pledges, others purchased commissions from me, and I am very grateful to them for their support.

And then on Saturday, I was changing the water filter in the crawlspace under our house, and the filter cup was on so tight, that in struggling to get it undone, I managed to crack one of the elbow joints upstairs in the pump closet because I was shaking the plastic pipe. Which required an emergency call to a plumber for repair, at $440. At least he was able to come out within two hours and get our water running again.

On a parallel note, I had to extract honey from my beehives in order to give them drawn, open comb to use to put brood and more honey into, and that process took a bit longer than I had anticipated. I had to stop in the middle of the extraction to wash and sterilize jars because my honey pail was full, and then filter and bottle up that honey so I could continue.

I'm telling you this because I've been under a lot of stress, which has affected my ability to work on the comic. I've had trouble figuring out which of the many plot threads I should follow next, and how I need to weave all the plot threads together to make a coherent story. That caused me to delay working on the strip until I was down to a single comic in my buffer, and without any time to work on refilling it.

So instead of going into another hiatus, I decided to cut back on the number of strips I publish in a week. And I'm still struggling to get my story sorted out and scripted, along with completing the commissions. I've actually gotten most of those completed and out the door. :)

Anyway, with everything that's been going on, on top of my regular chores (and watering the outdoor plants for an elderly neighbor who had a stroke a few weeks ago), I feel like I'm drowning.

I know you guys will say "It's OK, real life comes first, you take all the time you need" and I'm grateful for that support.

I just felt like I owed you all an explanation. And I needed to do a little more venting, after Saturday's plumbing mishap. That one felt like someone tossed me an anchor, just as I started to swim to shore.