Edrie, long-time Kossack and friend to many, needs $5000 to prevent herself and her animals from being made homeless. My elder sister Aji wrote about this yesterday in her rec-listed diary. Of that $5100, $3500 was raised yesterday by wonderful Kossacks from all over. There's $1600 left to raise.
I am offering to send a jar of my fresh hand-made artisan jam to the first seventeen Kossacks who donate at least $50 to help edrie. Details are below. Here's edrie's PayPal information:
edrie [dot] blackwelder [at] gmail [dot] com.
And here's my email:
rivercs [at] gmail [dot] com.
The first seventeen people to email me their PayPal receipts will get a jar of jam, and it's first come first serve. These jams were made less than a week ago.
Update: Persiflage and nannyboz, that wonderful couple, are offering up a $250 match. We CAN do this!
5:45 PM PT: Update 2: $50 left (I think) on Persiflage and nannyboz's match, and SwedishJewfish just upped the ante: she's got darling handmade baby accessories, a whole set of diapers with covers, tutus, and the like, listed in the Kos Katalogue, that she's offering for a donation. See color photos of her wares here.
Update 3: Halfway there! Persiflage and nannyboz's match has been met (I got something in my email from a lurker) and I believe we have already raised $800! We can do the rest!
Update 4: I got another couple of emails with PayPal receipts from Kossacks unknown, and I believe this takes us over the halfway mark by $100. It is entirely likely that we can get edrie what she needs tonight and she'll probably have the best night's sleep she's had in months.
Update 5: Check out DannyB's offer, below in comments! For the right person, this could be invaluable. Thanks, DannyB! And we're a large part of the way there; I really think we are going to do this tonight. There is nothing like Daily Kos.
I got a short email from edrie a little while ago; she's minding a colicky horse, so I am not able to get updates from her on amounts and am doing my best at tracking. Wouldn't it be great for her to come back from that and find out she's got what she needs?
Update 6: As best I can track, between donations I was informed about directly in email and those made here, I think we've done it, folks. Wow. Take a bow, every one of you. You deserve it.
I still have some jam left if anybody's minded to keep going; both Aji and I would like to see edrie with something of a cushion so she can breathe a bit easier. She deserves that. We all do. Let's help her get it.
As Aji wrote yesterday, edrie makes jewelry. Yesterday, she sold everything she had already made, but don't let that stop you from ordering something special for yourself or someone you love and prepaying for it so we can raise the needed funds. My birthstone is turquoise and I've already requested a set, a necklace and earrings, in that stone. But making jewelry isn't all edrie does. Among other things, she's an animal intuitive, and a good one.
I'd like you to meet Sky, better known as Bitty Dog.
Until we adopted exmearden's little pug-a-poos, Bitty was our small dog at just under 50 pounds, which is one reason of several for her name. Bitty's been my dog literally since she was born. She first swam in a pond at 4 weeks of age, fetched her first pheasant (it was bigger than she was) at 5 weeks of age, and defeated her first fence - she climbed it - at age six weeks. She's been defeating fences since.
Bitty's been having some trouble for a few months now, since about mid-October; every time she takes a drink of water, she regurgitates, though she doesn't always throw up water on the floor when she does. Sometimes when she is lying still on her side, she regurgitates; I can always tell when. Bitty has had every test the vet has recommended and Dr. S. is mystified as to what's wrong with her, suspecting that it's something going on with her esophagus that she can't see via Xrays, a barium swallow, or any other test she can do. The next step she recommends is to take Bitty to a specialist in Tacoma who will put her under with a general anaesthetic and scope her esophagus.
I turned to edrie when I found out she is an animal intuitive and asked her if she could work long distance. She'd never done it before, but said she'd try. She requested pictures of Bitty and I sent her a few. Edrie was able to identify intuitively the vet's big area of concern, Bitty's esophagus, without me mentioning that at all. As I said, she's a good one. She recommended taking Bitty to an animal chiropractor, something that's planned for this month sometime (I still need to set the appointment), and getting her an adjustment, and identified specific things that could be out of whack. She recommended I massage her in specific areas, which I have done, and Bitty seems a good bit easier for it although she is still regurgitating. She also located a good animal chiropractor who works on dogs in a town across Puget Sound and emailed the info to me.
I made jam recently, two kinds: apricot-ginger marmalade and tart blackberry with chocolate undertones. I'd like to offer a jar to people who donate at least $50 to edrie. I have ten 8 oz. jars of apricot-ginger marmalade and seven 8 oz. jars (which may come in the form of 2 4 oz. jars rather than 1 8 oz. jar) of tart blackberry.
The tart blackberry is a blackberry-chocolate jam with a bit less chocolate than usual for a subtler jam. It's made with blackberries that grow here and are never sprayed or treated in any way, and each one was hand-picked by my partner Charles. I use Scharffenberger unsweetened chocolate, which is 99% cacao and 1% vanilla bean. This jam was made with blackberry honey, Washington state honey from a small farm, sourced only from blackberry flowers. The pectin I use is Pomona universal, citrus derived and activated with calcium water, and I put in some lemon juice to help preserve it. There are no other ingredients except the love with which it is made.
The apricot-ginger marmalade isn't like a typical orange-jelly-with-peel-strips marmalade; it's the only jam I make that has a mechanical step, which is using a blender. This is a smooth marmalade. Its ingredients are apricots, dried apricots, blood oranges, mandarin oranges, blue agave syrup, fresh ginger, preserved ginger, ground ginger, our good well water, lemon juice, Pomona pectin, and calcium water. I think that's it. It's a complex jam, with a complex flavor that's hard to pin down to any one note. It's not too spicy, but the ginger's there; it's not too apricoty, but the apricots are noticeable, and it's not too orangey, but both kinds of oranges are definitely present. It's a complex jam to make, too, and brother, does it ever scorch lightning fast; there's an art to it because it must boil to set.
One reason it needs to be made with a blender is because although I juice many of the oranges, I cut a number of whole ones in half and throw them into the blender with the juice, so all the good vitamins in the peels and piths are in the jam. I threw in halved peeled mandarins, too, and in one jar, and I have no idea which one, there is a whole mandarin segment. You might get it.
Here's how it works. The first seventeen people to email me, at my email address above the fold, their PayPal receipt for a donation of $50 or more to edrie, will get a jar of jam. I usually sell this, and these jars are ones I'd reserved to sell, but I'm giving it away, shipping to you included, to raise funds for edrie. The sooner you email your receipt, the more likely it is that you'll have a choice of flavors.
For more, here's my sister Aji's diary from yesterday:
Four days.
Five thousand dollars.
Not a lot of money, in the scheme of things, but too much for edrie to come up with in a few days.
The last couple of years have been devastating to untold numbers of us. Several of us lost homes; others lost jobs; still others, health or even lives. We're among those who lost damn near everything. And it's why I can't sit by and watch yet another Kossack lose her home, if there's even a chance that we can prevent that from happening.
The last year has been extremely difficult for edrie, but now, it's become virtually impossible. A 99-er, she was underpaid on her UI for months; when the error was finally found, the agency's attempt to "correct" resulted in weeks without a dingle unemployment check. But while her UI went wholly unpaid, the bills continued to mount. Add to that a couple of unexpected emergency expenses, and the effect rapidly becomes one of wholesale financial ruin. And while her landlords have tried to be understanding, they're in a bind on some fronts, too, and they can't wait any longer.
A few days ago, edrie wrote about her situation. She noted then that she had until January 15 to make up the entire arrearage on her rent, or lose her little cottage - and with it, the barn and land for her horse. The total is roughly $5,000 - and at that time, she was able to sell a few pieces of her jewelry, but the total came to less than $1,000. And even if she were to raise another $4,000, that wouldn't leave her any cushion for . . . oh, things like food, utilities, putting gas in the car . . . .
So here's what I'd like to do: I'd like us to try to raise, over the next four days, a full $5 grand to keep edrie in her home. There are a few ways we can do that.
First, you may not know that edrie makes jewelry. (Yes, I'm shilling for the competition. Wings approves.) She has an etsy shop with photos of several of her pieces already posted, and a few Kossacks have already found the perfect item there. Several gorgeous pieces are still available, and I'm going to post photos of a few of them here to give you an idea of her work.
The cross is priced at $225; the strand at $275. Both are made of freshwater pearls. At the etsy site, you'll find coordinating stud earrings, both fresh- and saltwater pearls, priced at $45 a pair.
These two are really cool: The rectangular beads are made of lava. The red lava at left is interspersed with citrine; the gray-blue lava on the right alternates with sodalite nuggets. Each is priced at $125. But what are necklaces without earrings? Naked, that's what. And she's got earrings that coordinate or contrast, depending on your taste:
On the left are yellow quartz drops accented with garnet beads, a steal at $35. On the right, ruby in zoisite (a really stunning combination of green and rose in the same stone) with onyx accents, for $50.
There's a lot more at her etsy site, including some works in progress. Which brings me to the second method of assistance.
Maybe you don't see precisely what you need, but you know you'll want something down the road. Maybe a gift for Valentine's Day or a birthday, for Mother's Day or Father's Day? Well, edrie does commissions, too. You can pay in advance and let her know what you'd like to order.
And if you know you won't need any jewelry, but you'd still like to help, you can always donate via her PayPal address:
edrie [dot] blackwelder [at] gmail [dot] com.
She's as stubborn as . . . well, as her horse when it comes to the idea of taking money outright, but this is an urgent situation. And she's the kind of person who will find a way to pay it forward, and sooner rather than later.
If you can place an order or drop a few bucks in the kitty, please do. Even $5 makes a difference. And it might just keep edrie, and the four-leggeds who depend on her, from becoming homeless in the middle of winter. And if you're tapped out, as so many of us are, please simply share these links far and wide - you never know when you might be the catalyst for getting them in front of just the right set of eyes.
Chi miigwech.
Chi miigwech from me, too, and I'll look forward to sending you jam.