It’s been awhile since writing another blog post here. Physical health has not been good for months first with a damaged foot and then with a broken collarbone. This has strained already tight finances and made it difficult to get out and forage. Even if mobility had been available, the Okanagan got socked in with heavy smoke so bad at one point that our air quality was worse than Bejing’s!
But all was not lost. Various friends began telling us that we needed to start selling the teas my daughter makes from some of our dried foraged wild ingredients. Being laid up after surgery was the perfect time to start researching necessary licenses and paperwork to get the idea off the ground. Ashtree Wildcrafting was registered with the Canadian government by the end of July, and our first sale of tea from the website took place this very weekend in September! Once the smoke cleared and mobility began to return, we got out there foraging not just for ourselves this time, but for the business as well, on property whose owners granted us permission for a wide swath of their property. What began as meeting a need to stay healthy on a limited budget, has morphed into a small business!
The beauty of online business was brought home to me in the first three weeks after my collarbone surgery, when I received a couple active sign-ups over at SFI! One of those is still active, and because of these two, I was able to upgrade my affiliate status for a month in August. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to repeat the upgrade for October or not, but we’ll see. These two people saw ads I’d already posted around the ‘net prior to my accident, and saw the opportunity the way I see it, BUT had money to do more with it than I’ve been doing.
I spent a couple T Credits playing one of the games over at Eager Zebra, and they have a new word game there as of this month, called HIDDEN. Foxes are hiding letters of a word and offering clues to what the word is. But the hints aren’t always easy to guess. If you spot a red, silver or the rare white fox, you get extra game points and other rewards as well. I’ve spotted the rare white fox twice now and have a badge to show for it. I’ve also “outfoxed” the foxes once so far, meaning I successfully guessed at least 10 words before my 30 clues ran out. If you like word games, you need to check out Eager Zebra. They have trivia, card, and sports picks as well.
It’s amazing how much money people find when they strip their expenses down to the bare essentials. For my household, that stripping down means less stress trying to figure out how to pay essential bills. it is my hope that my online endeavors begin to change our financial picture, but in the meantime, how we’ve learned to live will continue to be something we share with others to help ease their loads as well.