Hi all! Yes, I’m excited. Our Equi-Still Portable Equine Stocks have finally received their compliance certificate from the National Association of Trailer Manufacturers (NATM) in the USA!
It was a long haul, but the stringent requirements of the NATM compliance program means the trailers inherent to our Equi-Still Portable Equine Stocks should be compliant for registration in all fifty states!
YEAH!
Thanks so much to my awesome engineer, Jeff!
We’ve found a manufacturer in the USA, and contracts are just awaiting final signing. The stocks from AAEP are currently visiting my friends in Texas. They will be shipped to the new manufacturers to assist in their first stocks build. Then THOSE ones will be for available.
They write historical romance about strong women who are equally as passionate about education for females, even in times when women were discouraged from serious study.
The Belles Malala Fund
The Belles contribute a significant portion of the royalties for their annual holiday box set to the Malala Foundation.
In 2015, their book sold 15,000 copies and made around $6,000 for Malala. And it’s been ongoing.
Here’s a vet post for horse addicts or followers of my veterinary page. I hope you and your equestrian friends are doing well. Knock on wood, I’m injury free right now (we won’t talk about the atrial fibrillation…). I just heard about a friend and client who was injured by her own horse and it’s got me thinking.
An eye like this is pretty painful…
Those of you with horses know “injury – free” is a tenuous thing at best for an equine veterinarian or a horse owner. Even the safest and kindest horses are still horses.
A messy one to treat, for the horse and vet.
Being a horse equates to a mass of muscle, bone and hoof around 5-600 kg (half a ton, for those of you up north) led by a highly reactive brain whose primary defense mechanism is flight. If you’re at the bottom of their pecking order and you’re in the way… well… it’s not good.
Postural Rehabilitation on an eventer.
Understandably, horses are averse to being hurt and a few of them are quite successful at avoiding needles, oral medications, dewormers and the like. They are capable of learning out all sorts of ways to avoid it. We tend to get stuck in the crossfire. And frequently become injured.
Toya Postural Rehab exercises as a 2 year old
There’s plenty of research out there to substantiate the numbers of people injured by their beloved equine friends or patients, but what can be done about it? Do you have to live with it?
BEVA videos to help prevent you from being injured
Equine vets have one of the highest injury risks of all civilian professions. To help address this serious issue the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) has produced a series of short videos, featuring vet and equine behaviourist Gemma Pearson.
They’re designed to help owners and veterinarians be safer around horses and still get the job done, with a happy horse at the end of it. And a non-injured vet and owner.
Here is their intro video on YouTube. The rest are linked.
Before you leave completely, a few questions for you!
Do you have any problems when the vet’s there with your horses, like difficulty with injections, handling, or the like?
Do you have problems deworming your horse or getting them to hold still or lead up?
I’d love to hear about it! There’s a comment button at the top!
If you want to win an e-copy of my newest novella,
Today, I’m welcoming a special guest, author Kathy Servian, writing as KA Servian, who has her own “very big house in the country”.
Just like the lyrics to the Blur song, Country House, we lived in the city and about ten years ago, after watching too many episodes of Escape to the Country, decided that a rural idyll was for us.
I don’t want to sound as cynical as the song, we love our five acres half-an-hour north of Auckland. The place is everything we hoped it would be; lush, green, private, quiet and with a wonderful community spirit that you just don’t get in the suburbs.
We like to think that we’ve found the perfect balance, close enough to the shops to be convenient (a ten-minute drive to the largest mall in NZ), but far enough away to avoid the hustle and bustle of town.
But rural living (even semi-rural like us) is not for everyone. No one told us about the rampant weeds, endless hours of mowing, looking at the sky and wanting it to rain before we run out of water, the power cuts, the ducks bathing in the water-filled potholes on our driveway that we can’t afford to concrete and the fact that we can’t get take-out food delivered.
But these minor issues all fade to insignificance when I step outside my door and am surrounded by the beauty of nature. Pukekos strut across the lawn (well, the scrubby, weed-infested piece of ground I like to call a lawn), bunnies bounce past, their white tails catching the sunlight (I know they’re a pest, but they’re just so cute), sheep bleat from our paddocks just below the house, and one of our chickens wanders up and give me that look that says ‘are you going to feed me?’ just before she does an enormous poo right in the middle of the driveway.
We like to pretend that we’re genuine ‘country folk’ , the type who have a real four-wheel drive vehicle (not one of those pretend SUV types like ours), wear our gumboots to the shops and keep actual, proper animals – you know for eating. But it’s all a ruse. The only animals we have are two chickens who are more pets than stock and rarely produce eggs. The sheep grazing our paddocks belong to our neighbour, who is much more ‘country’ than us – he can actually do stuff like put up his own fences. We hire someone to mow the steep parts of our land and, I admit it, I’m terrified of large animals like cows and horses. We live surrounded by various livestock and as long as they stay behind their fences, I’m happy to admire them from a distance.
So, yes, I admit it, I’m a country fraud. I love the peace and the community, but I confess that I do sometimes secretly dream of being able to walk to the shops or of having a tiny garden that requires hardly any maintenance or never having to herd an escaped sheep back into a paddock or wash chicken poo off the outdoor furniture again. Perhaps, one day, we’ll move back to the burbs, but for now, I’m prepared to live with the minor inconveniences of country living because, on balance, it’s totally worth it.
Contents
KA’s latest release, The Moral Compass,
(which is not about living in the country),
is now available!
Florence lives like a Princess attending dinner parties and balls away from the gritty reality, filth and poverty of Victorian London.
However, her world comes crashing around her when her father suffers a spectacular fall from grace. She must abandon her life of luxury, leave behind the man she loves and sail to the far side of the world where compromise and suffering beyond anything she can imagine await her.
When she is offered the opportunity to regain some of what she has lost, she takes it, but soon discovers that everything is not as it seems. The choice she has made has a high price attached and she must live with the heart-breaking consequences of her decision.
This novel is part one in the ‘Shaking the Tree’ series.
As a life-long creative, Kathy gained qualifications in fashion design, applied design to fabric and jewellery making and enjoyed a twenty-year-plus career in the fashion and applied arts industries as a pattern maker, designer and owner of her own clothing and jewellery labels.
Creative writing started as a self-dare to see if she had the chops to write a manuscript. Writing quickly became an obsession and Kathy’s first novel, Peak Hill, which was developed from the original manuscript, was a finalist in the Romance Writers of New Zealand Pacific Hearts Full Manuscript contest in 2016.
Never one to do things by half, Kathy designed and made the costume for the cover of her third novel and her first historical, The Moral Compass and has made several other costumes from various periods in preparation for the novels that will follow in her Shaking the Tree series.
Kathy has recently completed a diploma in advanced applied writing. She squeezes writing novels in around teaching sewing part-time and being a wife and mother.
You can follow Kathy on her website https://kaservian.com/ or Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/KAServian/. Photography is also one of her hobbies. You can view her images on her Instagram feed https://www.instagram.com/kathygiannoulis/
It’s tomorrow, all day, (and half of the night in the USA and overseas)!
IN CASE YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A FACEBOOK PARTY IS… (Most people don’t…)
It’s an opportunity for you to :
meet new authors
hear about books from a wide variety of genres, over multi-eras, from multi-talented authors
visit with the authors you know and love
find book you might never have found
meet a bunch of Kiwi authors and readers at the party whom you also might never have found.
A group Matthew and I formed, Kiwi Book Feast, is putting on the party! We put up an Amazon Gift Card between the five of us, but not to be outdone, our invited guest participants have offered to donate toward YOUR BONUS GIVEAWAY! This bonus prize is for those splendid participants who:
1-register for the party by clicking on “GOING” at the top of the page and
2-comment on posts by any of the five Kiwi Book Launch members including Jude Knight, Lizzi Tremayne Author / Elizabeth Anne Thompson, Matthew Tremayne Author / Matt Mole, Anya Forest, and Kirsten McKenzie!
HOW IT WORKS:
Think you’ll never meet published authors? Think again!
Your authors have time slots on this party page from 10:00 am NZ Time (that’s 3 pm EST on 23 Jan) through to 7:45 pm (1:45 am EST on 24 Jan). Every 3-5 minutes, they will post, often with images, about their books, their life, themselves, and ask questions of YOU, so you can actively participate and post your answers or even more questions!
The twenty-minute slots run pretty fast for the authors, but they’re keeping track of your questions, and will later be returning to answer YOUR queries and comment on YOUR comments! The page will stay open, but the contest will only stay open for 24 hours after the party ends! Depending on how many questions we get, we may not get to answer them all for a few days, but we’ll try to make it as soon as possible.
I’ll be talking about my stories, both series’ and a little about the upcoming book in The Long Trails series,Tatiana!
So that’s it!
It’s a lot of fun. I’m on at (*NZ
times: 10:30 am-10:50, 3:10-3:30 and 3:50 – 4:10 tomorrow (Wed 24th Jan in NZ).
For USA: add 6 hours for EST and 3 hours for Pacific time (and subtract a day, ie: it’s on TUESDAY 23rd).
I REALLY hope you can join us and see what my friends and I are up to!
Again, it’s here, in case the link above doesn’t work!
Good morning!
Thanks to a long line of people into whom I’ve come into contact while trying to build my website, I have finally found a magnificent method of organisation for myself: Asana.
Asana even lets me organise my whole organisation periodically, if that suits the task… like my new blogging schedule… three times per week. The way I’ve set up my website, I should be able to figure out three topics a week to interest you!
All this organisation is essential because I have added another series to my writing list… I have The Long Trails series, with another book, Tatiana, due this year, and now the Once Upon a Vet School series… and a veterinary book for horse owners I’ve promised to write this year as well.
I need to be ultra-organised… that word again… because I’ve had more than one email asking me where they can source the other books in the Once Upon a Vet School series! And I need to write them… LOL.
Thanks to http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/lop-eared-rabbits/images/22795551/title/bunny-photo for the great Lop pic!
Excerpt:
❧
The jingle of the ice cream truck pulled me out of whatever internal medicine doctorate-dissertation trance I was in, typing myself stupid. I’d been stuck in bed with Sarah’s Previously Unknown E. coli in a Dog for nearly a week and I had a desperate urge to catch that truck — and snag me a chocolate gelato.
Never mind I could barely make it to the toilet.
With a frown at Tamarah’s makeshift desk sitting over my reclining body, topped by 35 pounds of IBM Selectric correcting typewriter, I bit my lip, held my breath and heaved. My sore ribs shrieked, but the typewriter barely budged. I tried again and managed to tip it off my lap, then swung my legs across and dived for the door… but my leg was trapped in the sheets, wasn’t it?
I hit the floor with a grunt and a scream, then dragged myself to the door frame and climbed up its slippery surface.
That ice cream had better be good.
I staggered down the hallway, leaning against the wall as I went. If I’d gone to the doctor, I’d no doubt have a crutch, but my stupidity might cost me that gelato. I could almost taste it and I hurried, nearly falling over Tamarah’s golden Labrador as she rushed up to me, leash in mouth and a hopeful look in her big brown eyes.
“Watch out, Susie, not now,” I mumbled, then stumbled down the porch steps. I was limping across the lawn at a great rate of knots when the brightly painted van, playing its merry tune, drove away in a cloud of diesel smoke.
I growled beneath my breath at the universe for denying me the chance to add inches to my waistline, then took a deep breath. The mailbox stood just yards away. I might as well check it, now I was out here. As I reached into the box, a movement to my right caught my eye.
“Susie, what have you got?” I called out to the dog. She looked at me, all big, innocent Labrador eyes, a half-grown bunny draped through her mouth.
“Gently, gently,” I whispered, as I picked up her forgotten leash and followed her into the bushes, dragging my screaming leg. A domestic rabbit like this baby Belgian Lop running around in the middle of town must be someone’s pet. It was still alive, its little chest heaving in triple time, but that could change in a heartbeat.
“Come on, Susie, give it here,” I cajoled, and waved the leash at her.
With a joyous look, she spat the rabbit at me and lunged for the leash. I dove for the bunny like a wide receiver making the final play in the end zone, quite forgetting for one brief moment that I only had one functional leg.
This time, I’m sure the whole neighborhood heard me swear.
Lucky Susie. She got her walk after all. We returned to the house to put the little hopper in a box with some water and lettuce to calm down while I fashioned a rough — operative word, rough — crutch. With the Labrador helping, against my wishes and better judgement, I loaded the bunny into a backpack. It snuggled down and never moved as we set off to tour the neighborhood. I’m not sure if Susie’s enthusiasm helped, but I hobbled from house to house, muttering a fairly constant stream of imprecations under my breath. It took over an hour to canvass the neighborhood, but we finally found a little old lady whose eyes watered up when I mentioned the rabbit. Her granddaughter brought it over to show it off last week — and forgot about it while it grazed on granny’s back lawn. When they returned, of course it had gone walkabout. They thought they’d never see it again.
Made my day.
❧
A few days later, despite the hydrotherapy, massage, and loving care by Tamarah, the leg actually looked worse. Not content to stay a nice blue color, it had morphed to a purple, black and yellow camo pattern. Understanding the medical significance of the color changes was all very nice, but it sure didn’t make the bruises resolve any faster.
“Do you want to see that blasted horse of yours?” Tamarah said the next day, out of the blue.
“Really? You’ll take me?”
“I go there every day to take care of him, anyway.” She scowled at me. “You might as well come along… on one condition.”
“What is it?” I said, rather ungraciously, under the circumstances. She’d been caring for me, too, since my fall. I peered sideways at her.
“We go by student health on the way back. I don’t want to come home from walking the dog to find you seizuring from a blood clot in your brain.”
Susie jumped to her feet at the W-word and spat her slimy tennis ball at me. I sidestepped, with a yelp, but offered the dog a twisted grin. After the bunny incident, I had a new appreciation for her ability to hurl things with her mouth.
“My father would shoot me,” Tamarah continued smoothly, “if he knew I’d let you stay away from the doctor.”
That got me.
Tamarah’s daddy, a lovely man, was also a professor… at our veterinary school. I bit my cheek. He wouldn’t be impressed by my irresponsible behavior. Now was not the time to annoy his daughter.
This year, with my boys grown and moved away, my partner and I decided to simply decorate our living room for the holidays with a ficus tree, a veer away from tradition.
Rather than purchase a cut-your-own pine Christmas tree, for the first time we chose to honour our own tree—the one which lives with us every day in our home.
My partner, a native of the UK, has a history of disappointment and sadness at our New Zealand Christmas. I, too, was transplanted to New Zealand (by choice, of course…).
Getting used to a summertime Christmas hasn’t always been easy for me, either.
Credit to NZ Post, with thanks, at https://stamps.nzpost.co.nz/
Seasonally-inverted southern hemisphere Kiwis (New Zealanders) have imported the northern hemisphere holiday traditions—but someone forgot to change the dates.
In doing so, we’ve essentially lost the fundamental reason for celebration of the midwinter festival: the anticipated return of life after the still-to-come times of hardship—the release from darkness and want, toward the time of renewal and plenty.
Early on, I realized this concept was more deeply ingrained in me than I’d dreamed. Moving to New Zealand was a big change in more ways than one.
Whether we move away from our childhood home or relocate a long way from our families and close friends later in life, we may find the need to create our own holiday traditions.
As children, and now grandchildren, enter our lives, our roles may change even further, necessitating further adjustments.
Those living far from their birth homes often confirm that being away from family and close friends can be daunting.
Tell me about it.
My first December 25th in New Zealand had to rate as my most depressing Christmas up until that date.
I had a wonderful boss, but no real friends outside of work, as I had spent every weekend with my boyfriend out on the coast, an hour away from home—and he ended our relationship over the phone, out of the blue, on 23 December.
Thanks to https://awakened2torah.com/2017/07/19/stay-in-the-box-jack/ for the use of the photo. 🙂
Looking back, I can see it was for the best, but at the time… let’s say it wasn’t ideal.
On the other hand, sometimes one must sink to great depths to plumb the true strength of one’s spirit and guts.
Eyes blurred by tears, I managed to create the day for myself by cutting out intricate paper snowflakes from wrapping paper.
Thanks to The Balance for use of the pic! https://www.thebalance.com/
I still remember as if it were yesterday: The paper was red on one side, white on the other, and thin enough for light to shine through it.
In fine pencil, I wrote around the perimeter of each, and on inner circles, what the holiday was really about—about the day being about love, and not presents. About those whom I cared for, and who cared about me. About the beautiful country in which I had ensconced myself, the tremendous job as an equine vet in an otherwise eight-man dairy practice.
The little piece of NZ beside my home on the cover of my third novel
As the years passed, I found new ways of satisfying the yearnings in my heart at Christmas time when I was unable to return to my family for the holidays.
Celebrating a sit-down, full-on Midwinter dinner on 21 June for a roomful of my Kiwi friends, many of whom had never experienced a northern hemisphere Christmas dinner, not only did something for them, but did something for my own heart.
It gave me my Christmas back and let me begin to enjoy true Kiwi summertime Christmases.
“Christmas is so commercialised, I don’t want anything to do with it,” I’ve heard from several friends lately.
This isn’t a problem for me. I don’t watch television at all, and since I began writing, I avoid town… even my radio time has diminished.
I don’t hear the commercials or Christmas jingles, so the commercialism isn’t a part of my life. I have only my memories and traditions from which to browse.
In speaking with my partner in mid-June about it, he said Christmas really didn’t mean anything to him. We discussed it at length, what would make it for him, what makes it for me. The result?
He enjoyed his holiday, and this year we will have a midwinter Christmas feast and hopefully, he will regain his joy of the holidays, no matter what time of year they arrive.
I hope this helps someone, estranged by distance or circumstance from loved ones, find peace in their life.
In Once Upon a Vet School #7, Lena Takes a Foal, Lena finds herself in a situation. She was going to stay in her vet school town and take extra Large Animal ICU shifts over the holidays, as her family was out of the country, but she was invited home with her hero, Kit.
Contents
Here’s a little excerpt of their traditional Christmas:
Once Upon a Vet School #7,
Lena Takes a Foal
❧
Kit’s pickup eased off the highway into his family’s driveway, snow crunching beneath the tires. He slowed as we approached a beautiful bay Thoroughbred with a matching foal at foot, standing behind the post and rail fence.
“She’s my favorite jumper — the one I kept when everything got split up,” he said, and tightened his jaw.
“Glad you still have her then,” I said, taking a deep breath, and squeezed his fingers. “It’ll all be fine.”
“I know. Thank you for comin’ home with me,” he said, as we drove on toward the house.
“Glad you asked,” I said, taking my eyes off the pair of horses and looking forward through the windshield at what could only be Kit’s family members, by their resemblance.
“The welcoming committee awaits.” He smiled and shut off the engine, opened my door and handed me out into the freezing, dazzling sunshine, accented by the tang of the snow-drenched pines. His arm, warm over my shoulders, led me toward the group.
Any anxiety I might have had about meeting his family vanished into thin air as handshakes turned to hugs. Kit’s sister, a female version of him, stood tall and leggy in designer clothing and manicured nails, while his father offered a hint of the distinguished gentleman Kit would become. His beautiful mother was kindness itself as she pulled us in the door, toward her warm, cinnamon-scented farmhouse-style kitchen.
❧
Christmas music played in the background when we eventually migrated from the hand-hewn kitchen table toward the living room with our foaming mugs of fresh eggnog. The huge tree caught my attention, its fairy lights and ornaments glittering against long pine needles, but my mouth dropped open at the view of Lake Tahoe completely filling the longest wall of the room. Its blue-black expanse shimmered against the snow on the surrounding mountains.
“Who’s dishing out the presents?” Kit’s mother asked, settling herself on the sofa.
“My turn.” Kit’s sister smiled and began delivering packages around the room.
I hadn’t expected anything, but had made gifts over the month since Kit had invited me. For his mother, a gardening apron; his sister, some padded hangers for her fashionable clothes; and for his pop, a big tin of the Danish Christmas cookies I’d grown up making with my family. Kit had already inhaled most of his cookies on the way up the mountain.
Soon there was a pile of gifts beside me. I stared at Kit over the top of it, my mouth open.
“What did you expect? You’re part of the family, now.
Enjoy it,” he said, and leaned across to kiss me.
My face heated. I couldn’t have been more pleased, as I picked up the first gaily wrapped package.
“A western shirt,” Kit said, holding up his first present. “I haven’t had a new one in years, thank you, Lena!”
“That forest green with chocolate is perfect on you,
Kit,” his sister said. “It looks designer, where did it come from?” She turned to me.
“It’s a Lena original,” I said.
“No, it can’t be,” she said, peering over her brother’s shoulder at the label. “It is!”
“What does it say?” his mother asked.
“Made Expressly for Kit by Lena,” she said.
Kit pulled it on and clicked the pearl snaps.
“It fits,” he said, astonished. “They never fit… and it’s actually long enough.”
“Of course, it fits, I’m a professional. Just remind me to give back your ratty old denim work shirt that was falling apart at the seams.”
“You didn’t cut it apart, did you?” Kit said, horror written all over his face.
“Your precious shirt is safe,” I said, squeezing his fingers. “I know how long it must’ve taken to get the fabric that soft.”
“You got that right,” he said, with a grin.
I glanced around, but everyone was absorbed elsewhere.
“Truth be told,” I whispered, “you might not get it back.”
He frowned, and I quirked my lips at him.
“What have you done with it?” His brows narrowed.
“Nothing, but it’s awfully nice to sleep in… it’s got your scent.”
He peeked toward the rest of the family, then turned back to me, eyes glowing.
“Now that, I’d like to see,” he said, in an undertone. “You can keep it, if that’s why you need it.” He chuckled.
The first present I opened was a beautiful copy of Robert Frost’s Birches.
“That’s for you, my dear,” Kit’s mother said, after I unwrapped it, “because you’re a swinger of birches.” Her eyes glowed as she gazed from me to her son and back again.
Everyone was happy with my homemade gifts and I was touched by the thought that had gone into their presents for me.
Kit disappeared for a moment, then returned to the room carrying a large, gaily decorated box. I glanced up at him with a smile and returned to reading about birches in the snow, my legs tucked up beneath me on the sofa.
All talk in the room ceased and I looked up to see Kit standing before me.
“This is for you.” He gently handed the package to me and sat down. “It’s breakable. Very.”
Looking sideways at him, I slipped my feet to the floor and pulled the end of the silk ribbon to untie the bow, then pulled off the paper. Whatever it was, it’d been packed securely.
Kit cut the heavy tape securing the box with his pocket knife and I opened the flaps.
❧
Want to read more?
Once Upon a Vet School #7 is available in print and digital. See details here
It’s also available as part of Author’s of Main Street’s current boxed set Christmas Babies on Main Streethere
Happy Holidays from my family to yours, and a new release too!
I hope you’re enjoying good health, good friends, and your favourite foods… and some new release books!
We’ve just had a lovely and sunny Christmas down under in our little green spot of New Zealand.
Plenty to do, with the farm, writing and vetting!
My latest interesting dentistry patient is a nearly 2000 Kg White Rhino at the Auckland Zoo! He’ll hopefully soon be right as rain!
Have a look at one of the pages within my Blue Mist Equine Vet Centre pages about a recent visit to the Auckland Zoo to perform some dentistry on Itika, the zebra! Just go here.
Speaking of vetting, I’ve just begun a new series… (and yes, I’m still continuing The Long Trails series!)
Share Lena’s escapades from the time she decides to become a veterinarian, through her education and practice time in the USA, to her career as a rural equine and sometimes zoo-dentistry veterinarian in New Zealand.
This novel is the seventh in this series, comprising tales of a girl who dreamed of becoming a vet… her life on the way and beyond. And yes, it’s semi-autobiographical. I’m not telling which parts are and which aren’t! I’ll leave that up to you to guess!
The first-written book in the series, Once Upon a Vet School #7, is now out! I figure if George Lucas of Star Wars fame can do it, so can I!
The blurb:
She needs help…he needs to stay away.
Lena has a problem—one that could keep her from graduating from veterinary school. There’s one person who can help her, but will he?
After a messy divorce, Kit returns to his first loves—horses and his old veterinary school alma mater, as a resident. Becoming involved with his talented and beautiful equine track student Lena isn’t on the cards.
Luckily, she’s sworn off relationships after her last romantic disaster. Besides, if there’s one thing a veterinary school faculty frowns upon, it’s a relationship between a resident and a student. Like oil and water, they just don’t mix.
It’s available as a standalone in paperback in New Zealand HERE and everywhere else via Amazon in paperback and digital HERE.
Take this month’s quiz!
Once Upon a Vet School is available on its own or as part of a a nine-story anthology called Christmas Babies on Main Street... and can you guess what sort of a baby is in my story?
The first person to respond with the correct answer via email wins a paper copy of
This is the story of my heart about my adopted green, green country of New Zealand.
It follows my characters Aleksandra and Xavier from the area of California where I grew up in the Santa Cruz Mountain redwoods and follows them through some pretty big challenges and their decisions to emigrate far to the south to a new land in New Zealand.
Learning the many facets of the history of New Zealand has changed the way I think about the social structure here… considerably. I’ve met some wonderful people while researching the history of the areas near where I currently live and made some friends I’ll keep for a long time. The acknowledgement section is considerable. 🙂
It’s had some great reviews by some pretty big names! One is on the cover!
The Blurb:
When you’ve lost everything,
the only way to go is up—
isn’t it?
Tragedy strikes in Aleksandra and Xavier’s newly-found paradise on their California Rancho de las Pulgas. Their friend Von Tempsky invites them on a journey to a new life in peaceful New Zealand, but change is in the wind.
When they reach Aotearoa, they disembark into a turbulent wilderness—where the wars between the European settlers and the local Māori have only just begun.
(LOL, who spotted the error I just fixed, other than Matthew?)
It’s available as a standalone in paperback in New Zealand HERE and everywhere else via Amazon in paperback and digital HERE.
Take care out there on the roads and enjoy the rest of your holidays!
If you enjoy the books, please leave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads! Every review, no matter how short, helps this indie author!
My Christmas New Release Gift to You
This is a short story I’ve just released, called In the Home Paddock. It was recently entered in a contest and the judge’s comments were:
In The Home Paddock: “One of several stories entered that has a rural vet as the narrator. However this one was a class above the rest because of the hidden narrative of a lost son, the eldest of a farming family.
Judging by the tear in the old farmer’s eye the sick cow is more than just a pet, and the way the story builds on this early observation demonstrates wonderful structure and poise.”
I hope you enjoy it!
To get your free gift, just sign up for my newsletter to the right, and the story will be sent to you right away!
If you’re already on my newsletter list, it should be in your inbox. If it’s not, please email me! I’ve just changed over to ConvertKit from Mailchimp and some of you may have been lost in the transition, but I hope not!
Please keep an eye out for another new release announcement, coming soon!
I’m looking forward to hearing from you! If you want to comment on this post, click on the title and it’ll take you to a page where you can post! Working on fixing this function. 🙂
Hasta luego! Que le vaya bien, as Xavier would say!
One of my jobs this weekend is to get Once Upon a Vet School 7 loaded to Amazon to be printed and was trying, once again, to determine the font size in some books I have to hand…and I found this!
Today I’m observing Armistice or Veteran’s Day, and I hope you get the chance as well, wherever you are in the world. My most profound appreciation to all those who have given so much for us. You are not forgotten.
Photo credits to nzhistory.govt.nz
Back at home, we have a few things on this weekend, as we’re getting close to heading for San Antonio with our Equi-Still Portable Equine Stocks to AAEP 2017! Thankfully, we’ve been blessed with a team of wonderful full-time farm-sitters so we can trot off in peace!
Here’s the gist of an article I just found…
Contents
How to Find Font Size of Text in Points
1. Measure the size of your text in millimeters.
2. Divide the total number of millimeters by 4.217 — the equivalent of a pica. For instance, if you measured 21.085 millimeters, divide by 4.217 to get 5.
3. Multiply the answer you got by 12 to get your point size. For instance, if your answer was 5, multiplying by 12 would give you an answer and point size of 60.
I sure did…probably obsessed on riding the Pony Express, too, when I was a little girl riding out in the hills around La Honda, California.
Maybe that’s why my first novel, A Long Trail Rolling, ended up being about the Pony Express…and a girl rider.
Many have asked why I wrote about this for my first novel. For those of you who don’t know my history, suffice it to say I grew up on Highway 84 in La Honda, California, where the Younger Brothers used to hang out after big heists, the Stage ran through, and the Peek-a Boo Inn (yes, it is what it sounds like…), the eleven bars and three churches and one store were the standard, back in the day.
I went away to university and finally finished veterinary school. I had to be a hoss-doc, didn’t I? I moved on to Placerville, of Gold Country fame, on the Pony Express Trail. You might say I was rather steeped in the Old West.
Things led to things and I found myself in New Zealand, where I’ve lived for the past 22 years. I’ve now finished my third historical fiction (with romantic elements, of course) and my first contemporary vet girl story, Once Upon a Vet School #7: Lena Takes a Foal.
It’s actually included in our Christmas boxed set, Christmas Babies on Main Street! You’ll see it in the right sidebar, all dressed in midnight blue!
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Back to History and the Pony Express!
I discovered some pretty cool things can happen when you’re researching a story.
The Pony Express Re-Ride runs every year, all the way from St. Jo, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. Patrick Hearty, past president of the National Pony Express Association (NPEA), wrote the Foreword of A Long Trail Rolling for me. He and his wife, Linda, hosted my son Elliot and I a few years ago, and again last year, when they invited me to ride in the re-ride and lent me their horses for the famed ride. It was awe-inspiring to ride over the same trail as all those young men, so many years ago. It is strange to realize that the portion I rode over is less populated than it was back in the day!
The Pony Express Re-Ride continues!
This rider is putting the “mochila,” (the leather pad with the mail pockets, below) over his horse’s saddle. It’s transferred from horse to horse all the way from St. Joseph to Old Sacramento for the western run, and another one is transferred at the same time, in the reverse direction…all the way from Old Sac to St. Joseph for the eastward run. Members of the NPEA and others may insert a commemorative letter at one end and have them delivered to the other.
Patrick has put a commemorative letter in for me every year since we met and I cherish the growing stack of letters, knowing how many miles those letters have gone, carried by horse after horse in their locked “cantinas”, over 2000 miles of hot summer sweat and dust, prairies, rivers, and the Sierra Nevada Ranges.
Patrick Hearty and Dr. Joseph Hatch of Utah speaking on the Pony Express
Patrick Hearty The Pony Express Stations in Utah
Photo above: Patrick and Joseph’s book. Photo to right: Joseph L. Hatch, left, and Patrick Hearty talk about the history of the Pony Express. (Thanks to Scott G. Winterton, Deseret News)
Traveler’s Rest Pony Express Station, Near Salt Lake City, Utah
Here is the Traveler’s Rest (or Absalom Smith) Station, with the front torn down, but the pic shows the first part built. Thanks to the University of Utah
Simpson’s Springs (Somewhere out in the Utah Salt Desert!).
Painting of Simpson’s Springs Station
Lookout Pass, Where my Heroine, Aleksandra, Finds a “Bit of Strife”
It’s in Lookout Pass that Aleksandra, my heroine, is ambushed by Paiute Indians and… (but that would be telling!)…. you’ll just have to read the book!
INDIAN ARROWE AND ECHO STATION PE STATION KEEPERS
“Mose Wright described the Indian arrow-poison. The rattlesnake – the copperhead and the moccasin he ignored – is caught with a forked stick planted over its neck, and is allowed to fix its fangs in an antelope’s liver. The meat, which turns green, is carried upon a skewer when wanted for use: the flint head of an arrow, made purposely to break in the wound, is thrust into the poison, and when withdrawn is covered with a thin coat of glue. Ammonia is considered a cure for it and the Indians treat snake bites with the actual cautery. . .”
Yep, it gets messy, but then, it often did.
The “Pony”, as the Pony Express was called, only actually ran for 18 months or so, a bit less because Indian attacks caused it to shut down for about a month and a half… (Why, you say? Well, when all the stations for over 50 miles are burned down, stock stolen and station tenders killed, it’s pretty hard to maintain a route!)
The opening of the new trans-continental telegraph line sounded the death knell of the “Pony”, but it had served its purpose in keeping California in the Union, preventing its secession to the South! This is actually the main storyline of Book 2 in the series, The Hills of Gold Unchanging.
I have plenty of education, probably a lot more than is good for me, but the last computer class I took was at Foothill Community College in…( dare I say it? ) around 1982, entitled Programming in Basic. My youngest son, a Com Sci major, looked at me sideways when I mentioned it. Clearly he hadn’t understood I was truly a dinosaur until he heard that.
DINOSAUR COMPUTERS. Photo credit and thanks to http://www.chilloutpoint.com/featured/old-photos-of-the-first-generation-of-computers.html
All that aside, I’m not quite sure I understood all the implications of a self-hosted site before I started, but now…yep. I got it. And…I kinda like it. 🙂
Things had gotten difficult with respect to websites. I had two websites and needed another three for all of my, and now our, ventures. They were on different hosts, which didn’t talk to each other nicely.
One was bmevc.co.nz, the Blue Mist Equine Veterinary Centre site. It also had a page for Equi-Still™ Portable Equine Stocks, which really needed its own identity. Glinkowski Carriages and Arden Harness were also on there…oh, and the purchase page for my books—because I couldn’t have one on my book site.
What a mess.
My vet site used an outdated theme, if you could even call it that. Comprehensible by proper website builders, but it was…shall we say “not intuitive”? Especially by me.
Then there was my previous author website: lizzitremayne.com on WordPress.com. It was…shall we say, thorough…and it was all over the show. My provider wasn’t able to offer me multiple websites for a reasonable price, so I started looking at different hosting companies. Well…Well…Hmmm.
Book deadlines are always a good excuse. Blinkin’ terrifying, just looking through those hosting company pages. Even my techie partner wasn’t so sure where to go.
Into the too-hard basket it went.
The hefty yearly fee for the non-intuitive site builder came up for renewal. (Mwahh ha ha ha ha ha.) This would force my hand. I pulled off the site’s data—the company “couldn’t migrate” it—from my vet website, to anywhere, so I stored it.
Surely I’d do it now.
Well, it didn’t happen. Now I had no vet or stocks website…and then, Iola came to the rescue.
At our local RWNZ Coast to Coast meeting, Iola Goulton spoke on social media, including a section on building your own website! Matt and I were raising our brows at each other with gleeful grins. Iola had just created her own site, following the instructions of one young lady, Shannon, from the USA. Shannon baldly stated that anyone can make a WordPress.org site…quite a claim, considering.
Shannon the Optimistic Teacher of Web Development! Thanks Shannon!
I had a look at Shannon’s FREE Five Day Website Challenge, and a little something inside me stepped out from behind a rock, where it’d been hiding for months.
“Maybe I could do this,” I whispered.
I started to get excited, as those of you who know me understand happens sometimes, and I started to plan.
Even Tiggie started getting excited!
New Plan: I’d build five sites, all at the same time. Three for me and two for my partner, Matthew.
Carefully following Shannon’s instructions, we signed up for Bluehost and purchased a bunch of domains and began. After I’d installed WordPress on these sites and started Shannon’s process, I began to get more ideas, and increasingly worried, as things became more convoluted….
Maybe, instead, I could make a new plan.
New Plan (B): make one website with many pages…after all, most of them eventually linked back to horses, so they were at least related. Besides, getting the SEO up on one blog would be…significantly less crazy than trying to do it on each of them, individually.
Everybody said I was nuts to even attempt it.
Well, nearly a month later…
I survived. We survived.
The dogs helped, Matt helped, heaps and heaps of other people and Bluehost and their many minions helped. Even my new little grandson helped…but not much. 🙂
So now that I’m done, the dogs are…sleeping, as they have done for most of the last month, Matt’s staying away until it’s done (just kidding, fencing and swordplay called) and I’m celebrating.
We like to think that we’ve found the perfect balance, close enough to the shops to be convenient (a ten-minute drive to the largest mall in NZ), but far enough away to avoid the hustle and bustle of town.
We hire someone to mow the steep parts of our land and, I admit it, I’m terrified of large animals like cows and horses. We live surrounded by various livestock and as long as they stay behind their fences, I’m happy to admire them from a distance.
HOW IT WORKS:
and now the 
My partner, a native of the UK, has a history of disappointment and sadness at our New Zealand Christmas. I, too, was transplanted to New Zealand (by choice, of course…).
Thanks to Union Pacific and 
Thanks to Tom Crews!
Thanks to 
