Category: HVB Promo

2018-11-07

MULE CROSSING: My Favorite Christmas Tradition

My favorite holiday of the year has always been Christmas! The sights, sounds and smells of Christmas transport me to a magical place for the whole month of December, and the excitement and joy of yesterday still ring true today.

I cannot think of a more deserving holiday than one that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ and promotes so much hope and serenity throughout the world, if only for a day. Christmas reminds us all that the spirit of sharing and giving is timeless and takes only a willing attitude and a little bit of creativity.

While I was growing up, Christmas in my family was filled with numerous traditions. When we were twelve days out from Christmas, we watched a 1955 film called On The Twelfth Day of Christmas. As you might guess, it was based on the old English song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Every year, the film brought wild bursts of laughter, as we watched a proper Edwardian lady’s townhouse in England become filled to overflowing with gifts from her suitor. Not only did she get the gift her suitor designated for each day, but also the same gifts from prior days plus the new one.

By Christmas, her little townhouse was filled with 12 partridges in pear trees, 22 turtle doves, 30 French hens, 36 calling birds, 25 gold rings, 30 geese a laying, 28 swans a swimming, 32 maids a milking, 27 ladies dancing, 30 Lords a leaping, 22 Pipers piping and 12 drummers drumming! Laughter filled our house daily from that day forward, all the way up to Christmas. Of course, as children, we were also reminded of the “naughty and nice” list.

To my siblings and me, Santa Claus was the personification of “sharing and giving” and it was important for us to meet the man who inspired so much warmth and affection. Like so many little children, the tradition of sitting on Santa’s lap and telling him what we wanted for Christmas HAD to be observed. Then, after our visit with Santa, we would spend the next few days shopping for the perfect gifts to give to those we loved.

I remember that my parents, brothers, sisters and I were very conscientious about contributing to the Salvation Army volunteers who dotted the department stores with their little red pots, filled with donations for those less fortunate. We children bought some of our gifts, but a lot were created from scratch from things we found around the house. The presents we made always seemed to mean the most.

Christmas baking for days on end with my Grandma is a favorite memory. We got to bake great gifts for many friends and family members (and we all knew there would be time to exercise and take off the weight…LATER!).

We children were wide-eyed and filled with wonder as we passed the evenings listening to our favorite Christmas carols and our elders’ stories of Christmases past. And we absolutely knew that Santa really could drive eight tiny reindeer across the sky, with Rudolph lighting the way with his red nose, bringing presents to little children all over the world. All of these experiences bonded our entire family together.

As a family, we always enjoyed going to a large, rural live Christmas tree lot just a few miles away, where we searched for and cut down of our very own special Christmas tree. Right before Christmas Eve, we put the tree up and decorated it with lots of garlands, popcorn strands and ornaments, many of which represented our family’s “Christmases past.” The Christmas decorations that were everywhere brought smiles to our faces and made us dance with joy, while Christmas bells rang out to remind us of the good in everyone.

On Christmas Eve, surrounded by close friends and family, my mother accompanied us on the piano as we sang Christmas carols. Another Christmas Eve tradition was our very favorite meal of hamburgers and French fries—a quick meal for my mom to fix and food we kids all loved. For dessert, Mom made chocolate and lemon meringue pies. Dessert was always delicious, but we children were anxious to get to the business of opening the presents we gave to each other later in the evening.

We knew that our presents from Santa would not be there until Christmas morning, so we set out milk and sugar cookies for Santa and his reindeer before we went to sleep, so that he would know how much we appreciated his time and effort. We found it totally amazing that he could give gifts to every child, all in one night.

We kids always awoke extremely early on Christmas Day, bouncing down the stairs to see what Santa had left us. The cookies and milk were gone and the presents from Santa were under the tree, but we were not allowed to touch them until our parents and grandparents got up. That wait was excruciating, but it was oh so much fun when the adults finally got up!

After opening presents, everyone had a light breakfast, because the early afternoon would bring our traditional Christmas dinner with friends and family. My mother made the most amazing spread of perfectly roasted turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, an incredible salad filled with everything you can think of from the garden, sweet potatoes and a lovely cranberry sauce. The meal was always topped off by my grandmother’s unique and decadent chocolate roll, a light chocolate cake with real whipped cream and homemade chocolate sauce on top.

Now, as an adult, my Christmases are a wonderful combination of the traditions I experienced as a child and my own new traditions, which means always including my beloved mules, donkeys and horses. In fact, back when I lived in my original farmhouse at Lucky Three Ranch, the old floors were sturdier than those in my present home, so the mules were actually allowed to help with the decorating of the Christmas tree!

My equines have also been involved in many Christmas parades throughout the years. We would always decorate our surrey (pulled by Mae Bea C.T.) and our Meadowbrook cart (pulled by Little Jack Horner) with the most elaborate decorations!

It was so much fun to hear and see the crowds of people along the parade routes waving and cheering in appreciation of our efforts. On Christmas Eve, a group of us would often go Christmas caroling throughout the neighborhood in our mule- and donkey-drawn vehicles.

Of all the Christmas traditions I treasure, my favorite is the tradition that arose when Lucky Three Ranch was born and my mules, horses and donkeys became an integral part of each holiday season. My favorite tradition now is the time spent sharing a warm hug with each of my equines and giving them an extra measure of oats on that very special day that we call Christmas!

To learn more about Meredith Hodges and her comprehensive all-breed equine training program, visit LuckyThreeRanch.com or call 1-800-816-7566. Check out her children’s website at JasperTheMule.com. Also, find Meredith on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

You can find Meredith’s books on this website…

under Horsey/Equestrian / Donkey Fiction and Nonfiction menu tabs!

Meet Meredith

meredith author

A lifelong equestrian, Meredith has been passionate about horses for as long as she can remember. But it was while working at her mother’s ranch in the early 1970s that she really got to know mules and donkeys, coming to love and deeply respect these misunderstood and underappreciated equines.

Meredith’s mules have competed successfully against horses in breed shows and in dressage and combined training. She is also famous for training the first mule to ever reach fourth-level dressage and the world’s first formal jumping donkey to clear four feet in exhibition.

To this day, Lucky Three Ranch remains a cornerstone in the promotion of all equines, from its state-of-the-art teaching museum to its hands-on ranch tours to the beautiful equine sculptures that grace its grounds.

She pooled her resources with the American Donkey and Mule Society and, through their tireless efforts, they managed to, almost single-handedly, significantly increase public awareness of mules and donkeys and their usefulness and unique abilities. Meredith’s decision to champion the rights of these equines actually led to changes in the laws that govern equestrian competitions.

Mules and donkeys are no longer thought of as merely packing, farming and driving animals. They have been elevated to participating in a host of equine recreational events and activities, and are now finally welcome to compete alongside horses in all major equine competitions—a hard-won honor and an enormous stride forward.

Meredith’s years of comprehensive study produced a new, enlightened approach to the humane and safe management and training of all equines, compiled into an extensive encyclopedia of information and reference materials at the Lucky Three Ranch website at www.luckythreeranch.com.

Meredith has found a way to convey her message of treating animals with compassion, patience and respect to children everywhere with her own unique creation and lovable cartoon character, Jasper the Mule at www.jasperthemule.com. Led by Meredith herself, every tour of the Lucky Three Ranch is a personal clinic experience in learning about the management and training of equines that you will never forget!

To learn more about Meredith Hodges and her comprehensive all-breed equine training program, visit LuckyThreeRanch.com or call 1-800-816-7566. Check out her children’s website at JasperTheMule.com.

Thank you so much, Meredith, for blogging with us today, and thanks so much to you readers for visiting! Join our HNVB Book Club and our HNVB Blog via the forms in the right sidebar to keep in touch!

Happy riding and vetting!

Lizzi Tremayne

2018-10-03

Pony Express… It Rides Again! Every Year!

The Pony Express was fantastic, wasn’t it? 400 horses, 120 riders, nearly two hundred stations and several hundred station keepers, water/ feed carters and the like, through hostile territory, alkali deserts, and high mountains, to get mail across the continental USA in TEN DAYS! Unheard of!

The mochila, that piece of leather with the big (locked) pockets, slipped over the express pony’s saddle.

It would leave San Francisco and be transferred from the saddle of one horse to another, across two thousand miles of the Old West, through to St. Jo, Missouri! (They went the reverse direction, too, of course!)

But it only lasted eighteen months, I hear you say! Yes, you’re right!

But now, it’s baaaaaccckkkkk…….

And it’s run every year, by a crazy bunch of historical horse nuts. There’s plenty of info here from the National Pony Express Association about the Pony Express, the trails, the stops, you name it, they’ve got it! There are even classroom lessons!

If you want to join them, they’re always mad keen to have more people get involved to keep ‘The Pony’, as they call it, alive!

And I rode in it a few years ago! Woo hoo!!!!!!

Who wants to do it next year?

I rode through _______________, the section of the trail in Utah where Aleksandra, my heroine in A Long Trail Rolling, has her most dangerous ride!

(Fill in the answer correctly to go into the draw for a digital copy of A Long Trail Rolling. Leave a comment with your answer below and you’ll be in the draw!)

I spoke for a keen group of Pony Express fans in Salt Lake City while I was over there for the ride and it was fantastic.

Not only was I one of the only ones on the ride in a helmet, I even wore a Go-Pro! I’ll have to do some editing and post it in my next blog post!

Here I am riding Sonny down the hill from Lookout…

A herd of mustangs out of Dugway… Utah Pony Express Trail.

Here are some of the Mustangs I saw and photographed on my first trip over the trail!

Anyone recognize this photo? Hint, I took it… It’s in several places on this website!

It’s Clifton Flat, on the Utah portion of the trail. That little bit of trail you see there is probably the piece of trail that looks most like the original trail back in the day!

Patrick Hearty and Lizzi at Rush Valley (Faust’s) Pony Express Station monument, out of Grantsville, Utah.

This is Patrick, the man who’s helped me so much with A Long Trail Rolling, and even written the Foreword. He’s a Past President of the National Pony Express Association and he and his family keep the history alive every year. He’s written several books about ‘the pony’ with Dr. Joe Hatch.

Lizzi at Simpson Flat Station, rebuilt to resemble the original station at this site.

A Long Trail Rolling

The first in The Long Trails series of horsey historical fiction by Lizzi Tremayne

She didn’t expect to become a target… but she is one now….

Disguised as a Pony Express rider, Aleksandra is alone and fleeing through 1860s Utah, hoping to keep her father’s killer from discovering their family secret.

Xavier’s kept the world at arms-length since he ran from his troubles as heir of his Californio rancho family. It doesn’t take him long to discover his new rider-recruit is a girl—one he would like to let in close.

They finally start to let each other in, but the cards are stacking up against them in an ever-worsening situation. Can they learn to trust each other in time to escape the Indians on the warpath, evade the killer, and win through to safety?

Get it here!

Or read more about Lizzi’s books here

With love from NZ, here’s a pic of me and my equine boys… one is no longer with us, but he lives on through his brother…

Thanks so much for coming by.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit at HorseAndVetBooks.com!

I made it for you!

Lizzi Tremayne

2018-09-19

A Bit of Horse Sense

Horse Sense: Learned the Hard Way

My qualifications for writing about horses are ten years as a Riding for the Disabled mum, five as a Pony Club mum, and seven as the reluctant care-taker of one or more obstreperous ponies.

Yet I write Regencies, and in Regency times, gentlemen were as obsessed with their horses as today’s men are with their cars or motorbikes.

In fact, in two of my books, including the latest release, the hero breeds horses for sale.

Which meant I had a lot to learn. I knew the smell of wet pony, and the tricks it can get up to when it doesn’t want the bridle and saddle. That was a start.

Many blog posts, library books, video clips, websites, and questions to friends later, I still think that one end bites and the other kicks.

But I’m slightly more confident about sending my horse-mad heroes out into the wide world.

Horse Sense: from the Middle East to England

In The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, Lord Sutton breeds Turkmen horses he and his family have brought from their home in the Kopet Dag mountains (northeast of Iran). Lord Sutton’s Turkmens, a predecessor of today’s Ahkal Teke, arrived in England well after the heyday of what they then called the orientals, or hot bloods.

Finer boned, thinner skinned, faster, and more spirited than the European horses (known then as cold bloods), the imports from Turkey, Persia, and middle Asia fascinated the English of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

From the two lines came the warm bloods, direct ancestors of today’s thoroughbreds. Indeed, the thoroughbred stud book was founded in the late eighteenth century (for horses intended for racing) and records all English Thoroughbred breeding even today.

A thoroughbred was a horse whose birth and lineage was recorded in the book. Other horses with the same breeding not intended for racing were known simply as ‘bloods’.

If you wanted to sell, or to buy, a horse, you might go to a local horse fair. Or, if you lived in London, you’d drop down to Tattersall’s on Hyde Park Corner.

It had been founded in 1766 by a former groom of the Duke of Kingston, and held auctions every Monday and on Thursdays during the Season. Tattersall’s charged a small commission on each sale, but also charged both buyers and sellers for stabling.

You could buy horses, carriages, hounds, harnesses — whatever a gentleman (or his lady, but ladies did NOT go to Tattersall’s) needed.

And in Regency times, gentlemen visited on other days to place a bet on an upcoming race, or just to meet and chat.

The Jockey Club met there, and moved with it to a later London location and then to Newmarket. Tattersall’s is still a leading bloodstock auctioneer, and still in Newmarket.

Horse Sense: England’s Cavalry

My hero in A Raging Madness had been a cavalry officer. Britain had no formal studs for breeding war horses. Instead, they bought their horses from civilian breeders.

This meant the British cavalry rode horses bred to be hunters, race horses, and carriage horses—usually thoroughbreds or thoroughbred crosses. Each colonel bought the horses for his own regiment.

In 1795, the regulations established a budget of thirty pounds for a light mount and forty for a heavy mount. This budget didn’t change for the rest of the war with France, despite wartime shortages.

Here Alex is telling his brother his plan:

“Father says you are planning to breed horses. For the army, Alex? Racing? What’s your plan?”

“Carriage and riding horses, we thought. I know more about training war horses, of course, but to breed them to be torn apart for the sins of men? I don’t have the heart for it. And there’s always a market for a good horse.”

Alex buys his first stallion from another cavalry office, Gil Rutledge, who is hero of The Realm of Silence (the third novel in The Golden Redepenning series).

Horse Sense for Authors and Seekers

Geri Walton tells us about work horses, especially the heavy breeds. https://www.geriwalton.com/work-horses-in-the-regency-era/

Regency Redingote explains the origins of the term ‘blood horse’, and the pedigree of the General Stud Book. https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/the-english-blood-horse/

Regency Writing has a useful article on housing horses, and the work of a stable. http://regencywriter-hking.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century-horse.html

Shannon Donnelly’s Fresh Ink explains the many different uses of the horse in Regency England. https://shannondonnelly.com/2011/07/28/the-regency-horse-world/ This article also describes common carriage types, side saddles and riding habits.

A Raging Madness

Extract

Fear pierced the fog, and drove Ella across the carriage way and into the shrubbery beyond. The soft rain of the past few days had left branches laden with moisture, and puddles and mud underfoot. Every part of her not covered by the woollen blanket was soon drenched, but the chill kept her awake, kept her from falling back into the false happiness of the dream.

Every stone and twig bruised her feet. Her soft slippers were not made for outside walking, and would be in shreds before she reached the village. At least it was not still raining.

The carriage way turned onto the village road. She kept to the side, ready to hide in the ditch if anyone came. Alone, in her shift, and still dazed from the drug? Being returned to the Braxtons would be the best she could expect from a casual passer-by, and the worst… She shuddered. She had travelled with the army, worked as her father’s assistant, been Gervase Melville’s wife. She knew the worst that could happen to a woman at the mercy of the merciless.

A soft whicker caught her attention. Falcon’s Storm. He was a lighter shape above the hedgerow, stretching his neck to reach his mistress.

“Storm, my sweet, my champion.” She stopped to fuss over him for a minute that stretched into a timeless pause, crooning nonsense about having no treats in her pocket for she lacked a pocket. He lipped at her shoulder and her hair, but showed no offence at being denied the expected lump of carrot or apple.

“I missed you, too,” she assured him. “If only you were old enough, dearest, you would carry me away, would you not?”

He was solidly built for a two-year old, but so was she, for a woman. She walked away with a deep sigh. He was the one thing in the world that was solidly, legally, beyond a doubt hers; her only legacy from the swine she had married, born of her mare, Hawk of May, and Gervase’s charger.

But if she took him, how would she feed him? And if they were hunting for a woman and a colt… No, she could not take him with her, and opening the gate to set him loose was also out of consideration. He would follow her, for sure.

She continued on her way, praying that the Braxtons would leave him to the care of old Jake, the groom, or sell him to someone who appreciated him for the future champion he was.

Storm followed her to the corner of his field, and called after her until she was out of sight. She was hobbling by then. Even though the cold numbed them, her feet shot pain at her from a thousand bruises and cuts.

Then the rain began again. She pulled an edge of the blanket over her head, which kept off the worst of it, but it still sluiced down her cheeks and brow, gathered on her eyebrows, dripped over her eyes, and streamed down either side of her nose.

Blurb

Their marriage is a fiction. Their enemies are all too real.

Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.

Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.

In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.

Meet Jude Knight

Jude Knight’s writing goal is to transport readers to another time, another place, where they can enjoy adventure and romance, thrill to trials and challenges, uncover secrets and solve mysteries, delight in a happy ending, and return from their virtual holiday refreshed and ready for anything.

She writes historical novels, novellas, and short stories, mostly set in the early 19^th Century. She writes strong determined heroines, heroes who can appreciate a clever capable woman, villains you’ll love to loathe, and all with a leavening of humour.

Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/

Subscribe to newsletter: http://judeknightauthor.com/newsletter/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JudeKnightAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JudeKnightBooks

Pinterest: https://nz.pinterest.com/jknight1033/

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Jude-Knight/e/B00RG3SG7I