Vet Tech Tales: The Early Years Now Available as an Ebook - Only 99 Cents

You may have noticed something different about the blog today: All the Friday Vet Tech Tales have been removed.

That's because the Tales have all been gathered up and published in ebook form exclusively on Amazon!

On Friday, January 6, I'll start posting the new Tales that will appear in Volume 2, so you'll still get to see them here first -- and for free.

Meanwhile, you can pick up Volume 1: The Early Years for just 99 cents. It has 17 Tales that run about 100 pages, plus a bonus 2 chapters from my medical thriller SECTOR C that features a female veterinarian as one of the main characters. Note that SECTOR C does have some sad animal deaths, so may not be a good choice for someone sensitive to that. I can, however, assure you no animal was actually harmed in the making of the book (although a couple of dogs did complain about being horribly neglected while I was writing it) ;o).

Vet Tech Tales: The Early Years is available in English in all of Amazon's Kindle stores:
Amazon.com - 99c
UK - 86p
Germany - 99e
Spain - 99e
France - 99e

Here's Mud in Your Eye. And Mane. And Tail...

I promised this week there'd be pictures of the herd masquerading as shaggy mountain ponies, thinking I'd snap a few shots of them in their winter coats. Then we got rain. And more rain. Not Thai-flood amounts of rain, but a deluge measured in inches with more coming as I write this. What a lovely sight!

In addition to the rain (edited after looking outside to add sleet and wet snow!), cold weather is moving in. And the horses love it. So much that they're skidding around in the mud and making their own wallows. So instead of the long-, thick-haired mountain pony impersonators I'd planned, we have little horses impersonating mud monsters instead. Definitely not the beasties at their besties.


Ricky

Bella

Cody

Bonnie

Lyssa

This is one of the stalls given over to grass bagged from one of the pastures.

I still need about 10 more bales of hay to get everyone through the winter, goats included. I generally buy coastal bermuda as I supplement with (too much) grain and pelleted feed. Right now, I feed my own blend of alfalfa/timothy pellets (the wild rabbits love me to throw a handful or two of these their way, too), rolled oats, sweet feed (which has yummy molasses mixed in) and a special pelleted concoction for older horses who can't digest hay easily. After my older mare, Lyssa, had an episode of choke (a blockage in the esophagus), the vet suggested the special pelleted mix, which is easily digested. When Bella went through two episodes of colic recently, I added it to the mix for everyone. The horses hate it and won't eat it out of the bag as it's meant to be consumed, but it goes down readily with all the other goodies.

Then, of course, they also get apples, carrots, alfalfa cubes and peppermint-flavored treats. Keeping them fed isn't the problem; it's keeping them from getting too fat -- a battle I fear I'm losing with my miniature gelding, Cody.

Some gratuitous shots of the dogs in the rain.

Loki

Ginger

Angel

And the cats waiting for lunch.

Callie (l) and Orion (r)

 

Vet Tech Tales - A Sneak Peek

For those of you who don't know, I'll be releasing the Vet Tech Tales as a series of ebooks over the coming year.

You can continue to read them for free right here most every Friday, but I'll also be collecting about 20,000-25,000 words (80-100 pages) worth of Tales into their own volumes to be released one per quarter in 2012-ish. The first book, which will include all the Tales on the blog so far plus next week's Tale that wraps up my first day on the job, will be released mid-month. It'll have a holiday price of just 99 cents.

After next week, I'll take a short holiday break from posting Tales on Fridays, then start back in posting weekly Tales on January 6.

I hope you're enjoying reading these Tales as much as I'm enjoying writing them!

At the top of the post is a sneak peek at the covers for the first two volumes in the series. I don't have the pleasure of knowing the kitten on the cover of Volume 1, but the pup on the cover of Volume 2 is my own irrepressible Loki. Once Volume 2 is released in Mar/Apr, I have a feeling I'll have a model cover diva on my hands!