Dear Minister for Health & Children

Posted on November 15, 2010 by E.Richards

Ms. Mary Harney TD
Minister for Health & Children,
Department of Health & Children,
Hawkins House
Dublin 2

Re: Nurses and Midwives Bill 2010

Dear Minister,

I am a mother of three sons, and currently expecting my fourth child. I have had three wonderful calm and safe homebirths.

As an expectant mother, I am shocked and horrified at the current drafting of the Nurses & Midwives Bill 2010. I live 1-¾ hours away from the nearest maternity hospital in West Cork. I have routinely witnessed my neighbours and friends either giving birth on the roadside, or having to go to hospital to be induced (which immediately increases medical intervention in the birthing process). They have not received the support they need locally. These are the same women that were born in the Skibbereen or Bantry hospitals, travelling to Cork during labour.

I opted for the home birthing scheme, because I was more scared of the negligence I was seeing in the hospital system, than birthing at home ‘without pain relief’. My midwives were wonderfully competent individuals and health practitioners.

As recently as this week, I was in CMU for my initial booking in appointment. At no point did any member of staff listen to the baby’s heartbeat or let my husband and I hear it. This is in stark contrast to all of our visits with the midwives, where the first thing that happens is that the sound of that little new heart beat fills the room. Now, that is antenatal care.

I have enclosed an outline of our requested alterations to the bill. They are simple but mean the world to me, as a mother who wishes to have choice at the most important time in my children’s life, the moment of their birth.

Your sincerely,

Eve Richards

Please check out the AIMS Ireland link http://www.aimsireland.com for more details on what we can do to change things

Posted in Cork, Eve Richards, Family, Ireland, Parenting, Skibbereen, West Cork | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Wishful Duck Soup

Posted on October 30, 2010 by E.Richards

We got given four Muscovy drakes. I was excited by the concept of yummy Christmas dinner and even though I had to drive home with them hissing like demons, in a precarious container, in the dark, I was happy to receive them. I didn’t realise how Halloween specific they looked until I saw them up close. They were huge, and irridecent black and white, with a warty red bill.

They spent the night in the car and in the morning, the Husband and I carried them up into the electric fence enclosure. When I let them out, they all stayed together and didn’t mingle at all with the other ducks. However I did not do my research. That evening when I went out for the night feed and to get all stragglers back into the pen (I have the chickens from Chicken Run), the four Muscovy took one look at me and flew straight up!

For those who don’t know, Friendly Cove is a large Georgian style house. When the Muscovy took off, they flew onto the roof. As they waddled up the roof to position themselves, one by one they kept sliding down, often taking another with them on their way down. There they were about 35 feet in the air teetering on a narrow gutter. Only once they hit the gutter would they have a little fly up the roof again, where after 30 seconds their weight would send them sliding down again. After a half an hour of this fun, they decided to settle on the flat section. We don’t have a ladder that will reach up that far, so the decision was made to leave them there, and that they would probably head down themselves for feeding the next day.

They didn’t.

They stayed up there all day, and through the next night. At this point, Christmas dinner seemed unlikely without a ladder purchase.

During that next day however, they came down and single filed down to the pier where they launched themselves into the estuary. We see them every day since, blending in with the seagulls. I am in hiding due to releasing large Muscovy Drakes into the local ecosystem. The Husband is fully confident that his trapping skills are up to the challenge. However, to date, there has been no recapture!

Posted in ducks, Family, Gardening, West Cork | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Geese

Posted on October 19, 2010 by E.Richards

We have lost our gander to a fox. All members of the family, human and otherwise are very sad. He didn’t have a name, but did have a great personality, and was very gentle.

In the meantime, I am desperately trying to find another breeding pair, so that the Friendly Cove Goose project does not get derailed. One would think that coming up to Christmas, I would be able to find a spare gander or goose or two. No such luck at the moment.

Let me know if any readers have some for sale…….

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Rumoured Unicorn Sighting Reported In Don Valley

Posted on October 12, 2010 by E.Richards

Toronto, ON – Amateur video depicting what could be one of the most elusive legendary creatures, the unicorn, has been captured on film by a Toronto resident.  The video in question, shot by a local birdwatcher, Peter Hickey-Jones, shows what appears to be a white horse with a single horn on its head emerging from the trees in the Don Valley wetland.

via Rumoured Unicorn Sighting Reported In Don Valley.

How very sweet if this was true……But seriously? The unicorns in Legend look more realistic.

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Pigs & Black Pudding

Posted on September 14, 2010 by E.Richards

When the darkness starts to infiltrate our early evenings, and the rooster starts crowing while it is still black in the morning, you know that autumn is coming in West Cork. The many elms around Friendly Cove are just starting to change colour from green to yellow. I guess they are the first to change because they are also the earliest to get leaves in the spring.

This cool air meant that our last pig needed to be killed and processed into dinner. On Saturday evening, that’s what we did & I made black pudding for the first time. I must say that the children thought it was successful!

Homemade Black Pudding recipe:

About 2/3 litres of pig blood
500 gr of pinhead oatmeal soaked
8 onions sweated down in olive oil and butter until nice and soft.
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg
Cloves

You are supposed to add back fat or lard chunks – but I didn’t.

– Mix the oatmeal and blood together with the soft onions in a large pan and set over a low heat, stirring constantly. After a long time, the mixture will start to get very thick and sticky. –Add in all the spices and keep stirring.

– Get another large pan of water boiling and spoon the mixture into pudding bags (I used old squares of sheets and tied them with cotton string) Once the water is boiling, pop those bundles of pudding into the boiling water and cook until they turn from deep red into grey and they feel firm to the fork when you poke them (don’t open just poke) or about twenty mins for a round the size of your fist.

– When they are totally cool, gentle open and slice and fry the slices in butter!

Posted in Biodynamic, Black Pudding, Family, Gardening, Pigs, Recipes, West Cork | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Dreaming of Mars

Posted on August 24, 2010 by E.Richards

After having a deeply intense dreaming session after the new moon this month, I had a look at my own transits. Of course the Mars/Venus conjunction is taking place right on top of my natal Pluto in the 12th house and that new moon was conjunct my natal Uranus.

I don’t dream about relationships and people normally. I tend towards the zombie/sci-fi/flying kind of dreams but the dreams I’ve been having would put the Young and the Restless to shame! All kinds of relationships, loads of people that I know, and I was having relationships with them that I never have in real life. I found this disturbing because I am very private about most of my true feelings about people (Moon in Scorpio). I even like to keep it secret from myself, and so I am feeling ripped wide open by my subconscious. It is a vulnerable place to be in.

On the other hand, kind and longstanding friends have been telling me that they are so happy to see the old ME back! Well, I don’t remember this narky, argumentative, competitive, funny and emotional version of me at all, but seemingly others do and they like her…..

I feel like a hedgehog, all spiky and that nowhere is safe from change or unexpected (unwanted) revelations even my dreams. I am being drawn back into the Tarot, and visions of Kali/Sekhmet/the Morrigan. I am singing, and bouncing around the place, and then crying and seeing the light in between the leaves of trees with wonder.

Oh dear. I am a Mom, and hold down two jobs, how dare Mars swing by and upset my balance! In the daily drudgery of life, I do forget that I have passion and intensity and deep dreams full of possibilities. Perhaps the answer is to learn to live a little out of balance. Maybe I should try life a bit more in the style of the spinning top in it’s last final wobbles, when it skims the table top but through the force of it’s own momentum , keeps on going.

Posted in Astrology, Gardening, Mars, Mental Health, Moon, Natal chart, Pluto, West Cork | Leave a comment

Broad beans

Posted on August 16, 2010 by E.Richards

I finally get the gardener’s love affair with broad beans.

For the last four years that I have been trying to grow these wierd plants, I have been continuously disapointed with the cropping. They grow up so large and high – get blackfly/make pods and die. I only ever have gotten about three meals off of an entire packet of seeds. Yet I kept going and planting them every season thinking that I am doing something wrong. It seems much hoopla for little produce….

…now I know!

Cut them back after that first crop, and they will grow again! Brilliant! Now we’re sucking diesel…at least until the blackfly try again.

NB – weak mixture pf ecover washingup liquid and water sprayed over tops will kill those blackfly, and it works on roses too

Posted in Gardening, West Cork | Leave a comment

Pigs and Solar Eclipses

Posted on July 13, 2010 by E.Richards

I am going to tell you how Sunday’s solar eclipse in Cancer went:

Our pigs managed to get out of the field they were fenced in. My husband had just put them in, and they were eating away, when our Golden Lab trying to do a runner to the village in search of girl dog time distracted him. So the pigs decided that his side of the fence was a more sociable place to be, and they nosed under the fence and went for a wander. Unfortunately they wandered up our lane and into the neighbour’s yard, who had left his gate open. The yard also contained cows and a bull. I had left in the car searching for the Lab, and my husband waded in to rescue the pigs that were getting stamped on and butted up against the stonewalls. Apparently he slapped a ‘cow’ out of the way, and as it moved around, he realised he had slapped a bull instead.

Our favourite little black and white pig was injured, and once we got them to safety in a shed with lots of hay, they lay down side-by-side, and Black White died. So we did what any self-respecting small holder would try to do, we bled him as best we could, and butchered him ourselves. I have a horrible wonderful image of my husband with a saw and a book in either hand standing and looking at the carcass I had gutted for him.

That night we had bbq spare ribs, Anya salad potatoes and lots of leafy greens all from the garden and the pig. It was our first genuine sustainable meal. I did have hard time sleeping that night, maybe from the wine I had drunk in order to ‘calm’ my nerves. It was a traumatic event for us all.

I have Saturn at 15º Cancer and the eclipse was at 19º Cancer. It also hits a 5º orb on my Mid Heavens. I literally lost a valuable (financially & emotionally) member of my family. The next day, I found that one friend had lost her rabbits on her estate and that another friend had an escaping ferret. (Everything got home safe though) What was interesting is the fact that nothing had been going stray before, and nothing has gotten out since.

Any comments?

Posted in Cork, Family, Saturn, Uncategorized, West Cork | Leave a comment

updates from Durrus

Posted on June 29, 2010 by E.Richards

Having had the ‘ sex ‘ talk from my mother in what seems to be not so long ago, I was sniggering listening to husband and myself. We were trying to encapsulate such a complex thing for our three sons (seven, four and three.) I think we were doing really well. We discussed why their big brother has a different mom, and how that led to him not living with us. We talked about making sure you only have babies with someone you want to at least try to stay with. We talked about having sex and making sure you don’t have babies unless you want to. All in all a five minute talk, and nothing too scary or detailed. The kids nodded and asked some questions. But my middle son was very quiet, so I directed my attention towards him and asked: ‘ Hey, Eddie, what do you think?’ He paused to take his thumb out of his mouth, and asked ‘ Is it ok for me to have sex with Samuel’s girlfriend?’ The seven year old brother in question shouted ‘ hey no way!’ My husband actually fell over from laughing and I got left having to answer that one.

This kid has Mercury in Scorpio, and he is always coming up with the weirdest things. Like when he was three and matter of factly told me that he had been born before and the Daddy in that place had killed him and taken his head off, and then calmly returned to eating his cereal. But I think that what popped up in the above conversation was his Mars in Taurus.

Living as I do with two people with Mars in Taurus, I think I am beginning to get a feel for it….somewhat. There is a real need to possess in this life force dynamic. Eddie only slept with two little toy cars in his hands every night since he could lift toys. My husband (thankfully he doesn’t read this) actually hugs me too hard, and has been known to leave fingerprint bruises when he does. (Please don’t read this as abusive husband, it is actually a combination of me bruising easily and him gripping too hard with his fingers) It is very tactile, but also all about what it has and what it has not. I find it a bit slow to say the least, but that is also because I am a Mar in Sagittarius person, like my other son. Both Eddie and my husband ponder about their daily actions, like they are getting messages from tiny wires connected to some control panel a million miles away from what is happening. Things are deliberate.

So why today am I writing about this? Good question. Having not written anything in ages, it just sort of sprung out of my mind on onto the page. I am well sick of reading about the Giant Grand Cross and Lunar Eclipses, and just wanted to rebase astrology back into the daily practice of tolerance. Plus it was my two-year wedding anniversary, we couldn’t go out, husband got very sick and friend committed suicide all in the same four days. Moon in Capricorn things I think, but again less said about that the better.

That’s all for now folks. Thanks for reading and feel free to post comments if any.

Posted in Astrology, Family, Moon, Parenting | Leave a comment

relocation

Posted on March 9, 2010 by E.Richards

Seeing as we are right in the process of moving, and following on from my last post, relocation seems to be in the air….

Relocation astrology has followers and disparagers. For my part, I think that the base is still the natal place of birth. That doesn’t mean one cant find something to think about in looking at a relocated chart and seeing how the transits affect that. What I found the most interesting about my own relocated chart was how the major axis changed. Instead of having a tenth and fourth house Saturn Sun opposition, the relocated chart changed into a first and seventh house opposition.

Since my birthday in January ( Capricorn! Busted!) I was hit by a blast of depression. It was serious. I found that I didn’t have any ability to manage it. So being the practical natured being I posted my chart with transits on the lovely site Astrodienst. And I was surprised! The relocation reading really assisted me with getting a handle on what was making me feel like I was drowning in quicksand.

I am not good on support. After Christmas, I found that all the people I was supporting, I was letting down or at least that is how I was perceiving things. When I look to my own natal chart and see that Saturn Sun opposition on the MC/IC; I get thrown back into myself and my past and deep feelings of loss and struggle and neediness. I find it hard in my own chart to see tools by which to get out of that place. To be honest I feel a bit squished! So relocating that weight to horizontally across, and changing the venue to self & relationships gave me just enough space to go ‘ Ah gotcha!’. I saw that I was supporting people that didn’t deserve it & did not need it & how much of my energy was getting drained unnecessarily. I was able to see how I was not supporting myself by focusing on relationships or partnerships that were not growing or fulfilling me in my life goals. And do you know what, I acted selfishly. And it felt great! And I wasn’t depressed anymore! Wow!

So hey, it is worth a look.

Posted in Astrology, Family, Mental Health, Uncategorized | Leave a comment