Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, June 9, 2018

7

BEST FRIENDS & MORE 

Mountain Views-News Saturday, June 9, 2018 


BEST FRIEND

HEALTHY REASONS 

TO SPAY OR 
NEUTER YOUR PET


Sweet Potato is a lovely 5-year-old American 
Staffordshire terrier girl with the most adoring 
facial expressions, a soft caramel and white coat 
and soulful brown eyes. This lovely girl has quite 
the tender disposition along with a funny and 
charming personality to match her darling looks. 
She is 5 years of age and weighs about 67 pounds. 
Sweet Potato was surrendered to the shelter by her 
previous owners. Although not much is known 
about her past, her sweet and funny personality 
is showing everyone what a great pup she is! She 
walks well on the leash, is learning how to play 
with toys and is becoming a little more active on 
her walks. She does, however, have a silly and a tad 
dramatic side to her. She has been known to stop in 
the middle of her walks and lay down on the grass 
or ground and just enjoy the moment! It is quite 
endearing to see her do this and very tempting to 
lay down next to her and just stare at the blue skies. 
If you are that special person or family who can 
appreciate her tenderness and silliness and would 
like to give Sweet Potato a second chance at a good 
life with a forever family, please stop by and meet 
this charming girl! Her adoption fee is $145 and 
includes spay surgery, vaccinations, microchip and 
a free wellness exam at a participating veterinarian. 
Feel free to call us at (626) 286-1159 for more 
information. She currently resides at the San 
Gabriel Valley Humane Society located at 851 E. 
Grand Avenue in San Gabriel which is located off 
San Gabriel Blvd, north of Mission and south of Las 
Tunas Drive. To arrange a ‘Meet and Greet’, please 
stop by any time from 10:30am to 4:30pm Tuesday 
through Sunday.Website:www.sgvhumane.org.

Happy Tails

by Chris Leclerc

Most true animal lovers today would likely agree that 
the responsible thing for an owner to do is to spay or 
neuter their pet. It is one way we can play a part in 
reducing animal overpopulation in our society, while 
in turn helping prevent animal neglect or abuse.

 But what the majority of today’s animal lovers may 
not know is that there are also many health benefits 
to having your kitten or puppy spayed or neutered, 
and in some cases it could even prolong the animal’s 
life. Further, timely and safe sterilization can also 
result in desirable behavioral changes that are likely 
to make life easier for you and your furry four-legged 
friends.

 Cherri Megasko, author of numerous articles 
about animals, is a featured columnist for the Yahoo! 
Contributor Network. She once posted an interesting 
article on this very subject, entitled “Health Benefits 
of Spaying or Neutering Your Pets”.

 In her article, Megasko listed several lesser-known 
benefits to having your pet “fixed”, and if you are like 
me, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn the many 
ways that spaying and neutering can help your pet 
have a happier, healthier, and potentially lengthier 
life.

 Here are some of the main points from Megasko’s 
article that I thought would be helpful for my fellow 
animal-loving pet-owners to know.

Benefits of Spaying

 One obvious benefit of spaying your female pet is 
that she will no longer have heat cycles. For dogs and 
cats, this means they will be less likely to stray. Dogs 
will no longer have the bloody discharge associated 
with coming into heat, and cats 
will no longer cry as if in pain, in 
an attempt to attract a male.

 For both dogs and cats, spaying 
prior to their first heat can 
dramatically reduces their chance 
of developing mammary cancer 
later in life. In fact, for dogs that 
are spayed before their first heat, 
their risk of developing mammary 
cancer goes down to 0.05%. The 
risk increases dramatically with 
each subsequent heat. 

 For both dogs and cats, spaying 
all but eliminates the development 
of uterine infections called pyometras. These 
infections can be life-threatening emergencies for 
your pet and are very expensive to treat and cure. 

Benefits of Neutering

 Both male dogs and cats mark their territories 
by urinating on objects. Neutering before this 
marking behavior begins can virtually eliminate this 
behavior. In cats, neutering also significantly reduces 
objectionable urine odor.

 Testicular cancer is a valid concern for unaltered 
pets. Obviously, neutering completely eliminates that 
health threat.

 Neutering reduces the instances of prostate issues 
and perineal hernias in dogs and can also reduce 
aggression levels associated with hormones. 

 Neutering a male pet is generally a faster and 
simpler procedure than spaying a female because the 
testicles are on the outside of the body, thus making 
the surgery less invasive. Spaying a young, healthy 
animal can take as few as seven minutes, or as much 
as 20 for an older, fatter animal.

 The health benefits for both dogs and cats are 
greater when the surgery is done at an early age and 
can greatly increase the chances your pet will live a 
long and healthy life.

 Be a responsible pet owner, and have your pet 
spayed or neutered at an early age. Not only will you 
be doing your part to prevent pet overpopulation, 
but you will also be taking advantage of a proven 
way to help keep your pet healthier and happier, 
and who doesn’t want that for their canine or kitty 
companion?

TWO’S COMPANY!


Meet brother-sister 
duo, O.J. & DAISY, 
age 6 months. New 
Year’s Babies! Sooo 
cute! The orange 
one is O.J., the little 
black & white is 
Daisy. They may be 
adopted separately 
or in a pair. O.J. 
is very curious 
and brave, while 
Daisy is very sweet and playful. They would make an 
entertaining and lively pair together. Please remember 
that kittens, while adorably cute, do grow up. Before 
you adopt, please consider your ability to keep a cat for 
its entire life. They are healthy, neutered, and current 
on vaccines. To learn more, contact 626-688-3506. 
See more pictures of them and their video at http://
www.lifelineforpets.org/independently-rescued.html. 
Can’t adopt? We desperately need fosters, donations, 
& sponsors—info@lifelineforpets.org.


SO YOUR KIDS WANT A JOB! The best age for kids to get a part-time job and what those jobs are

Although the majority of parents feel that 
having a part-time job would be a great 
learning experience for kids, a few felt that 
the summer should be spent playing and 
that there would be enough time for work 
and responsibility when they are older. 
Most however commented on how it 
helps to build responsibility, self-esteem 
and teaches them the value of money.

 

When asked at what age can a kid get a 
part-time job the responses by popularity 
were:

 

1. Age 14 

2. Age 15 

3. Age 16 

4. Age 12 

5. Age 13 

6. Age 11 

7. Age 10 

8. Age 9 

9. Age 8 & under 

 When asked what part-time job would 
be best for kids overall, the responses by 
popularity were:

 

1. Yard work, Grass cutting, leaf raking, 
snow shovelling

2. Babysitting, Non-family babysitting

3. Newspaper Delivery, Daily, weekly and 
flyer delivery

4. Food Service, Fast food companies, 
serving, cooking or cleaning

5. Chores, Dishes, cleaning and odd jobs 
around their home

6. Other, Odd jobs for friends and 
neighbors

7. Retail, Non-food stores, sales, stocking 
shelves

8. Labor, Not construction but with a fair 
amount of lifting/moving/carrying

9. Recreation, Supervising, refereeing, 
coaching

10. Dog Walking, Taking dogs for a walk 
regularly 

11. Pet Sitting, Feeding and cleaning pets 
in people’s homes

12. Grocery Store, Stocking shelves and 
bagging groceries

13. Tutoring , Working with younger 
kids

14. Lemonade Stand, Traditional front 
lawn enterprise

 We also asked parents what they felt 
would be a good first job for kids by age 
group:

Age 8 or younger

1. Chores around the house

2. Lemonade stand

3. Pet sitting

Age 9

1. Chores around the house

2. Lemonade stand

3. Yard work

4. Pet sitting

5. Other

Age 10

1. Chores around the house

2. Newspaper/flyer delivery

3. Lemonade stand

4. Dog walking

5. Other

6. Yard work

7. Pet sitting

8. Plant sitting

Age 11

1. Yard work

2. Newspaper/flyer delivery

3. Chores around the house

4. Other

5. Dog walking

Age 12

1. Newspaper/flyer delivery

2. Yard work

3. Other

4. Chores around the house

5. Recreation

6. Dog walking

Age 13

1. Newspaper/flyer delivery

2. Yard work

3. Babysitting

4. Other

5. Labor

6. Dog walking

7. Pet sitting

Age 14

1. Yard work

2. Food service

3. Babysitting

4. Newspaper/flyer delivery

5. Labor

6. Dog walking

7. Chores around the house

8. Grocery store

9. Recreation

10. Other

Age 15

1. Food service

2. Babysitting

3. Yard work

4. Newspaper/flyer delivery

5. Labor

6. Other

7. Recreation

Age 16

1. Food service

2. Babysitting

3. Retail

4. Yard work

5. Labor

6. Recreation

7. Tutoring

 

 What To Do With The Kids is the 
website that adults go to when they want 
to know what to do with their kids. The 
site features games, crafts, activities, party 
ideas, downloads and product reviews. 

 What To Do With The Kids also has 
local Facebook pages that highlight family 
and kid-friendly activities in major cities 
across the country.

 

 Visit us at www.whattodowiththekids.
com and discover what to do with your 
kids. 

THE WORLD AROUND US


OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

CHRISTOPHER Nyerges

GROWING OYSTER MUSHROOMS

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FATHERS GONE? 


[Nyerges is a life-long forager 
and self-reliance enthusiast. 
He is the author of “Foraging 
California,” “Extreme Simplicity: 
Homesteading in the City,” and 
other books. He can be reached at 
www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com.]

 Matt Heidrich is a man 
who loves oyster mushrooms. 
He enjoys them so much that he has learned the intricate art of 
home cultivation. I didn’t know what to expect when I visited 
him in his nearby home, but I certainly got a full tutorial.

 Oyster mushrooms are a variety of mushroom that grows on 
old and dying trees throughout the nation. They grow from the 
sides of trees with their gills that slope down to meet the stem. 
The caps range from cream to dark brown. They are one of the 
simplest mushrooms to cultivate, and enjoyed by mushroom 
enthusiasts and foodies alike. 

 In 2015 at Los Angeles’ eclectic EcoVillage, he attended a 
workshop led by Peter McCoy where he was introduced to 
the lifestyle of fungi. The workshop included the details for 
cultivating the oyster mushroom, and Heidrich was hooked. 
Over the last several years, he has refined and perfected his 
technique for producing oyster mushrooms in his home. 

 When I first visited Heidrich, I was given a tour of his small 
backyard, where he grows numerous herbs and vegetables in 
small upraised beds. In one corner was a small compost pile 
covered with black plastic, which he uses mostly for the old 
medium of which his mushrooms grow. He pulled up a corner 
to show me that oyster mushrooms abundantly grew from his 
little compost pile, the unexpected result from the leftovers of his 
cultivation. He picked a few of the good ones for his meal later in 
the day.

 Next, we went indoors for the tutorial. It was quickly evident 
that growing oyster mushrooms were important to Heidrich, 
because it appeared that major portions of at least two rooms in 
his home were devoted to the various stages of oyster mushroom 
cultivation. 

 We began by looking at some of the good textbooks that 
are available on the subject. Two of the best current books on 
mushroom cultivation are “Growing Gourmet and Medicinal 
Mushrooms” by Paul Stamets, and “The Mushroom Cultivator” 
by Stamets and Chilton.

 There are many ways to cultivate mushrooms. Understanding 
the difference between “spores” and “spawn” is key. Spores are 
genetically diverse “seeds” that rain down from the gills of the 
mushroom. The novice grower will not use spores, but spawn, 
which is genetically identical to the parent mushroom. Most 
home growers use liquid culture spawn and grain spawn. Liquid 
culture is simply mushrooms grown in sugar water. Heidrich 
cultivates his liquid culture using simple sugars purchased 
from the local homebrew shop. (In fact, homebrewing and 
mushroom growing go hand in hand.) For grain spawn, he uses 
organic wheat berries bought in bulk on Amazon. The goals of 
these methods is to give the mycelium (the mushroom body) 
the nutrients it needs to form robust fruiting bodies (“fruiting 
bodies” are what most of us simply call mushrooms). Liquid 
culture and grain spawn are readily available on Ebay or from 
mushroom websites. The simplest way to begin cultivating is 
to buy liquid culture online and expand it at home in modified 
Mason jars. But cleanliness is key. 

 Heidrich created his own sterile environment with a 5 
gallon clear Rubbermaid tub, onto which he has added two 
hole where his hands can enter with gloves. Into this box, after 
has disinfected it with alcohol, he adds the starter medium, and 
several Mason jars of wheat berries which will be inoculated with 
the liquid starter medium. 

 This is all done very carefully, almost like a careful dance 
as Heidrich maneuvers into the limited space. But all this is 
necessary, otherwise the invisible contaminants in the air and 
environment which will infect the batch of mushrooms. When 
done, Heidrich places these inoculated bottles of wheat berries 
onto a rack with an LED light to assist in stimulating the grown 
of the spawn. 

 After a few weeks, if all went well, the bottles of wheat 
berries are covered in a white cob-webby material, which is 
the mycelium which will produce the mushrooms. Heidrich 
took such a bottle to show me how he sets up the final stage of 
cultivation, which can take place in a plastic bag or bucket. Today 
he demonstrated in a plastic bag.

 Into the approximately gallon-sized plastic bag, he placed a 
layer of soaked cardboard. (I had noted earlier that he had a few 
containers of old cardboard in his back yard, and this is what he 
uses to grow his mushrooms.). 

 “Remember, these mushrooms like to grow on wood, and 
isn’t that what the cardboard came from?” smiles Heidrich. He 
presses a layer of cardboard into the bag, and then adds a layer 
of used coffee grounds, a free recyclable material from a local 
coffee house. Then he added about 5 tablespoons of the wheat 
berries covered in spawn. Then he added more cardboard, coffee 
grounds, and more spawn. He continues this way for several 
layers until the bag is full. On his last, upper-most layer, he adds 
only spawn, then cardboard, then spawn. Heidrich explains 
that the coffee grounds are most susceptible to infection, and by 
having no coffee grounds at the top where it is exposed, there is 
less chance of infection.

 Once this is sealed, Heidrich punches a few holes into the 
bag so that each hole enters the bag at the cardboard. Once the 
mushrooms get growing, they will grow out of the holes where 
they can be easily harvested. This bag is again put on the shelf 
with the LED light, and allowed to sit until the mushrooms start 
to grow.

 It all seems like a very mysterious process, but Heidrich is 
merely controlling in a scientific manner that which occurs 
naturally in the forest.

 Heidrich’s favorite method of preparation is to sautee the 
mushrooms with his meals.

 “How do you preserve the surplus?” I asked him, innocently 
enough.

 “I eat them as quickly as I grow them,” he said smiling. 
“There’s never a surplus!” 

 Wow! He loves his mushrooms. Nevertheless, if growers have 
a surplus, they can be frozen or dehydrated, and dehydration 
seems to be the preferable choice.

 Heidrich has done some wild mushroom hunting on his 
own, but found that it was less than 

 He’s not a vegan, vegetarian, macrobiotic enthusiast, or a 
food faddist of any sort. “Yes, I eat meat,” with a smile that barely 
concealed a bit a guilt. He’s a man who loves one of nature’s finest 
foods, and he’s found a way to have a constant supply at home.

Heidrich does offer occasional workshops where he takes 
participants through the various steps involved. His workshop 
participants walk home with an instruction sheet, and a bag of 
spawn to grow at home. 

 For more information, he can be reached at mattheidrich@
gmail.com

Around this time of the year, 
my thoughts wander back to my 
father. He’s been gone quite a 
spell but his memory lingers. I often wonder what he 
would think of what is happening in our world today 
if he were to come back.

 I grew up with a father who believed in being “the” 
father. I confess he was not always right all the time, 
but what he said was law in our house. That is, of 
course, unless his wife contradicted him. Then it was 
time for us kids to seek sanctuary outside where we 
could not hear what was going on.

 I cannot help but believe that some of the problems 
we are having in our society today would not be such 
a problem if we had fathers. How many families are 
there where children grow up not knowing their 
father? No wonder they have no respect for authority.

Although my father was not a very well educated 
person, he knew how to use the Board of Education 
on the Seat of Learning for all his children. Some of 
the stuff he did back in “the day,” would bring him 
some real legal problems today.

 For example. My father believed he had the right to 
be judge, jury and executioner concerning all things in 
his children’s life, with no appeal to a higher authority.

 In the kitchen hanging next to the door to go 
outside was a very interesting parenting tool, at least 
in my father’s eyes. It was a paddle with a religious 
inscription, “I Need Thee Every Hour.” The inscription 
was quite true to the reality of life in our home.

 Spanking was a routine exercise in our home. My 
father had the idea that if you were in trouble in school 
you were also in trouble at home. He had this fantastic 
idea that the teacher was right and I was wrong. I 
guess he knew me and that I could take a little bit of 
truth and spin it into a lie. I wonder who I learned that 
from?

 Several times I got in trouble at school, which 
involved a spanking down at the principal’s office. 
The first time this happened I well remember walking 
into the kitchen and saw my father standing there 
holding in his hand that infamous paddle. Within a 
few moments, the paddle was doing its duty and I was 
doing the “paddle dance.”

 After the paddling, my father sat down with me and 
said, “Okay, what trouble did you get into at school 
requiring the principal to paddle you?”

 I wished he had asked me before the paddling, 
because now I had no incentive whatsoever to lie. 
Looking back, maybe that was the whole purpose of 
the paddling.

 I well remember one time out in the backyard, I 
did something requiring parental action. My father 
looked at me and said, “Go get me a switch. You need 
to be taught a lesson.”

 At the time, I thought it was funny, however, 
after the fact I could see no humor whatsoever 
in it. I went to get the “switch” according to my 
father’s instructions and came back with a twig. I 
thought it was funny, but my father had no sense of 
humor about this. In a few moments, my sense of 
humor evaporated because my father went and got 
a switch, which is a whole lot different from a twig, 
just ask my backside.

 Ruminating over these things, I tried to calculate 
how many spankings I actually got during my lifetime. 
Let me just say, it was significant. More than that. It 
taught me respect for authority.

 I wonder if some of these young people getting 
into trouble today ever had a spanking? Of course, 
today that is completely against PC. My father did not 
believe in PC, but he did believe emphatically in BS 
(Back Side). I think if parents today would focus more 
on BS than PC, things might be a lot different.

Today, people think those old-fashioned spankings 
represent cruel and unusual punishment. However, if 
you look at this generation that has not had an old-
fashioned spanking; I think the evidence speaks for 
itself.

 To spank or not to spank, that is the dilemma today. 
Most gravitate towards the “not to spank” aspect 
unaware that they are creating a lot of damage for the 
next generation.

 I must say that my father was not too much 
interested in what people call “love” today. He was 
more interested in respecting authority. In fact, as I 
think about this, when you are respecting authority 
you are exhibiting love. People today do not know 
how to love because they do not know how to respect 
authority.

 I think if some of these youngsters could spend a 
week with my father and his infamous “paddle” they 
would grow to respect authority. Unfortunately, there 
is no authority figure in most homes today. Even those 
homes that have fathers are coerced into believing the 
father has no real significance in the family.

 All I can do is to quote a famous psychologist, 
“How’s that working?”

Well, how is that working?

The wisest man in the world, Solomon, said, “For 
whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father 
the son in whom he delighteth” (Proverbs 3:12).

True love always corrects that which is wrong, 
especially in the person they love.

Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com