May, 2015 - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for May, 2015

Dog Post Response

Thursday, May 28th, 2015

A response from a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community to the post on “Dogs, Dogs and more Dogs!

“Thank you for that post.  I was overjoyed to see someone pointing out how much we spend on our pets in view of some desperate human beings who have to fight to get a meal each and every day.

I also watch the dogs outside my window.  There is a park and we have a leash law.  I see dogs playing off their leashes every morning with their owners watching.  They run, chase what their owners throw and have a general good time.  Which is great for them!  However, I also watch in the afternoons when parents come with their toddlers and let the toddlers run around the park – right where the dogs relieved themselves.  Your intro about the disease may have been in fun, however, shortly, there is going to be a serious outbreak when a mother’s child comes down with a disease from playing where the dogs crapped.  The city does nothing about stopping the people from letting their dogs run without leashes.  That law was passed for a reason – basically to protect people and dogs.  If anything serious happened in that park – even a loud noise – there is no way to control the dogs who then react in fear.

Keep writing – I will keep reading.”

======================================================

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

Dogs! Dogs! and more Dogs!

Wednesday, May 27th, 2015

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2015

Oh! Isn't that cute! I can leave it where it drops, the leaves will cover it up.

Oh! Isn’t that cute! Such a thoughtful dog, we can leave it where it drops, the leaves will cover it up.

 

NEWS FLASH!  New terminal disease discovered which is killing the population.  It is fatal within two hours of a human becoming infected.  Scientists have found the cause – the huge amount of animal fecal matter spreading rapidly and piling up across the world.  The main spread agent – dogs whose fecal matter turns into this rare form of disease when expelled.  No cure found!  Babies under one year are the most susceptible.  Humans on earth are confounded.  Hospitals are not overcrowded because people infected with this new dog caused disease die before reaching the hospital or a doctor!

 

Everywhere you go there are people with their dogs.  Some on leashes, some running free, all peeing and dropping their fecal matter on the sidewalk – in the gardens around the trees – everyplace except where it is supposed to be dropped.  Some people pick up their dog’s crap.  Some don’t.  Some pick it up and drop it on top of their neighbors garbage cans or in another neighbor’s garden.  Most humans are pretty thoughtless about other people and are only concerned about their own comfort and convenience.

This was a pretty emotional breakfast.  So many feelings about all the dogs multiplying, increasing exponentially in a society which still has homeless and young children without enough to eat – no one to care for them – needing clothes, education, comfort and love.  None for you, my lovely and needy children, it is all going to the dogs.

WHY?

Our little band of temporary friends decided it is because dogs worship humans.  A self-absorbed society adds to its self-absorption by bringing in an animal that gets happy when it sees its “master”; wags its tails strongly to show how happy it is to see this human being who feeds them, etc;  gives companionship in a master/servant kind of way and will never try to become an equal; and the biggy – isn’t going to stage a revolution for its freedom.

What would this world look like if all the money and other resources being spent and lavished upon dogs were spent and lavished upon those who are in need.  Is that enough to end poverty? To end homelessness? to end children on the street selling their bodies for a meal and a roof over their head?Buy a dog or adopt a child!!!  Take care of a dog or help a family take care of its children!!!  Spend tons of love and care on dogs or spend tons of love and care on humans in need.  We have clearly made our choice – the dogs win.  The humans think, care, act! Dogs just worship!

It is much harder to deal with your own kind than to deal with a group you have designated as less than.  That master/servant relationship isn’t going anyplace.  It is firmly in control of most of us and we seem to not be able to stand on our ethics, our principles, our own two feet and we especially don’t want to be inconvenienced or put out in any way.  We won’t even pick up our own servant/dogs poop – or dispose of it properly.  For every one person who does, there are at least 10 who don’t.

His new teeth cost a fortune, but it was worth every penny!

His new teeth cost a fortune, but it was worth every penny!

So what is the answer?  We couldn’t find any.  Get this dog problem under control and we will probably only be able to do so by putting another situation in its path that will turn into something worse than what we are now experiencing.  Everybody at the table, including those with dogs had a horrible dog story to tell about a neighbor, a friend, a relative and that persons dog.

While we talked at breakfast about the incredible number of dogs every place you turned, doing damage to human life and health, we were in a dining room with a window which looked out on the street and we counted twelve (12) dogs going by with their owners – and this in less than an hour.  The dog owners stopped in front of the tree which was surrounded by lovely flowers.  That was a clear signal to the dog – pee and crap now and in this spot.  The dogs simply walked into the flower bed, encouraged by its “master” and peed.  We were sure that flower bed would soon be barren.   As it is, the flower bed was bedraggled from the dog traffic and our host didn’t want to go out to continue to cultivate it after watching all the dog pee going into the ground.

Contrary to dog owners claims – dog pee and dog fecal matter are not garden fertilizers.  They are garden destroyer.

They can't be talking about me! But I am so cute, anyone would be proud to have me lick their face!

They can’t be talking about me! But I am so cute, anyone would be proud to have me lick their face!

What does it do to the human spirit and the human soul to lavish all of the resources now being spent on animals and ignore the need of humans who are going hungry – are without basic shelter – have no way to get out of their current tragic existence.  How would you feel in those circumstances sitting on the sidelines watching pampered pets go by?  We have more compassion for “rescue” dogs than we do for another human being.  We talked – finally – about seeing friends getting all misty-eyed when they see a dog in need and turn hostile when they see a human in need.  There is something basically wrong here and we are clearly not dealing with what is missing in the human spirit which allows this and blind-sides us to our part in this tragedy.

When you die will it be your dog who greets you with its tail wagging or will it be the humans you denied because of your inability to face your own mortality and morality?

======================================================

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

Marceline’s Brown Biscuits

Wednesday, May 20th, 2015

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2015

Named by a guest, these ‘biscuits’ are easy to make and they destroy the marketing mythology that cooking and baking are difficult and one must, instead, decamp to the local store to buy the instant variety of anything because we don’t have the time or knowledge enough to cook – we must buy instead from the ‘professionals’.  For us, such prepared  food has too much salt – too much sugar – too many preservatives and other things which don’t belong in food.  We like plain ordinary ingredients which one can quickly turn into great biscuits in five minutes of prep time.

These biscuits can be made in many versions.  One can make plain biscuits for a great breakfast, dripping with butter; or one can put cinnamon, apples, onions, peanut butter, cheese, nutmeg, sugar, etc. into your own version of these biscuits and call them Theodore or JoAnn’s Biscuits.  (Hi JoAnn, thanks for naming my biscuits.)   Only your imagination limits the possibilities.  We have been known to put everything except the kitchen sink into our biscuits and the more ingredients, the better the biscuit.  Want something really special, try making these biscuits with raw, unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk.  Now there is a biscuit that harkens back to the time when food was food and not a conglomeration of chemicals.

Start with one cup organic whole wheat flour in the food processor.

Add one cup organic whole wheat pastry flour

Add one teaspoon salt – or to taste

Add one teaspoon baking power

To remember the ingredients – it is biscuits with the power of one plus six. What is the six?  The number of ingredients.

Turn on the processor and give it a few twirls to mix these dry ingredients.

Add one stick organic butter to the ingredients in the food processor – slice the butter to make it quicker to incorporate

Turn on the processor and let it twirl until all ingredients are mixed and it looks like tiny little balls

Add 2/3 cup milk and twirl for a quick second until the ingredients are in a kind of ball.

Use organic butter to make rounds of grease on a cookie sheet.  Each round is where you will drop a biscuit.

Take a small handful of the biscuit dough and roll it lightly between your hands to form a ball. If your hands get sticky during this process, put a bit of flour on the palms of your hands and keep rolling the biscuit dough between them.

Drop the biscuit ball onto one of the greased rounds on the cookie sheet

When all are done, bake at 350 degrees until done.  Maybe 10 to 15 minutes depending upon your oven.

Let them cool for a few minutes after you take them out of the oven or they will break up and you will have to eat biscuit crumbs.

These should be very light and lovely and give you about one dozen biscuits.

For variety – use organic coconut milk instead of cow’s milk – or goats milk – or almond milk – or whatever you like.  We loved the coconut milk.  It was a subtle taste.  You knew something great was in the biscuits, but you didn’t know quite what.

To the plain biscuits, add grated cheese before baking.  Grate cheese and just push a small amount into the biscuits.  Top with a square of butter, sprinkle salt over the biscuits and then bake.  These are super fantastic.  The addition of the cheese, salt and butter takes these out of the everyday category into the universe.

To the plain biscuit dough, add a heaping tablespoon of organic ceylon cinnamon. Use organic coconut milk instead of regular cows milk. Add sugar to taste – a lot if you want sweet biscuits, a medium amount to make these ‘dressy’.  Grate a bit of nutmeg into the biscuits or sprinkle the tops generously with nutmeg and sugar before baking.

Add chopped apples to the sweetened biscuits.  Apples give an unexpected taste and texture to these dressed biscuits along with the coconut milk plus.

NO! ABSOLUTELY DO NOT SUBSTITUTE WHITE FLOUR FOR ORGANIC WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR.  Organic Whole Wheat Flour is what gives these biscuits the taste of ones grandmother used to make.  The good grandmother, who knew how to cook with solid, organically grown ingredients.

It takes, at most, five minutes to mix these biscuits and another ten to fifteen minutes to let them bake in the oven.  The effort is minimal, the results are spectacular.

=======================================================

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

 

 


Bettina's Lifestyle Commnity!

Join us!

Bettina’s Lifestyle Community

Making a difference in this very difficult and changeable world.

Bettina's Lifestyle Commnity!

Join us!