Cardinals in the Snow

The Bluejays spent most of the day at the feeders, but just before dusk, Mr. Cardinal arrived. He ate and looked around and ate some more then flew off and brought back Mrs. Cardinal. What a cute couple--look how he dotes on her.

As the rest of the country digs out and recovers from the storm, we are in the thick of it. At this point, we probably have close to a foot and it is supposed to continue until midnight. Bee class was canceled.

I am planning a hike into Carter Notch with a friend on Saturday. It should be beautiful but I hope some hearty souls get in there to pack out Nineteen Mile Brook Trail before we head in. In fact, if I could have my preference it would be a group of very heavy people on snowshoes or perhaps even a large group of boyscouts. The harder the snow is packed down, the easier for those that follow.

Here it comes

Just as I follow the migration of birds and the coming of Spring through my google reader and updates from fellow bloggers to the south and the west, I have followed the track of today's storm as it passed through Kentucky and Virginia and Ohio and Pennsylvania and southern New England before coming to Maine to dump up to two feet of snow on us before passing off to the maritime provinces and the north atlantic.

Nothing is coming out of the sky yet, but the call from school came already, making the predictions by the teacher and the teenager accurate. Fortunately, for me, I had planned an office day so my commute is the twenty feet from my barn door to my little carriage house office. I will fill up the feeders before the snow starts so the birds can dart out for calories and I can be distracted by them. The weatherman says that it will be snowing 2-3 inches per hour for most of the afternoon. I guess bee class will be canceled tonight.

A few months ago, a friend from another state asked me to join facebook--I joined with trepedation thinking that it was the domain of the hip and happening crowd--it isn't. Well, it may be for some people--the hip and happening ones--but it is also a fun place to reconnect with people. Recently, several of the bloggers that I follow have joined. So, maybe we have a shot at being hip and happening after all!

Just right

Each winter Saturday, KGMom posts a soup recipe and each winter Saturday I want to make it. Well, today I read her post before my trip to the grocery, added some ingredients to my list and made this delicious Hearty Winter Soup. It simmered away on the stove through the afternoon as I cleaned the house and read the homework for my Beekeeping class. Charlie spent the day coaching his ski team and this evening the yummy soup hit the spot for us both. There is plenty left over for this week's lunches and some to freeze for another day.

What's all the Buzz About?

For the past two winters, a notice in the paper has caught my eye advertising a 12-week course in backyard beekeeping offered at one of the local schools. It has intrigued me each year, but twelve weeks seemed like a major commitment and do I really want to keep bees? Well, this year I decided to check it out and yes, maybe I will keep bees.

What really surprised me was the number of people filling the school cafeteria--there were at least fifty other people there wanting to spend the next twelve Wednesday evenings learning about bee keeping. The folks in the class have all sorts of different motivations Some had kept bees before but want to learn more about it, some are gardeners or farmers and want the bees for pollination, some want to start a honey or wax business, one couple makes goat milk soap and uses honey as an ingredient--some (like me) just love nature and want to learn more about the fascinating work of bees.

This should be fun--updates to follow in the weeks ahead.

Harder than it looks

Ruthie J and Jayne
had an idea for a game, so I'm playing along. I'm really curious about how many of you would like to be pirates or have slept on satin sheets. So, give it a try.

37 Random Things About Me

1. Do you like blue cheese? I've never tried it.
2. Have you ever smoked? I puffed a time or two as a teenager--it didn't take, thank goodness.
3. Do you own a gun? Nope.
4. What flavor Kool Aid is your favorite? Grape
5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? No, my doctor is really nice and I've been going to her for a long time.
6. What do you think of hot dogs? They are yummy at baseball games.
7. Favorite Christmas movie? It's a Wonderful Life
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Coffee
9. Can you do push-ups? Maybe....one
10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? Earrings that my husband gave me (he has really good taste).
11. Favorite hobby? Hiking, reading, blogging, sewing--do I have to choose just one?
12. Do you have A.D.D? I like to multi-task, so maybe?
13. Do you wear glasses/contacts? Contacts, extended wear--I love them.
14. Middle name? Elizabeth
15. Name thoughts at this moment? How did all those people stay up late and go to balls and look so good last night? I was worn out from watching the inauguration on TV and was in my pj's by 9.
16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Coffee, tea, pomegranate juice, water, Polar Seltzer Water--is that more three?
17. Current worry? The economy
18. Current hate right now? Ugly rhetoric on either side of the political spectrum
19. Favorite place to be? In the woods or on a mountain.
20. How did you bring in the New Year? Dinner with friends and an exciting game of Boggle, we made it until midnight but not much past that.
21. Where would you like to go? Macedonia
22. Name three people who will complete this? Rach, Katie and SJ!
23. Do you own slippers? Yes, a pair of L.L. Bean wicked good slippers that my husband bought me for Christmas last year.
24 What color shirt are you wearing? White, still part of my pajama ensemble, too early for real clothes.
25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? Same answer as blue cheese--never tried it.
26. Can you whistle? Oh yes, I like to whistle.
27. Favorite Color? I can't think of one that isn't my favorite!
28. What songs do you sing in the shower? I'm too self-conscious to sing anywhere except the car all by myself and then I sing everything that comes on the radio whether I know it or not.
29. Would you be a pirate? No
30. Favorite Girl's Name? Molly or Sara
31. Favorite boy's name? Ethan or Archie
32. What's in your pocket right now? kleenex
33. Last thing that made you laugh? The Daily Show
34. What vehicle do you drive? Ford Escape
35. Worst injury you've ever had? I've been very lucky--no serious injuries.
36. Do you love where you live? yes
37. How many TVs do you have in your house? Two, well there might be more stored in the attic but two that work.

Hope

We have heard so much over the past few months about the first African American President and the hope and inspiration that many people associate with him. As a white middle-class protestant who grew up with two parents, I cannot be presumptuous enough to understand what seeing President Obama sworn in meant for many people who grew up disenfranchised and in the shadow of power.

But, I did go to law school in ultra-white Iowa with only a handful of African American students and that gives me a story to tell

On the first day of our first year, I noticed that the few African American students all sat together through classes in Torts and Property Law and that they rarely engaged in discussion. As a quiet person myself it did not strike me as strange--I was not anxious to jump into discussions with a lot of argumentative law students either. I did not associate their silence to the color of their skin--I just thought maybe I would start sitting with them in the quiet corner.

The second day of our first year, we had Contracts class and our professor was an African American. Suddenly, it was as if this brilliant man had lit a flame under the African American students. They participated, they contributed, they were engaged in discussion and the whole class was richer for it--I even jumped in and started letting my mind expand with the discussion.

I thought about it a lot. Our teachers that first day had been brilliant, too.

While I appreciate the importance of the President's race to many people, to me the hope centers not on the color of his skin but on the breadth of his intellect and I wish him and all of us well.

Wolves

,

Who isn't chillingly fascinated by the idea of wolves?

I grew up listening to Peter and the Wolf and loving the oboe even though it reminded me of the foolish duck. The Three Little Pigs caught less of my sympathy--either because they were pigs or because they were lazy. Certainly, as a little girl who loved her grandmother, Little Red Riding Hood upset me greatly and I learned to be honest and truthful from repeated tellings of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Through all of the stories, though, it seemed that the wolf only took advantage of people (or animals) who let down their guard and were foolish (the duck), lazy (the pigs), gullible (Red Riding Hood) or drama queens (The Boy), I was not any of those things so perhaps wolves were worth another look.

As I grew up, I discovered that the stereotype of wolves, as with most of the other fears from my childhood, did not exactly measure up to their reality, but it was many years before I actually saw one in the wild. In the summer of 2004, Archie, Molly and I went to Yellowstone and in the northeast corner of the park saw two wolves enjoying an elk carcass and drinking from a river. They ate, they lazed in the sun, they played--I could have watched them forever.

Wolves have been re-introduced to several locations in the United States over the past twenty years. They now roam in areas of Wyoming, Idaho, Minnesota and North Carolina. The closest area of wolf habitation to Northern New England is in Algonquin Park Ontario.

Currently, I am reading The Return of the Wolf: Reflections on the Future of Wolves in the Northeast. It is a very interesting collection of essays on the biological and cultural realities of re-introducing wolves into Northern New England and Northern New York State.

What do some of you think of wolves? I know that readers of this blog are from all of the states where wolves have been re-introduced as well as from the Ontario where they have thrived in Algonquin Park and I would be very interested to hear what sort of experiences and ancedotes you can relate from their presence in your area.

It's all running together

As I was going out the door a few days ago, I realized that my canner was still on the porch where I had left it to cool last Fall after canning some tomatoes. Hmm, --this is January--you last canned in September--why is this still on the porch? I have a lot of dialogues with myself. Well, didn't the skiis stay in the corner of the living room all summer?

Living in Northern New England, I often wonder why we even bother to change our closets over from our winter things to our summer--it would almost make sense to have our few shorts, t-shirts and sundresses in a suitcase in the corner of the bedroom and just pull it out for July and August.

This week is supposed to get frigidly cold with sub-zero wind chills and low temperatures. I guess I should put my canner away, it will be a long time before the ground thaws, things are planted and harvested and put in jars to be processed in boiling water.

Working on a Snowy Sunday

My primary bird feeding station is just outside of my office window. I was feeling a little sorry for myself having to work all weekend after finishing a long trial week but the Blue Jays came out in the snowstorm to keep me company.

What a long week it was, this first week of January, and did I make my goal to snow shoe or ski at least twice this week? Sadly, no, but hopes and resolutions spring eternal--perhaps next week.

Signs of better times ahead?

Canary in a Coal Mine
In our backyard there is a large crane that looms over a lumber yard. I've written about it before here. During the last half of 2008, as the economy tanked and the newscasts, newspapers and coffee shops were full of reports of hard times, the lumber yard seemed to be barely chugging along. There were long periods of time when there was very little wood stacked in piles waiting to become plywood--but things started to change late last week.

From my early morning perch at the dining room table with my coffee and laptop, I could hear noises and see lights coming from the lumber yard and it is continuing. There seems to be a constant stream of trucks being unloaded of their 20 tons of wood by the big green crane. This could be a hopeful economic sign. The loggers are able to sell the wood, the gas prices are down for the haulers and the plywood is on its way to Home Depot.

For the People of Maine
Another hopeful sign occurred yesterday as Janet Mills, a woman who I am very proud to call a friend, was sworn in as Maine's first female attorney general. For many years, she was right beside me, protecting me through some of the hardest times of my life and now, the whole state will have the benefit of representation by this brilliant and courageous woman. Here is an excerpt from her remarks yesterday:

I am from the foothills of Western Maine, a place where we look up to the mountains and where we look down and across onto the cities in the lowlands, where the sunsets are bright, snow aplenty, and the soil is still good for growing. Where the river bottoms are lined with ocean sand from some ancient glacier deposit, where there are four definite seasons... seasons of swimming, hunting, skiing and planting.

Today, we are in a season of change, regardless of the calendar, here and in our nation's capital, we are moving the goals, challenging the agenda, taking new roads.

The road I take is one that will open opportunities for every girl growing up in this state who once had dreams but who had to put them aside.

I ran for office because I believed I was the most qualified person for the job. And I hope that history proves it so.

I also ran for every Maine woman and girl who grows up in the shadows of Margaret Chase Smith and who seeks opportunity in this state.

I stand here on behalf of children like my 6-year old niece Julia, who will grow up competing on an equal footing with her wonderful brother Anthony.

Julia, don't ever let anyone tell you can't compete, with friends, classmates, and others, regardless of where they are from, regardless of the color of their skin, their race, their religion, their gender, orientation or beliefs.

Julia, dear, today we begin to color outside the lines. We are changing the lines, and redrawing the lines. Not cutting corners, but improving the road, expanding the landscape, like an Aroostook County sunrise enlarges the horizon.

We are changing something about what is 'normal,' about what is expected and of whom it is expected, here and around our country.

I know that whatever I am able to achieve in this position will be not because of who I am but because of what I do.

Today I begin what I have referred to fondly and with some anticipation, as running the largest law firm in the State of Maine.

Today I begin the job of litigating, negotiating, arbitrating, mitigating,--the job of resolving differences, of defending the people, of heading up a team of men and women who will represent the face of

Maine people in the courts and in the public eye.

And we will do so with integrity and with honor,--to hold the beams and trusses of government sturdy against strong winds.

Much of what we will do will not be heard or heralded. There will be few victory speeches; for the lives that are not lost; for the businesses and consumers made whole; for the workers returned to a job; for the child no longer abused; for the tribal member whose voice is heard; or for a citizen not denied due process.

This will be our quiet work of solving problems diligently before they are known,

Not because they are known.

And if we may touch one life and make it better, if I may change, the course of the state in some small way, if we can make people feel just a bit better about living and working in our state. If I can make that difference, I will count my career, my life, a success, without more.

And I will always count myself so lucky to be standing here today, in this historic Chamber, in the cross beams, if not the cross hairs, of the three branches of government, taking the oath of my predecessors before this most distinguished audience.

Thank you.

Amateur Meteorologists

With a teenage boy and a high school teacher living under this roof, the night before a predicted storm is full of research, analysis, discussion, speculation and prayer. Adding to my bemusement with the situation is that all of the other River Valley Bloggers are teachers so the research, analysis, discussion and speculation continues through my google reader. Personally, I hope the snowstorm does not materialize, I have a day of driving deeper into 6-10" territory planned and it will be a pain in the neck to re-schedule all of the appointments. But, I won't say that out loud.

When the phone rings at 5:15 a.m. and the school secretary says, "Will you let Charlie know that school is canceled," I will share the excitement along with everyone else and re-schedule my appointments, strap on the snowshoes, stoke up the fire, fill the bird feeders and watch the kids make snow angels.

Water for Elephants

Normally, I shy away from novels because I never know how they will affect me. Due to the horrors that are routinely part of my job and some difficult years of personal trouble, my brain is unable to deal sensibly with what I think of as the emotional manipulation of certain novels and movies.

Because my children understand better than anyone my low emotional risk tolerance, I trust their recommendations of books and movies. Recently, daughter Sara told me that she had read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and thought that I would enjoy it.

Over these first few days of 2009, I have spent hours wrapped up in an electric blanket reading my way through and when I finished it this morning, it left me with all the joy and transportation of a novel and with a few tears--but they were easily managed happy tears. This book could not have had a better ending.

The novel is a good story wrapped up in the setting of circus life during the Depression years. I could almost smell the stale popcorn and feel the gum on my shoe as I followed the adventures of almost-veterinarian Jacob Jankowski as he traveled with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

An interesting note is that the first draft of the novel was written during NaNoWriMo.

Dear 2009, Please be kind to us all

Good Morning, 2009, It's nice to meet you.

I'm the first one up this morning and, you will discover, that we share the early hours of every morning alone together sipping coffee, reading blogs, listening to the news and sometimes talking on line to Sara who is in the middle of her day.

I am really looking forward to getting to know you, 2009, and hope that together we can accomplish quite a bit. This is a big year for me, half a century of living. So, why don't we talk about what we want this year to look like.

In January, I'd like to drive to State College and help Ann and Ethan move into their new house, Let's set a goal to snowshoe or x-c ski at least two times a week and it would be wonderful to spend a weekend with some new friends.

February will have more daylight than January, so let's raise my snowshoe and ski expectation to three times a week and then add in a drive to Boston to hear Greg Mortenson speak at the Appalachian Mountain Club Annual Meeting.

By March, Charlie will be through with coaching for the season so we can enjoy some weekend skiing together. Maybe we could go to Quebec for a weekend ski trip--that would be exotic and exciting but not too far away or expensive.

Oh, April--Molly's birthday and cherry blossoms in D.C. If airline bargain tickets are to be had, a long weekend visiting her and spring time might help me get through my least favorite month in Maine. During Charlie's April vacation, nothing short of a complete economic meltdown will keep us from seeing the Yankees in their new stadium.

May will be the month that Jacob graduates from Northeastern University. That will be a very proud time. Beyond that, it's hard to imagine what else I would want to do in May besides prepare the garden for it's Memorial Day planting and lace up my hiking boots to climb some mountains.

In June, I will watch Archie graduate from high school. Nothing can top that but I will definitely be using my feet to propel me to new heights as, each weekend, I climb and climb and climb hoping to accomplish my goal of finishing the 67 4000 footers in New England before my 50th birthday in September.

I really can't plan beyond that--the summer seems so far away as I shiver in the early-morning chill of January 1. But, 2009, please be kind to us all.

The Snoring Bird by Bernd Heinrich

Up until December, 2007, I thought that the blogosphere was a place for people to discuss their political interests or their health concerns and since I had neither, I had never ventured in. But, a conversation one night at a dinner party with Amity peaked my interest. The next day, I discovered that I could search for blogs through igoogle using keywords. Well, I had just finished reading The Winter World for the third time and decided to search blogs using the author's name. I typed in Bernd Heinrich and found Jennifer's blog A Passion for Nature and from there links to many other wonderful nature blogs and with a sigh of relief, found the place in cyberspace where I belong.

Bernd Heirnrich is one of my favorite authors for many reasons, chiefly, he is a good story teller and is able to explain scientific processes so that a lawyer with an undergraduate degree in math can understand. His explanations and descriptions of the natural world don't simply satisfy curiosity, they stoke it.

From reading many of his books, I have found places where our lives have kind of been tangent lines and that lends an interesting piece, too. In the early 1980's, I was working my way through the University of Vermont as a secretary in the Microbiology and Biochemistry Department. One of my duties was to make coffee at 10:00 every morning because many of the professors and researchers in life sciences would get together for a forum and discussion over coffee in our conference room. Whether my memory has invented it after reading so many of his books or whether he really was occasionally part of that coffee group, I'm not really sure. But, I think he was and how I wish that I had paid more attention to the conversations in that group and less attention to whether or not it was an infringement of my rights to be expected to make coffee.

The cabin in Weld, Maine, that Bernd often writes about is up the road from me and, in fact, when he was training for the ultra marathon that he wrote about in Why We Run, he used to run right by our house and turn around at the corner of Route 2 and Weld Street. That was long before I lived here but he told me about it in an e-mail correspondence.

As a teenager, Bernd spent many years living at Good Will Hinkley, a place where I spend a fair amount of time because of the young people that I work with who are in foster care and placed there.

But, aside from those superficial tangential connections, I cannot claim any similarity to Bernd Henrich. He is a rare genius with a gift for sharing his genius with the common man and his most recent book does just that by combining natural history, European history, scientific discovery, family dynamics, the will to survive and the desire to excel into a fascinating read.

A few months ago, Charlie bought me The Snoring Bird: My Family's Journey Through a Century of Biology and, honestly, I feel that any description that I can give of this book is such a vast oversimplification that it might be better to not even try. But, I will.

The book starts out with the history of the Henrich family on their estate in Germany/Poland. Bernd's father Gerd has the heart and mind of a naturalist and a passion for collecting ichneumon wasps but his genteel life as a collector is interrupted by first one world war and then another. In between the wars, he travels the world collecting birds and mammals for museum collections. As World War II draws to a close, the family must flee the encroaching Russian Army and four year old Bernd along with an assortment of family members take refuge for five years in the Hohenwald Forest. It is here that Bernd discovers his own passion for the natural world. Eventually the family makes their way to the United States and to Maine.

The ichneumon wasps are as much a character of this book as any of the people and the creation, burial and resurrection of the collection is as dramatic as any rescue that Hollywood could cook up. The coincidences and serendiptous discoveries that allow Bernd Henrich to discover so much of his family's history are almost incredulous but are actually the result of a dilligent and disciplined researcher.

The book is written honestly, no one, including the author, is spared from a realistic portrayal. The book is full of real people with passions, energy, curiousity and flaws.

If I was a reviewer with a rating system, I would give it 5 stars and tell some smart producer to buy the movie rights. It is truly a story with an appeal that goes beyond the community of nature bloggers and right to the essence of the 20th century.

A new semester of Maine Life 101

Movie Reviews

Well, that was a surprise! I really expected that my overuse of exclamation marks would have down-graded the level of my blog. I do like exclamation marks and now feel validated in my frequent employment of them as a literary device!!!

A Christmas Visitor

We are babysitting a friend's greyhound for a few days. As you can see, she and Molly have different profiles but they share the same quiet gentle personality.

Christmas Day, 2008

Thank you family for one of the best Christmases ever.

A day to cherish.

Merry Christmas.

'twas the night before christmas.....

Christmas Eve with my family.

We'll bake today, wrap presents and miss Ethan and Sara.

We always enjoy sausage balls and cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning. This year I think that I will use Amber's recipe for monkey bread to go with the sausage balls. The sausage balls are a favorite in middle-Tennessee where I lived twenty years ago. Middle Tennessee is one of the places that I call "home" whenever anyone asks where I'm from and the foods from that area are the foods that we have carried with us as we moved about the country and which are part of our lives here in Maine.

These are simple to make but don't tell anyone--they are too good to be so simple.

Sausage Cheese Balls
1 lb. sausage
1 lb. extra sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
3 cups biscuit
Mix ingredients well. Drop by tsp. on ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Solstice Storm, 2008

Well, Western Maine got wallopped with snow through the shortest day and into the longest night.

With school canceled, today is for the cleanup. Charlie kept up with the snow pretty well yesterday with the snowblower and is out for the final cleanup this morning.

I'm not sure what is wrong with my muse lately, but writing seems difficult. I just finished reading The Snoring Bird by Bernd Heinrich and want to write a post about how fascinating it was, but perhaps tomorrow.

Until then, stay warm.

A morning on a windowsill

When the outside is cold and frosty, you can always find a sunbeam that calls your name.

From Macedonia

Yesterday Sara finished her training in Veles, Macedonia. The picture on the right is from yesterday's swearing-in ceremony and the lady beside Sara is the sweet host mother who has taken care of my little girl for the past three months as she learned the language and her way around.

Finally, in her new apartment in Vinica where she will spend the next two years, Sara has reliable internet service and for the first time was able to send me pictures from the last few months. The picture on the left is from a hike that she took into the mountains above Veles. I can hardly wait to go see this country!

On Monday, she will start working at the local high school and hopefully start updating her blog with her adventures. Vinica is near the Bulgarian border and there is bus service to Sofia and flights into Sofia from Boston---dream, dream, dream.

If I were a rich man. Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.

Have you ever wondered what you would do if you were rich? Whenever my mind has wandered that far from reality, I haven't been able to come up with much beyond paying off outstanding debt for me and my family. Anything more than that--I don't know.

What I hope, though, is that I would be as responsible with my wealth as Harold Alfond. Mr. Alfond may not be well known outside of Maine but within Maine his generosity is evident everywhere. Anytime there was an opportunity to help young people--from Colleges to Boys and Girls Clubs to millions given to Good Will Hinkley--the man who made his money selling shoes provided that opportunity.

He died last year and a bequest of his will was a gift of a $500 college fund to each child born in the State of Maine after January 1, 2009. The parents will be able to add to the fund as the child grows and beginning in 2027, when that first group graduates from high school, high school graduates born in Maine will have an opportunity to head to college thanks to Harold Alfond.

Child Protection--Part III

After a child has been in foster care for a year, the State will make a decision on whether or not reunification with the parents is a realistic possibility or whether it believes that termination of parental rights and adoption is the best course of action. The guardian ad litem makes a recommendation to the Court as well and if the parents do not agree with the State's position and/or the guardian ad litem's recommendation then a hearing is held.

Obviously, if the plan is to send the child home, there is usually not a hearing but if the decision is termination of parental rights then there often is a hearing. The parents have the option of consenting to the termination and many do recognizing their inability to meet their child's needs.

In order for a court to terminate a parent's rights it has to find two things by clear and convincing evidence. First the court has to determine the unfitness of the parent and if the court finds that that is true, it must determine whether or not the termination is in the best interest of the child. Usually, if the court finds that the first part is true then the second falls into place but sometimes, especially with older children who have an attachment to the parent and who might not be candidates for adoption, the court may find that while the parent is unfit and the child should remain in state custody termination is not in the child's best interest and in those cases the court will not terminate parental rights. There are some long-term options for these older kids who remain in state custody. In Maine, we have Good Will Hinkley where my favorite nature writer, Bernd Heinrich, spent many years. There are other options, including independent living programs, group homes and sometimes family members, who were reluctant to get involved during the reunification phase, come forward late in a case after chances of reunification are over.

I hope that this series has helped answer some questions for readers--it's been interesting to try and summarize the process in a succinct manner but it is by no means a comprehensive description just an overview. I am looking forward to going back to stories about the beaver family, books and nature tomorrow.

Beckie asked me if I could change one thing about the system, what would that be. My list of changes for the system is quite lengthy, but if I could wish one thing for children, it is the one thing that I wish for everyone--to know that they are loved, cherished, cared for and valued.

Child Protection--the role of faith and family

I am going to interrupt my description of the process of a child protection case to talk a little bit about the role of faith and family in these cases.

Family
Before a case is even filed and before a child is placed into foster care, an attempt is made to place the child with safe and willing family members or friends. At least in Maine, there is not a requirement that people with a close connection to the child be licensed foster homes, only that they meet some safety criteria. A child is less traumatized by the removal if placed in a familiar setting and there is a greater chance of success for the family if there are close extended relative supports. Some of these cases never make it to court if the parents are cooperative and the support systems are all strong enough to provide help with assistance from the social worker.

Sometimes, though, the issues may be extremely significant and for safety reasons it is best for the child to come into state custody even while being placed with the relative. Those are the ones that I see. One of my favorite early posts was about a grandmother who had taken in her two grandsons.

Of course, there are times when the issues that brought the child to the attention of the state are entrenched for many generations in a family and, even though those families often want to help, it is best under those circumstances to remove the child from the environment and try to stop whatever generational disfunction exists by providing services for the parents while the child is safely out of the situation.

Fathers
To be honest, fathers are not always present when a child is removed and sometimes they aren't even identified. Because the father has rights to the child, the mother is questioned about who he is or could be and he or they are found and tested for paternity. If the potential father is not found and tested, then there is a publication in the newspaper with the child's first name, date of birth and the mother's name. In my experience a man has never come forward because of the publication and claimed paternity but at least one time that I can remember, a paternal grandmother did. Ultimately, she adopted the child--I still see them from time to time in the community and the grandmother always stops and gives me a hug. No one would ever know that they weren't biologically mother and daughter--both tall and pretty with strawberry blonde hair--in that instance the publication in the paper paid dividends.

But, not to be too hard on fathers, there have also been times when the father had nothing to do with the child after conception and after being identified and getting involved in the case has proven to be a good option for the child. To me, they always have to answer the questions of where have they been and why didn't they try to help. But, in cases where the mother cannot or will not do what is necessary to reunify with her children, those formerly deadbeat dads sometimes manage to provide a good home for their children.

Faith
Faith-based organizations often provide parenting education, supervised visitation services and homes for young mothers. Over the last five or six years, those organizations seem to have diminished in my area leaving a great deficit of services. When I first started doing child protection cases, I wondered how we would manage without all of the private faith-based services and now that there are fewer of them--I realize that we don't manage very well at all without them.

Also, faith provides a motivation for many individuals to help in situations that would be easy to walk away from. Many people, motivated by their faith, have taken in children or provided rides for families or supervised visits or provided other support--not for any reason other than they feel that it is the right thing to do. I have immense respect for those folks.

Sometimes, parents who become involved in the child protection system use it as a "wake-up call" and will begin going to church. I am usually cautiously optimistic when a parent tells me that they began going to church and are going 3 times a week. The support from the church community is great and if it gives the parent a whole new social group, that is great, too. My only concern is when they treat their conversion as a panacea and do not do the serious and difficult work necessary to address their underlying problems.

Many foster parents are church-going people and I have never met a child in foster care who does not like to go to church. They always talk about Sunday School and the church songs and the youth group activities and they like dressing up on Sundays and they like having so many adults and other kids who are nothing but kind. For some of them, that's the first time for that experience.

So, in closing, as I said in that other post last January; they've got love like an ocean in their heart.

Child Protection, Part II

Hearsay
Most people are aware of the hearsay rule in court proceedings--in its most simplistic form the hearsay rule says that a person cannot testify to what someone else has said. There are a lot of exceptions but that's the basic rule. In child protection cases the hearsay rule is relaxed a bit at certain hearings due to the immediate need to protect a child from harm but for all of the major hearings and all judicial findings in a child protection case the normal rules of evidence apply except that the guardian ad litem can testify to what the child has said. I take that responsibility very seriously and try to be as accurate as possible not only in reporting what the child has said but in attaching appropriate significance to it. The purpose of the hearsay exception is to keep the child from having to confront an abusive parent in an adverse proceeding. There are many things that I have heard from children that I wish I could erase from my mind and the long and short of it is that there are parents out there that can think of ways to torture children that ordinary people could never imagine. But, that said, there are also parents who are overwhelmed, mentally ill, addicted, or just unaware of how to parent and those are the ones that I want to talk about today.

Reunification
Federal law provides a framework for what the different states have adopted as their child protection statute and one of the changes that has gone into effect over the last ten years is that within a year of a child coming into state custody there has to be "permanancy". Prior to that law there were children who spend their entire childhood going from foster home to foster home. Now the law says that a child needs to reunifiy with a parent or be on track for adoption in roughly a year.

A year isn't very long for a parent to address an entrenched mental illness or an addiction but the child protection cases are focused on the needs of the children not the parents. A year is a very long time for a child to not know what is going to happen.

During the reunification year, specific services are identified to address whatever problems exist within the family, counseling is provided, parenting classes are provided, in-patient or out-patient substance abuse treatment, supervised visitation, homemaker services....and more. There are frequent meetings and court reviews during the year to measure progress and for some families as the year progresses it becomes likely that reunification will happen and slowly and carefully the child is placed back in the home to see how it all works while all the supports are in place and the court is still available to oversee it all. Some of those families are grateful for the intervention; some are resentful but still do the right things and jump through the essential hoops in order to get their children home.

CASA
Court-appointed Special Advocates are volunteers who do the same role as guardian ad litems. Usually in the areas where CASA are available there are attorneys who will volunteer their time to write necessary motions so that there is legal advocacy for the child as well. I do not really know much about the program in Maine because it does not reach into the mountainous and thinly populated western counties where I practice, but my sense is that people who work as CASAs find it very rewarding.

If you have questions, feel free to leave them in comments and I will try and answer them in the next post--fortunately, this is a subject that most people are not familiar with even though it may affect the family next door or in the next pew.

Tomorrow I will talk about what happens when the family is not able to reunify.

Child Protection, Part I

I have spent the last two days in a hearing on a petition to terminate the parental rights of a couple. These are grave hearings--I do not believe that any court order short of a death penalty carries a more severe result and in Maine, we do not have the death penalty. No matter what the situation, we approach these hearings quietly, prepared and resolved in our positions, but with respect for the court, the law and the human beings involved.

A family becomes involved with the State or the child protection system usually because someone made a report of abuse or neglect to a child. The reports could come from a family member, a teacher, a doctor, a neighbor, a policeman....really from any one. The report is screened initially to be sure that there is some validity to it. If the report passes some minor threshold of validity it is referred to a protective social worker to investigate. Sometimes, the social worker finds that there is nothing to the referral, sometimes the social worker finds that there is some situational stress going on in the home and offers some sort of assistance to help the family get through the problem safely, other times the risk is more immediate and severe and in those cases the worker will file a petition with the court asking for immediate custody of the child or children. That's when I often get involved.

At the point the petition is signed and the child comes into state custody, all sorts of constitutional protections come into play for the family. Each parent is appointed legal counsel. If they have the means to pay for it, they may be ordered to reimburse the court for the cost or if they do not have the means to pay for it the counsel is paid for out of indigency funds through the court system. Additionally, the child is assigned an attorney called a guardian ad litem. The role of the guardian ad litem is to be the voice of the child in court, to do a investigation independent of the State's investigation and to make a written report and recommendation to the Court based on the child's best interest. The guardian ad litem is allowed to testify to what the child has said--an exception to the hearsay rule enacted to protect the child.

I am usually appointed as the guardian ad litem in a case but sometimes I am appointed to represent a parent. I like occasionally representing parents because it helps me remain objective and by seeing all sides of the process makes me more effective in either role.

Within a week or ten days of the child coming into state custody, the parents have the opportunity for a hearing on the petition and, in all but the most heinous cases, a reunification plan is figured out and everyone begins working toward making that happen. Reunification plans are specifically tailored to meet the needs of the family involved and to address the risk or dangers that were present when the child was removed. I think of the reunification plans as a roadmap of what the parents need to do in order to have their family intact and free from the scrutiny of the State.

If you have questions, feel free to leave them in comments and I will try and answer them in the next post--fortunately, this is a subject that most people are not familiar with even though it may affect the family next door or in the next pew.

Tomorrow, I will write about the reunification process and all that goes into trying to rebuild a family before a termination petition is filed.

New Life for Thunder God

Five years ago, Archie and I pooled our resources and bought a bunny for Molly for her birthday. She named him Thunder God and he was part of our family. My dad and Archie built a cage and for the most part Thunder God lived in his nice outside cage but when it was cold, Molly brought him into the house. It's cold a lot in Maine, so he spent a lot of time hopping around our home where he quickly rose to the top of our Animal Kingdom.

Now, with Molly off at college Thunder God has spent most of his time in his cage watching for her to come home. Aside from a quick pet when I put his food out for him, his life is pretty dull.

A few weeks ago, Emily, one of Molly's cousins came by with her Girl Scout troop collecting canned goods. Emily asked if she could show her friends the bunny.

Flash of Brilliance! "Emily, if it's alright with your parents, you can have the bunny."

So, last week while we were in Ireland, Emily and her parents came and picked up Thunder God. He has been re-named Douglas and now he has a new little girl of his own.

I miss him when I see his empty cage but it's re-assuring to know that he's in a good place. I talked to Emily's mother and she said that he goes to Girl Scout meetings and hops around and that this week they are taking him to a nursing home to visit with the elderly.

A new life for Thunder God.

A breath of Ireland

We spent four days in Ireland over the Thanksgiving holiday and it took our breath away. Such a lovely gem perched out there in the north Atlantic and such ancient history it holds.

There were castles. The one in the picure is Classiebawn Castle on Mullaghmore Head in County Sligo on the edge of the Atlantic and just across the bay from County Donegal. The castle was the home of Lord Mountbatten.

There were ancient standing stones. This circle is called the Grange Stone Circle and dates back 4000 years. It is beside Loch Gur where artifacts and signs of civilization dating back to 3500 B.C. have been found. In a few weeks on the day of the winter solstice, if the sky is clear the sun will rise directly over one of the stones. A half a year from now on the summer solstice, if the sky is clear the sun will rise directly over a different stone. People camp out in the fields every year to experience the solstice sun rise.

There were pastoral farms where I expected to see James Herriot emerging from the barn, rolling down his sleeves and chatting with the farmer. While there were many sheep and cows grazing along the country roads, I think there are less farms in Ireland than there used to be. There seems to be a new affluence in Ireland with subdivisions full of expensive houses that could be in San Antonio as easily as Galway. The subdivisions sprawl over ancient hills and Dublin seemed like a fashion center.

There were new friends who seemed like old friends with whom we shared a coal fire, a delicious meal and a couple of hours of conversation. Mater, made famous by her daughter's writings, hosted us in her beautiful home and along with her Cousin shared the secrets of their historic community. They were so friendly and gracious--the Irish people are everything that they are reputed to be: Friendly, gregarious, conversational and witty.

We put a thousand kilometers on our rental car in our short visit--so much to see and so much to go back to.