PhotoHunt--Theme: Family

Other Photo Hunters can be found at TnChick's place.

We saw this family just over the California state line when we left Goose Lake State Park in Oregon this last summer. (It will enlarge if you click so you can better see the three fawns.) According to Wikipedia, triplet fawns are rather uncommon, so this would be a rare sight in its own right. but there was one more fawn in the group that was out of the frame of this picture. Were they quadruplets? Did this doe take over care and tutelage of some orphaned fawns? Was she babysitting for a friend? I don't know but it was certainly a rare sight.

You might wonder why I post an animal family for this theme. I really am a family person--mom of six with 15 grandchildren, but the family theme was difficult for me for a reason. I do not often post people pictures--and almost never children. When I do post children, they are in some way unidentifiable--either by distance, angle, or elapsed years. Children's safety--family safety--are a high priority.

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Perhaps I am paranoid, but Internet safety is one of the topics I monitored and taught in my school library position. We caution our young people about what is or is not appropriate to post on their My Space or Facebook accounts, about not giving out too much information online, but do we always keep this in mind when we are posting on our own blogs?

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I'd like to think that everyone out in cyberspace is perfectly innocent and good and friendly, but we know it is not so. Otherwise we wouldn't get so many opportunities to help out a distresssed Nigerian banker's widow, or clear up our non-existent PayPal account by sending all our financial and personal information to some pseudo website. In the real world at school we kept constant updates on sex offenders released into our community--how do we keep updated on the ones who might be wandering around our websites.

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I do truly believe that blog friendships can be real friendships--and take this from someone who has made real time meetings with dozens of online friends--even half around the world. But I will continue to proceed with caution, especially when it comes to the children.