After a few days of beautiful, sunny autumn weather, we're back to rain again. With accompanying thunder and lightning.

Tomorrow is an abbreviated version of our postponed fair. The boys have 4H lambs to clean, haul down, weigh in, and then show. It's not been one of our better years for raising lambs. So we're making a few adjustments as we get ready to breed for last year's flock. A new Suffolk ram was purchased, as our old one passed away a few weeks ago. It would be time for new stock anyway, to keep from too much inbreeding. So we got one with good lines, who has already produced quality offspring. We also raise Katahdin sheep, a hair breed that doesn't require shearing. Yesterday, that ram was found in the pen with the ewes. He was moved out quickly, we don't want him breeding with the Suffolk ewes. We're looking to produce a certain quality of animal, not a cross breed. And we don't want to keep animals that aren't producing well. The breeding is done with the purpose of having a certain outcome.... a "normal" outcome, if you will.

It seems to me that that's what a lot of people would like to do nowadays. Not breed quality sheep (!) but do everything they can to have quality or "normal" offspring. Please understand, I ate reasonably healthy during all my pregnancies, saw my doctor, even managed my gestational diabetes on several pregnancies. I, of course, wanted to have healthy babies. No one wants to have a child who has a painful or life threatening condition. But I'm talking about people who want to make sure that they don't end up with a child who has a problem, who is different, who is, well, like Samuel. So there's been a lot of focus on non-invasive testing to determine if a child has that extra 21st chromosome. I don't think it's terrible to want to know, I just have concerns about WHY a lot of people want to know. Being aware of Down Syndrome in utero would help parents and doctors look for some of the attending physical problems the baby could have, and prepare them to deal with them when the baby is born. If only that were always the case. I look at the beautiful boy that I have, who is more "normal" than not (which in my family is really something!), and can't imagine why he shouldn't have
been born.

Fearfully and WONDERFULLY made!!!!!!!