Savingdogs-Saving the chickens

[Denim Deb]

SD, I have a niece that's hearing impaired, and because of that, her speech is affected. She has no problem understanding me because she reads lips, but I have a horrible time understanding her at times! I've told her that we need to learn sign language so we can talk, but she doesn't want to. This is one of my brother's girls. I'm wanting to spend as much time w/her as possible since she lost her mother, so hopefully, we'll work something out. Do you have any suggestions?

 

[savingdogs]

I speak well but I can see how that would happen. You don't hear how you sound. I often talk way too loud for the situation or too soft, so you would have to suggest to her that she try to guess what the overall sound level in the room might be and try to always consider this when she starts to talk.

I need to learn ASL as well, but it is hard to do alone. It would probably be wonderful for her if someone would study it with her. You cannot learn a visual language without someone making it visual for you. I've attempted a lot of online solo study of ASL and it is really difficult. I grasp the concepts but not the memorization of the signals. Apparently in a classroom format, you build kind of a speaking community with your classmates in order to study. Probably the best thing you could do for her would be to study ASL in a class or WITH her in a mixed class, even better. She might meet fun people there who are hearing impaired and would enrich her life with friends who relate to her. At her age, she probably needs to develop those friendships if she can.

Watching closed captioning television has really helped me learn to read lips. I did not realize it. Does she tell people, "I need you to look at me in order to understand?" You cannot lip read if people do not cooperate. I find it very thoughtful when people remember to keep facing me when they talk. Sometimes little things like that are very encouraging.

So on a different note, I am falling in love with the little wether we call Sebastian. I so wish he was a doeling. I had to try to "tame" him a little because he is naturally shy like his mom, but now that I've tamed him, he has stolen my heart. He and Molly are also so bonded, they care about no body but each other, and I love Molly so much, I hate the feeling of tearing her beloved baby away. If he were only the doeling I would just keep him, but he would not be cheap to feed, he is the BIGGEST of the kids by a huge margin. But he looks like a little mini-nubian now and would have been a perfect type doeling to keep. If only there were sex-change operations for goats. Oh well, I'm probably not the first goat-raiser who wished that.

I love little Emilee my doeling as well, but there is something about the challenge of a shy animal who comes around and starts to love me. I love that when I can do that with dogs and I find it no less rewarding when I can "win over" any other type of animal.

I'm just an animal-lover at heart I guess. I even love chicken! I had it for dinner last night, and lunch too, and dinner the night before. hee hee

 

[Farmfresh]

I speak some ASL. I have taken several classes. I had to learn it because some of our autistic students do not speak or have limited speech even thought they CAN hear. I don't usually have to do the finger spelling bit, just whole words and thoughts. I have always been animated when I talk and use my hands a lot anyway, so even the two really deaf students that I have worked with in the past never seem to have any problems understanding me.

Because most of my students can hear I can, unfortunately, be sloppier with my sign. We have a para friend in our program that is an interpreter, but has never been certified. She learned because she had several deaf friends in college. She constantly works to clean up my sign.

My sister also signs (far better than I do) because she has a deaf student and a full time interpreter in her class room.

Sign is great for EVERYONE to know. Sis and I use it often when we are working outside at distances where hearing is difficult or at loud restaurants or if we want to make comments about our men!

It is definitely easiest to learn by immersion. When you are around it and using it daily it comes easy and makes lots of sense. I would start by learning words that you use daily. Make a list and work from there.

 

[savingdogs]

Hubby and I have started making our own signs. We have ones for "this dog has to pee" "dinner is ready" "we need to trim her toenails" and "look at me" "do you want to eat?" and of course a couple of personal signs if you know what I mean. I keep telling him we need to learn the real deal.

I heard it is difficult to sign and talk at the same time because the languages are actually so different. I understand the concept of how it is put together and can finger spell but only know a few basic signs such as dog, cat, goat, hello and thank you. I can understand a few more.

We are having a warm sunny day.....what a miracle. I took the goats on a three hour goat walk. We are low on hay. They are stuffed! They cleared out a whole section. Of course it is the empty neighboring lot, but that is okay.

We had a house across from us that has always been empty. It had a manufactured home on it, but someone sold all the timber, clear cut it. It looked awful the first year. Really sad. The house had been used as a meth house so no one wanted to buy it. They finally foreclosed on it, and someone bought it for 35,000. How cheap. They gutted the house and put up new siding and all new electric and well. The lot itself was a horrible overgrown mess. They had to clean up tons of trash and stack the stumps and now they are having bonfires. They fenced the front area and graveled the road (yay!, it is our road, too) and trimmed up a lot of trees. They put up a nice tidy gate and fence across the front and the place looks amazingly better. Really helps the neighborhood. They told us they are going to rent it out to a police officer. So we will be really safe! Isn't that cool? They told me if I want to graze the goats over there they would love that. Unfortunately the goats think the fires and chainsaws and tractors and all the commotion going on over there is the most terrifying thing they have ever seen.

The other side effect is that lot used to be where the deer hung out, they had a little hollow where a herd lived. Well now they are chased out of there, and they are living next door to us. it is cool, I can watch the herd from my bedroom window. I keep telling Hubby to get a hunting license and figure out how to make deer sausage. They feed the deer at the resort over the hill, like big giant pet rats. Up until now most of the deer have been afraid of our property because of Bandit, but lately we have kept Bandit inside or tethered (she had a few run-ins with my chickens and trash cans and not coming when she was called and jumping fences, so that is her lot in life now)

So I'm going to take a little rest now and then go out and plant seeds. I think the soil is finally warm.

 

[Farmfresh]

Hubby and I have started making our own signs. We have ones for "this dog has to pee" "dinner is ready" "we need to trim her toenails" and "look at me" "do you want to eat?" and of course a couple of personal signs if you know what I mean. I keep telling him we need to learn the real deal.

I heard it is difficult to sign and talk at the same time because the languages are actually so different. I understand the concept of how it is put together and can finger spell but only know a few basic signs such as dog, cat, goat, hello and thank you. I can understand a few more.

Signing while I talk hasn't even slowed me down a bit!

Mainly they don't really have "daily signs" for words like with abstract meanings .. like "the". They use mostly nouns and verbs and many signs can stand for several words or ideas depending on how you show the sign. You just can't really sign like you would write a sentence when using "daily sign" (I call it that cause it is the everyday language that people just use around friends and at home. There IS a more formal type of sign that is used for business or college that can be signed just like reading a page.

Some of the signs are just exactly what they seem they SHOULD be.

Examples: Dog = snap fingers and pat thigh - just like you are calling a dog to your side. Chicken = Index finger and thumb together for a beak rest of fingers closed and "peck" on the palm of the opposite hand.

We use a program called ASL pro to help us out.

A sign I use a LOT is "gotta pee" which is really "go to toilet". You make a ASL sign for the letter "T" then give it a shake. I taught that one to all of the folks I used to work with at TSC so that I could get someone to come cover the register so I could go to the bathroom without announcing it to the rest of the world.

 

[savingdogs]

I'll have to spend some time checking out that link. I'll have to teach Hubby the word for chicken now. The one for dog was the first one I learned.

I've been concentrating on learning lip reading, because no one needs to learn something special for me. It does have its limitations.

I didn't get my planting done. I came in to sit down for a minute and woke up a few hours later! I think that three hour goat walk was too long! At least I was just napping because I was tired instead of sick. But it seems weird I always need so much sleep.

Our day here is GORGEOUS. All the animals are so happy. I actually put on a pair of shorts for the first time this year. The blinding white glare is going to scare away my livestock.

 

[Farmfresh]

ASL is more and more mainstream these days. So many different groups of people are using it and kids are fascinated with it. Lots of teachers teach a bit to all of their students, because students love it so much.

Do you carry a notebook and pen with you?

I had a regular customer at TSC when I worked there that was deaf. He lip read pretty well, but always carried a notebook since he did not speak. He was always happy when I was there because I could understand his sign as long as he went slow for me. (Reading sign is harder than speaking sign if you ask me) If I got stuck or he didn't understand he would pull out the little notebook. It worked pretty darned good.

You are actually FAR ahead of most deaf people, because you can talk, have heard people speak, and have a general understanding of the hearing world. The born deaf that I have worked with have missed so many little things that we just "get", like humming, whistling and other mouth sounds that the born deaf just can't tell the difference from speaking or have no idea about. Even things like a whisper vs a shout or music - hard to explain if you have never heard them.

 

[savingdogs]

Yes, I know I should appreciate that I could once hear. It is hard though. Late onset deafness is isolating, whereas the always-deaf tend to become more a part of the deaf community. While I'd love to have some deaf friends, they would not replace the relationships I want to continue with my non-deaf people already in my life.

I should probably hand paper and pencil TO people when I can't understand. I surprise people because I speak normally and then tell them I can't hear them. I used to say "I'm hearing impaired" and people would speak up. I found that telling people "I am deaf" works much better. You can't just speak up with me, so to other people "deaf" is the way to look at it. I do hear sounds but that doesn't make the word sounds useful and louder doesn't fix it for me.

Yesterday I could not catch the loose bunny by myself. My sons were both able to do so easily. I realized it was because they can hear movement. You don't realize how integral hearing is until you cannot use that skill anymore. And I'm often so uninformed, most people are hearing radio all the time and catching up on things while doing other stuff. You don't realize you soak all that information in, even if you are not paying attention.

I decided today I need me a dog. I know that sounds silly and my husband will think I am crazy. But I need a herding dog. My best friend is actually trying to rehome a little heeler and I'm considering taking her. I don't think we are suited to have a LGD because we cannot bear the thought of the dogs sleeping outside, but I could really use a dog to help me keep the goats together when I take them out and to help me round them up like OFG does, or catch a chicken. I'll actually have to research that type of dog training more but I think I don't have the right kind of dog here right now. Plus our personal dogs are all too old to invest that much training into. I do have the border collie and she has herding instinct, but I already care as much about that particular dog as most people probably feel towards their children. She is, frankly, the best dog in the world and I don't need any more reasons to miss her when she leaves this world than I already have now. She is in great health but she is 11 now and I just love her so much. She is very bonded to Computer Nerd so I don't talk about her much, but she is without a doubt the best dog God ever made. I know y'all might have some disagreement with me on that, but lets try not to get my thread closed.

 

[abifae]

We all learned sign language in school to cheat on tests

I'd take it with you, SD, if I lived near enough.

 

[savingdogs]

I was just wishing we lived closer, too!

You are in Colorado though, I actually already have friends there. One in Littleton and on in Colorado Springs. Are you relatively near either of those places? The one in Littleton I've known since 5th grade so I expect I will be back to visit. Your airport is SCARY though, I had some rough landings there and haven't been real anxious to hop on a plane to Denver again real soon after the last one.