As many of you know, I had a cochlear implant implanted on December 17. My surgeon says that I had a tougher recovery than 90% of her patients. More pain, more of a reaction to the anesthesia, and more weird side-effects. But that’s over with! (Well, almost.)

On January 10 the device was turned on, and, as expected, voices sounded like they went through one of those machines that a criminal might use to leave a ransom message. It takes awhile for the brain to make sense of these new pathways for aural inputs. Already, after only two weeks, voices are sounding more normal. Voices continue to have a metallic echo, but already I have more clarity than I had with my hearing aids.

For thirty years I have dealt with being hard of hearing, and with the anger, frustration, grieving, and acceptance, that comes with a disability. Because my loss is progressive, I went through that emotional cycle over and over. I’d learn to cope, and then have the rug pulled out from under me and have to go through it all over again. The CI has stopped that. I know my baseline. If I never hear better than I am hearing now, it’s okay, because I know it will never get worse. Just that has changed my world. The icing on the cake is that my hearing is getting better.  It’s likely that my hearing will improve not just over the next few weeks, but over the next year or more. Amazing.

From the start, human voices, although weird, were understandable. It was another story with my animals. The first time I heard Lily bark I thought that the fire alarm went off! Walking down my hallway, I wondered what a loud tick-tick-tick was. I turned around and discovered that Lily’s nails make a lot of noise when she trots behind me. I’m enjoying the chickens’ chortles and clucks (I wasn’t deaf, so I had heard them, but now I’m hearing their fuller musical range.) Surprisingly, the goats don’t sound much different than they did before. But, now that I can hear noises from a greater distance, I’ve found out that Caper bleats when I leave the barn to go back to the house. I didn’t know. Sweet.

This was the temperature this morning.

-6º F. That’s -21º C.

Even the dogs don’t want to go outside. Lily stays on the path, and then hurries back into the house. But I have animals to take care of.

I have a bottle filled with hot water for Candy. She’s waiting at her door. Her face is icy from her own breath, but she’s been cozy all night in her house and she’s eager to come hop down into the yard.

The hens come right outside, too. Lulu, of course, is the first one down the ramp and the rest soon follow. I’ve tossed corn into the straw. It’s a source of dense calories to keep them warm, and it keeps them busy.

The goats are happy to see me.

Isn’t anyone grumpy about this cold weather? It’s hard to complain when the animals are so cheerful. Well, Caper is not sure about liking the snow.

Look at how his beard is frizzing out in the cold! He doesn’t mind.

The waterers, feeders and hay rack have been checked and filled. The chickens have been let out, given grain and two eggs collected. I’m ready to go in and get my own breakfast.

The thing about having animals to care for is that it forces you outside at times that you wouldn’t otherwise have gone. If it weren’t for my chores, I’d have missed how beautiful the early morning light and shadows are on the roof.

Pretty, but I don’t linger. I haven’t had my coffee yet.

Pip can’t believe that I’m not staying outside to play with him. I promise Pip that when it warms up I’ll be back out for a longer visit. I expect that it will get to be 10º by noon.

I’m fortunate to have two barns and my hens are divided into two flocks, one in each space. They could all fit into the big barn, but the Wyandottes don’t like the bantams, and the Golden Comets can’t resist pecking at the Polish’s pom-pom heads. I’ve sorted them into two peaceable groups. There’s rarely any pecking and aggression. But being indoors can drive anyone stir crazy, and it’s snowing. Again.

I grew these last summer:

Usually, the wild birds eat all of the seeds, but this year I was able to harvest a bucketful of the dried flower heads. I saved them for days like this. This morning, I tossed a few on the floor of the big barn. That will keep the girls busy for awhile.

The hens in the HenCam coop still have their cabbage tetherball, but it’s almost gone. I put kale in the suet feeder that is attached to the roosts (Yes! That’s what that’s for.) Candy got some kale in her hutch this morning, but I bet you’ll see her in the coop, eating the chicken’s stash.

The temperature is supposed to drop well below freezing this weekend, so the chickens will be indoors for awhile longer. Now, what to do for the goats?

On Tuesday we had snow, rain and ice (all in one day!)  Tomorrow more snow is expected, and then temperatures will drop into the single digits and stay there. But today is gorgeous! There’s no wind, so each branch is laced with brittle snow and the entire world is sparkling. Lily Dog has been going bonkers from inactivity, so I took her across the street, through the meadow and into the woods.

I wish I’d brought my tracking field guide.

Here is the view coming out of the woods and looking up towards my house.

The short walk was a hard work-out! The snow is deep and crusty. Next time, I’ll wear snowshoes.

Well, the cat (ahem… chicken) is out of the bag, and I can now tell you about being on It’s Me or the Dog on Animal Planet.

Last July I got a call from a producer from the show. He wanted to know if it was true that learning to train chickens is an effective way to learn how to train dogs. The answer is a resounding YES. There’s so much emotional neediness that owners bring to their relationship with their animals. They think that their dogs should behave out of unconditional love. But, love isn’t enough to teach a dog to sit quietly, and to pee outside, and to not snarl at guests. To get a dog to do these things, and the other behaviors that make a dog a good household companion, requires training. How to train is made clear by working with chickens.

Dog owners often resort to baby-talking, pleading, bribing, yanking and yelling, which is ineffective at best, and counter-productive at it’s worst. Instead, I use a clear form of communication called “clicker training.” This works on all species, from fish to elephants; I use it with my chickens. Training a chicken shows that getting angry and using punishment, or conversely, sweet-talking and tossing food, will not get you the behavior that you want. What is effective is to break down the behavior into small steps, and to reward each moment on the the way to the end goal. I use a clicker because it marks each step in a clear and distinct way. Using this technique, I’ve taught my chickens to follow a target stick (note the one in the photo.) A trained chicken will go anywhere with confidence. Coco posed with aplomb on a toy truck in the MARTHA studios. Philomena, the hen in this episode, was willing to walk over scary shiny black plastic. As you can see in the show, this same technique was applied to the poodles and the pig, and didn’t they look relieved that their owners were finally communicating in a way that made sense to them!

Watching the show, you might think that it was exaggerated, but Matt and Melissa (the dog owners) were even more eccentric in real life. The 6 minutes that I was on was edited down from 2 1/2 hours of filming. You never know what the producers are going to do, so I was relieved that I came across as being the sane one, and that my training technique was clearly presented. I know that my name was misspelled, but otherwise, I was pleased with the show. What did you think? If you missed it, it’ll be on reruns. Check the Animal Planet listings. It’s also available on iTunes (The episode is titled, The Castle Goes to the Dogs.)