Friday, March 30, 2018

Visit to Anni's Acre (and Deaf School)

Today we did NOT leave the farm. What a glorious Friday! Because of that, Hannah decided to take a day off of dressing me as we just hung out in our farm clothes for the day. (I asked her if she wanted to pick out my farm clothes but this did not really interest her much at all.)

On Wednesday, however, Hannah did pick out my clothes for a trip to our friend Anni's house and school in Knoxville (about an hour from here). Anni has been helping us on our farm for about a year now, and we finally got out to meet her and see her life. Anni had asked me to speak to the middle school about some of our travels so I did just that.

Here I am with the outfit Hannah picked out for me.

Abigail and Anni in her math classroom. We sat in on one of her classes and got to meet her deaf students. 

I loved some of this cool math stuff Anni had up on the wall!



Anni has her desks set up to allow writing on them. Oh did the kids love this. Especially Hannah!

Here I am speaking to the middle school group about all of the fun places we have lived and visited. (You can see JB and the kids to the middle right. Grama is there too, but she isn't in the picture.) They were a fantastic audience and had some great questions. The translator translated as fast as I talked. She was amazing!!!

After we were done at Anni's school, we stopped by a nearby location to see if we could spot and Bald Eagle we had heard rumors about. But alas, while we saw the nest, we didn't see the Eagle or its babies. From there we headed to Anni's one-acre farm to see some of the things she's working on there.


Sidge loved meeting Anni's VERY PREGNANT goat.

Our animal guy! This kid is simply in HEAVEN when he's around animals. While the farm is just an acre, our kids could have stayed there all day!!!

Anni actually has three very large dogs that are HUGE and LOVING and WONDERFUL. Sidge loved laying on Anni's bed and getting the dogs to lay on him. 

Speaking of Sidge and his love for animals -- a bit unrelated -- He got to move our very pregnant ewes to a new pasture yesterday COMPLETELY by himself. He loved it. He loves helping with anything and everything on the farm!!!

After visiting Anni's farm for a short tie, we stopped at a delicious pizza and ice cream place for dinner. We really love our "Aunt Anni" and are so glad she is in our circle of friends/family now. What an incredible day of learning for our family. To get to see this school and participate in a different culture was so incredibly interesting and better than a month worth of schoolwork we could have done here at home! It was an absolutely fantastic day!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You call it a deaf school Wendi -can you tell me about that. Were the children reading your lips or was she translating with sign language? Also , there is something about Sidge and his love of animals that reminds me of Auntie Connie! love Auntie Janet

Wendi Kitsteiner said...

Jan I'm going to see if Anni can write more about her school. She works at the TN School for the Deaf in Knoxville: http://www.tsdeaf.org/

Every state has a deaf school and kids can go completely for free. It is residential. If kids live close enough, they go home. But if they don't, they stay during the week and go home on the weekends.

Some kids can read lips. Some are only hard of hearing. Some have other learning difficulties. Some are brilliant but just struggle with being deaf.

Anni teaches during the day. She does not do the residential part of the program.

They had a lady signing while I spoke!