If we could communicate with animals, ask them questions and receive answers—no matter how simple those questions and answers turn out to be—the world might soon be moved enough to at least start halting our runaway destruction of life.—Roger Payne
Saturday, Tenakee Springs early morning. 7 am. Clear, cooler but not freezing ( I couldn’t see the thermometer.) Low tide. Dark.
I woke early to work on the house, I needed to get another coat of varnish on the floors. But I have been thinking of this line from Roger Payne about animals all week ( I read it in an article in an old New Yorker magazine I brought with me and underlined it.)Partly because I am friends with Katy Payne, who used to be married to Roger many years ago– so I perked up when I saw his name– and mostly because I wish I could communicate better with animals, both domestic and wild. Really communicate– ask questions and receive answers. Speak the language of dogs or robins or eaves drop on the conversations the gulls out my window were having this morning. And I want to know why do the sea lions follow us when we walk along the coastal trail? I have tried to take a picture of them, but I’m so startled when they surface and roar that I forget too, and then they disappear so quickly. Teresa says they like to “walk” along with us and hear us talk. I know we like to walk along with them and hear them talk– so this may be true. Why wouldn’t it be?
Since I did not take my regular walk, and since it was so dark earlier, here is an image of East Tenakee Ave, Tenakee Springs AK at 1:30 pm on Nov 18, 2023:
And Here is map of where we are, and it shows Haines and Juneau too.
