Talk to the Animals

When our family was young, my husband and I had the great fortune to live in an apartment block in a beautiful part of Victoria BC. The apartments we lived in were built to take in a very natural setting, with water all around, trees every where you looked and feathered friends who were quite tame.

Canadian Geese shared their lives with us on the little penninsula where the apartment block was built. During the summer they feasted on the worms that came up out of the grass after a rainfall and even in the winter we had flocks arrive from up North. I think they called our area their summer resort. Say what you will about geese, they are very peaceful and have a philosophy of "live and let live" with humans.

Our oldest son was about 3. One afternoon, he was playing on the little patio outside our apartment. Close enough to be watched but far enough away from Mom and Dad to enjoy the freedom of doing "stuff" without knowing he was being watched. Children's imaginations are so keen that several little toy cars and a makeshift car garage can hold their interest for a long time.

A good friend of ours lived in the upper apartment, his bedroom overlooked our patio. He was home with a cold that day. He glanced out the window and saw my son at play.

"Ah," he thought, "I'll play a little trick on him". So he called my son by name and when my son looked up, our friend ducked down below the window. My son looked around to see who was calling him. Seeing no one he went back to play. Again our friend leaned out his window and called. "Hi _______," My son looked around again but our friend had disappeared below the window, out of sight.

A third time, our friend called and ducked down. This is where the geese come into the story. There was a group of about 15 or so, eating grass, just across the road from our patio. Our son looked up. In a voice, loud enough for our upstairs friend to hear him, he said, in a very friendly voice, "Oh, hi ducks" and went back to play again.

Our friend was so tickled by this that he came right down to my door to tell me what had happened. Only a child would assume that it was the geese who knew his name and it was they who were saying "Hi".

How sad that, as adults we seem to lose that part of our imagination that allows us to have this magical kind of reasoning. Of course animals can talk ...