Something Else

When Bow was a very little fellow, and we were still using lexigrams, he had menus for food that would go something like this: "BANANA, GRAPES, APPLE, JUICE, MORE, ENOUGH, LATER, SOMETHING ELSE". We had to include the label "SOMETHING ELSE" because while we were doing language research, we were also just a family, eating whatever foods happened to be available that day. and I could not always print out a new menu every time a new food was introduced. We would verbally tell Bow what the food was called, but if he wanted it at that meal, he would point to "SOMETHING ELSE."

In the stand up menu on the table the top right corner says "SOMETHING ELSE"
משהו אחר

To this very day, if Bow is too lazy to spell out "What is that called?" he will just ask for "something else." It means "that thing that I don't have a name for". Bow remembers the good old days when he used to eat in the kitchen and point at lexigrams. In fact, that's what he misses the most about his childhood outside the pens. It's not our long walks in the woods or the trips in the car that he longs for. He wants to eat in the kitchen. The one time he was out of the pens briefly after his confinement, he headed straight for the kitchen and swiped a muffin.  And when he complained to me early on about being locked up, what he said was: "Let me eat in the kitchen."

Bow looking over the fence on a wet day

These days, Bow is quite resigned to our living arrangement, and when I go on my long walks, he also surveys the property from his perch atop the bench on the outer pens.

Lately, I have been seeing these flowers all over the pasture, and some friends assure me that they are Missouri Primroses. But when I look up Missouri Primroses, they don't look the same. They don't even have the same number of petals. So until I know what they really are, I am going to just call them Something Else.

Now the blossom itself resembles a wild rose or a prairie rose, having pink petals and a yellow center, but it is bigger than the wild rose blossoms that we have all over my property. It can't be a Missouri Primrose because those flowers have four petals and a different center. But it is also not a Prairie Rose, even though the blossom is very similar, the body of the plant is not.

These flowers grow in ones and twos and can be seen all over, and the only time they do not have five petals is when they have been damaged, because something has eaten some of their petals.

There are many insects that like these flowers, and not all of them are pollinators.

The flowers are so pretty now. They seemed to have increased their color saturation in the past twenty-four hours, because they started out pale pink, but now they are bright pink almost to the point of lavender.

Until I know what they are, I am going to stubbornly insist that they are Something Else!

So far, I do not have this problem when I see a rabbit. I do not ask myself what kind of rabbit it is. But I would feel kind of gauche reporting that I saw a flower today, as there are so many obviously different kinds of flowers that I see every day.

I need a good way to distinguish a daisy from ... well, from something else!