I am a primatologist who spends twelve hours most days in the company of a thirteen year old chimpanzee named Bow. I am also an editor with Inverted-A Press.
It is raining again now, but after the last rain, there was a short respite, and I went back out and looked at the flowers.
Service berries by the fence line
After the rain, in that strange light that lingers in the air, everything looks greener, even the service berries by the pasture fence.
apple blossoms against a cloudy sky
The blossoms on the new apple tree all seemed to be opening at once.
apple blossoms close up
It was hard to capture a clear picture of each blossom, because they would not stand still. The branches of the new apple tree were towering up into the sky and swaying in the breeze.
apple branches swaying in the breeze
But where were the bees? Didn't they want to take advantage of the opening apple blossoms? No. They had all gone to call on the Weigela blooms by the woods.
The Weigela blossoms, more numerous that the apple blooms, and just as pretty, drew my entire bee population into their midst.
a bee comes to call on a Weigela bloom
The bees were so confused by the embarrassment of riches before them that they flitted too quickly from flower to flower to flower.
Which Weigela blossom is best? Which is the prettiest? Which offers the sweetest nectar? It is very hard for me to tell, and gauging by the bees' reactions, they don't know, either. Every one is beautiful in its own way -- and they are very hard to tell apart!
After many, many days of incessant rain, the sun has finally come back out. Bow is happy.
On Wednesday Lawrence stayed with Bow while I ran errands. When the delivery person brought a new man with her, Bow was at first wary, but then he warmed up to the new man. It turned out he really liked him. Bow gestured to Lawrence excitedly that he wanted to say something. Then he took Lawrence's hand and spelled: "I want him to come in."
Bow can go for a long time without saying anything new or surprising. But when he needs to say something in order to express himself, he knows how.
Someday, we will develop new ways to test intelligence and learning. Instead of expecting a subject to be compliant, we will test what they can do when they are actually engaged by the subject and are initiating a communication rather than responding to one.
Successful employers have already noticed that a high GPA predicts little about future performance by a employee, besides coming to work every day. Soon they will realize that standardized testing does not tell you much about creative use of intelligence in real life. Once we develop a way to determine knowledge and ability without cooperation, when we distinguish compliance from intelligence, Bow's achievements will shine, and people will see that he is much smarter than that dog who can identify objects by name on command.
In the meantime, Bow and I continue with our routines. There's a new review of Theodosia and the Pirates: The War Against Spain on Amazon. Bow and I are spending more time outdoors. In the video below from yesterday, Bow and I were just sitting peacefully on the stoop together, when I noticed an injured wasp on the floor. I asked Bow if he caused that.
Right after lunch, I went out for a walk and noticed a butterfly sunning itself on the road. I stayed and looked at it until a car drove by and the butterfly flew away.
On my way back to he house, I spotted several colorful butterflies enjoying the milkweed flowers in our pasture.
In the evening, I went to a local carnival with my daughter and her friend. It was Friday the 13th, and people had made up a rumor that there was a murderer at large at the carnival. Of course, we saw no sign of a murderer. But I did get a great shot of the sun setting at the carnival grounds.
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