Normally after cleaning the playroom, we put out a small forage of nuts, seeds, dried fruit or some combination before letting the chimps back in there. They most certainly know our routine so as we start to wrap things up in there, the chimps start checking in with us to see what the forage is going to be. They watch us scatter what ever it is and (depending on how exciting it is) they begin to food grunt (and hopefully food squeak) in anticipation. Today, no one was around as we scattered the forage – not even Burrito, who is always interested to see what the forage will be! We locked everything up and I opened the door for the chimps – nothing.
But as it turns out, the absence of chimps wasn’t because they just weren’t hungry or interested in the forage – it’s because all seven chimps were out on Young’s Hill! No one had even seemed to notice that I had opened the playroom back up for them. I walked outside to see what they were up to and Burrito and Jody were roaming the very top of the hill, Annie and Missy were wrestling on the shaky bridge, Jamie was walking around in the bamboo with a boot, Foxie was on top of one of the climbing structures playing with a pink-haired troll doll, and Negra was simply sitting by the log structure.
With it being as cold as it has been, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Negra just “hanging out” out there. She’s gone out a few times since the snow melted but not for very long. This morning, it was warm and sunny enough that she just sat down and took in some fresh air.
As J.B. mentioned the other day, we often can’t get photos of Negra on the hill because she “doesn’t deal with the paparazzi” as well as the others, but today, for what ever reason, she didn’t seem to mind one bit. She sat there for a good 15 minutes with me snapping photos. I guess all that fresh air and sunshine made dealing with “obnoxious” photographers trying to get a glimpse of the Queen worth it.
Looking down the driveway:
