Behind the scenes

Understandably, the stars of the sanctuary are the Cle Elum Seven and obviously they are the center of our blog posts. Often though, we have lots of people ask about what the caregivers do “behind-the-scenes.” Long ago we did a post on how we clean and also on the morning routine, as well as how we serve the chimpanzees. Here’s a photo essay of sorts with all the details of an average chimp house day:

Breakfast prep:

Once breakfast is prepped, we serve a little bit to the chimps to shift them out of the greenhouse, and then we enter that area to clean. Once the greenhouse is clean, we lock up and invite them back out to the greenhouse and Young’s Hill to have the rest of their breakfast and unlock the playroom to clean. Here’s volunteer Becca in the greenhouse:

Cleaning the playroom:

After playroom cleaning, we shift the chimps once again so we can clean the front rooms. Before shifting any doors, we first check locks on the rooms we just cleaned, and operate the pneumatic doors remotely using levers that move the doors with air pressure.

In the afternoon, we work on prepping things for the chimps both that evening and the next day. We put together enrichment for the following morning, make night bags for after dinner, and prepare an evening enrichment project for the chimps too. In between all those daily tasks, we’re also continuing to do laundry, wash dishes, and other chores.

Volunteers Jen and Matt workin’ hard on folding some laundry…

… and hardly workin’ 🙂

Tomorrow’s enrichment theme is “travel/tourist day” and Jen and Matt had some fun finding perfect things from our enrichment shed:

Tonight’s evening enrichment project is PVC tubes filled with some peanut butter and a few raisins:

The chimps will love it! Jamie was checking in on Matt and Jen’s work. She was also patiently waiting for JB to put on some boots and run around the hill with her.

I caught him with the socks he came to work wearing today:

Just kidding! That’s a chimp sock. 🙂

For dinner tonight we served peaches, lemons, lettuce, and onions, which Katelyn served:

And finally, in case you’re curious about where all the blog magic happens, here’s me getting ready for today’s post: