Yesterday, J.B. took some photos of the chimpanzees enjoying their post-Thanksgiving morning romp on the hill. It was a beautiful morning yesterday and the chimpanzees wasted no time in taking advantage of the sunshine. There are some great images of Foxie in this post below!
Today is the fifth day of thanks highlighting seven different donors and their seven ways of donating + the seven chimpanzees at the sanctuary!
In case you missed the first four posts, day one featured legacy donor Bruce Davidson + Burrito, day two featured event donor Kathy Cochran + Annie, day three featured recurring donor Julie Olson + Jody, and day four featured challenge and competition donor Monica Best + Negra.
For the fifth day of thanks, we are sending big thanks to Vicki Fagerlee and everyone who sends items via our amazon.com wishlist. Vicki won a “spend the day behind-the-scenes at the sanctuary” auction item a few years ago and traveled halfway across the country for that unique experience. It was really special for the staff to be able to meet Vicki in person and get to know her, and to introduce her to the chimpanzees who she had been following via the internet. Vicki also donates cold hard cash, but she likes to supplement her cash donations by browsing the wish list for all of the somewhat boring supplies needed to run the chimp house and fun stuff for the chimpanzees too.
Here’s what Vicki had to stay about her wish list giving:
It’s an easy way to contribute to the functioning of the sanctuary and the happiness of the chimpanzees. With the wish list, I know what I’m buying is exactly what is needed. Plus it makes me feel so good to give in a small way. You are all so special and I saw first-hand all that it takes to keep things going on a daily basis.
She also added this about following the blog, “Your daily updates put me in my happy place.”
That last sentiment made my day. I just love knowing that people are following the lives of the chimpanzees and that these seven chimpanzee people bring happiness to a lot of human people out there.
For those who even just casually check in on the blog once in a while, you likely are very aware of Foxie’s love of dolls. Her main and original love is troll dolls:
but she also likes Dora the Explorer and friends:
and the occasional “other” doll:
Her main type seems to be handheld size dolls with hard plastic bodies, big eyes, and a bonus for colorful hair.
Like any collector, Foxie has her old favorites. Today she has been carrying around a standard troll with orange hair that is missing one eye and is one firm bite away from being without feet. Each time I passed her by during the cleaning routine this morning, she pushed this troll out to me.
I think it was the same doll that she carried around all day last week:
Also like a true collector, Foxie is always excited when new dolls arrive for her in the mail. So we do add dolls to our amazon wish list once in a while. There are a lot of materials that we’re not able to give to the chimpanzees (see the long list here), so when items are purchased from the wish list, you know they have been pre-approved by the staff.
Recently, Foxie’s been into a line of Strawberry Shortcake dolls. She had one of them on her morning romp on the hill yesterday. Here are those photos taken by J.B. that I promised:
