Today was another unseasonably warm January day! The morning frost shrank away in the face of the formidable sun, and the chimpanzees went exploring.
Missy was all over the hill – running, climbing, frolicking, and looking for icy treats.
There are a few hanging tires on the hill that Missy knows harbor special gifts. In the summer, the tires sometimes have wasps nests, which she, Jamie, and Jody will carefully (though not without risk) harvest to eat the larvae. In the winter, when the wasps are long gone, fallen rain collects in the bottom of the tires and freezes.
It’s not always easy removing the frozen block of ice. Today, as I watched, Missy tried a couple of different positions to get the right leverage in order to remove the ice in one of the tires.
Still was not successful, she went back inside the greenhouse, passing Jody, who was stand as sentry watching the other chimpanzees on the hill.
Jody suddenly got up and started walking up the hill with no small amount of determination. Missy must have been watching Jody from the greenhouse, because she quickly came back outside (with two crayons in her mouth).
She seemed to suspect what Jody was up to, and ran to get ahead of her.
By the time Jody reached the first tire…
Missy had already absconded with the treat and ran up the hill, nature’s bounty in hand.
