Happy First of July!
Ever creative preparations for the chimpanzees’ Fourth of July festivities have been well underway this last week, so be sure to join us, and the chimpanzees, for their upcoming summertime celebration! Every year I think with joy and awe of the independence that sanctuary, and by extension, you all, creates for them and allows them to explore in the ways most meaningful to each of them.
Foxie from a past 4th enjoying her Field Roast (plant-based brand) hot dog:
And Rayne with a watermelon bowl:
My eye landed on this again the other day. It’s posted on the human fridge above our “human water spigot” in the foyer of the chimp house. Between an average, wildly busy and unpredictable day in the chimp house, along with all the sometimes overwhelming thoughts and worries and other distractions clamoring for space in our heads, our tired bodies, or heavy hearts, our sometimes challenging lives, and oh, you know, just our very human tendencies, I suspect that most days it goes unnoticed. Maybe in some moments even scoffed at. But as I stood there filling my water bottle and really looked at it, see Jody’s sweet face, I thought, yep. Absolutely. All these moments exist together. All these moments, beautiful and horrible, are also a love story.
We have the birthdays of two beloved individuals to celebrate this month. On July 19th wonderful, quirky, mischievous, endearing Gordo will be turning 38!:
A favorite pastime, blasting the humans with mouthfuls of water when they least expect it:
Gordo is really a delightful guy:
Wild Cascade Mountains chimpanzee 🙂 :
And the very next day, on July 20th, we will be celebrating the honorary birthday of the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, Betsy, turning 19!:
As the bovine version of our always missed Jody and her “den mother” ways, it’s rare to spot Betsy NOT taking care of her tiny herd members (sometimes extending this care to the humans):
Wild Cascade Mountains cow 🙂 :
So here we are, somehow at the beginning of July, half the year drifting off, and half still laying ahead. I’ve been thinking a lot about the precious, sacred time – moments really – to be found in the harder parts of life. Or truly, just life as it is. How they’re there together one and the same, not one or the other as we tend to want to see things. There are times like now, when we are acutely aware every waking hour (and often non-waking) of Negra and her waning time here with us. Of our worries and concerns for her and her family…our family. Of our worries and concerns for our hearts, and ideally, one another’s.
In these times, when I can just be present, I also get to see moments of Negra and her family’s ease when they spend peaceful (of late) time together. Hear Negra snore (!), sound asleep as her family orbits around her, warm summer wind lifting wisps of her hair. A still sleepy Negra resting her hand on Foxie’s leg while Foxie grooms her, doll in mouth (another doll tucked into Negra’s hip-pocket). We hear her laugh as she holds her forehead against the caging for us to safely give her a “Neggie noogie”. We get the immense privilege of being surprised and humbled by Negra’s tenacity and agency in currently choosing to adapt to her slowly decreasing mobility in order to still enjoy most of what’s important to her in her life. I can tell you we somehow never expected this to be her response. I’ve learned through a myriad of ways over recent months and years how very hard, and how very gracious and sacred, it can be to hold space for something other while also holding fear. This is also a love story.
Negra in her favorite corner of the greenhouse on hot summer days:
Foxie and Negra:
In the midst of carrying the shadow and light of any given day, we might also get a few moments to pick tiny strawberries for the chimpanzees’ from their spidery strawberry patch while they blow raspberries and bang at us to “hurry it up”. Or sit together companionably in a mosaic of time as Cy gently rests his fingers on the back of my hand, Terry with his ginormous fingers somehow so very gently grooms a daddy long leg without smooshing them as Gordo sits next to him staring incredulously at my bright orange pants, and George obsesses over my pinky toes – forget the other toes – what are those?! To see Dora do a belly-dancing-like version of high arousal to let me know I’d better not forget her in the passing out of chewing gum. Or Honey B holding her toes outside the caging and wiggling them when she sees my blue toenails, a request that she’d like blue toes, too (she has her own Dr. Erin approved/chimpanzee safe blue polish). So off I went to get it, Honey B hooting at the top of her lungs when she saw me headed her way with the tiny blue bottle, toes at the ready. To be clear, we are definitely not advocating for painting chimpanzees’ nails! But in Honey B’s case, it’s one example of her choosing a safe form of enrichment she finds interesting in this natural, but unnatural life of hers. (The other chimpanzees are not remotely interested in having their nails painted unless it’s to do a “taste test”).
All these moments swirling, the lyrics from The Sways’s song, Someday we will dream about today, look back wonder how it slipped away, echoing in the background of memories…
Elsewhere in the sanctuary, a few Western Tanager and Oriole pairs return each year. Both species nest and linger in the dense greenery near one of the ponds on the property, always in motion, and very hard to spot though we hear their conversations. I love the flashes of red, orange, and yellow whizzing by, always hoping to see them, but rarely catching them perched. But even not seeing them clearly is a thrill.
We’ve had endless days of unrelenting high winds lately and as I left the sanctuary the other evening, the bright, cherry-filled trees were wildly whipping in every direction, and cursing the wind as I was (believe me, it gets exhausting, though thankfully the chimpanzees have appeared largely unphased by it), I couldn’t tell if a sudden flash of color was cherry or bird. Just then, for a moment, the gales and their howling were silenced in my head as I heard a faint “pit-ick pit-ick pit-ick” and saw the fiery blurs of the Tanagers:
Another recent windswept day I was trying in vain to photograph the lilacs when I saw someone hovering next to me. It took me a minute to compute who I was seeing…a hummingbird moth! I couldn’t believe it, the first I’ve ever seen here, or anywhere! They’re rare day-flying moths whose behavior mimics that of hummingbirds as they gather pollen. Also impossible to catch still. Magic in the fury of impossible winds:
