Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Diana

Pile of Trolls Day

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Watch Foxie choose her daily trolls from a giant pile in the video below.

As the video mentions, you can send your troll dolls to Foxie at the sanctuary for her birthday and to be used in the Troll Olympics. In addition to troll and dora dolls, we are looking for bakers to bring vegan baked goods to sell at the bake sale that’s part of the Roslyn Doggie and Troll Olympics on July 22nd. Contact Diana: [email protected] if you want to bake or if you have any questions. More information about this fun event will be forthcoming!

 

Team Dora or Team Troll?

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Foxie’s new love of Dora the Explorer continues, but that doesn’t mean she’s dropped troll dolls out of her life.

 

She spent some time with a Dora and a troll doll and a mirror today:

Foxie hold mirror and troll doll

Foxie hold troll and dora

Foxie's hand and foot with Dora

Foxie's hand holding troll doll

 

A sure sign of Foxie’s contentment is when she rubs her toes together, like in the photo below and in this video from a couple of years ago. If you’re wondering what the powdery stuff on Foxie’s feet is – it’s pollen. The pollen has been blowing off the trees like snow all week!

Foxie toe-rubbing

Race for the Apes was so much fun!

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Our first ever 5K fundraiser was a blast. Big, big thank you to volunteers April Graham and Laura Heggs for organizing the Ellensburg event – you did a terrific job! After expenses, the event raised $5,530 for the sanctuary!

Here are a few photos to prove how much fun it was:

Volunteers Seana (who was also the raffle sponsor), Connie and Emily working on registration under race organizer April’s direction, with our new Director of Development, Michael, looking on:
registration table

 

The start of the great chalk messaging courtesy of volunteer Stephanie:

chalk welcome

 

Board member Jessica (right) and partner Lisa donned tutus in honor of Jamie:

Lisa and Jessica in tutus

 

Race organizer April of AlignFit leading a stretching class prior to the start of the run:

April's stretching class

 

the runners approaching the start line:

approaching start line

 

and they’re off!

beginning of race

 

About 15 minutes later, the “troll strollers” (walkers) began:

walkers starting

 

in just 21 minutes, 37 seconds, the first runner, Kurtis, crossed the finish line:

Kurtis crossing the finish line

 

two minutes, eight seconds later, the fastest woman in the race, Keri, crossed the finish:

 

Event organizer Laura Heggs, running to the finish after clearing up some signs from the course:

Laura running to the finish

 

One of the glitter-bombed “trollphy” awards:

glitter bombed troll doll

 

This is just a small sampling of the photos from the event. Visit the full gallery and purchase your favorites – proceeds from sales go to the chimps!

Thanks to sponsors Gorilla Screen Printing for the discount on the great t-shirts, Zing Bars for delicious post-running nutrition (the coconut chocolate bars are amaZING!) and AlignFit for the stretching class. Individual donors, like Ape Ally Adrienne Armstrong, made a huge difference in the success of the fundraiser. See all sponsors and donors  here.

Our volunteers are always top-notch and dove right in to the new event.

And the participants were terrific!

We can’t wait to do it again!

scale or new place to sit?

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J.B. just finished installing a scale in the greenhouse so that we can monitor the chimps’ weights. He cleverly disguised the scale as a place to sit. Most of the chimps are tucked away in their nests for the night and didn’t even bother getting up when the door to the greenhouse was opened for them, but Foxie and Jamie immediately came out.

Foxie, with two troll dolls, hopped right on it:

Foxie sitting on new scale

Jamie, of course, was mostly interested in seeing if she could take it apart:

Jamie inspecting new scale in greenhouse

Negra foraging on the hill

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It was a beautiful, sunny and still morning in Cle Elum, so we set up breakfast on Young’s Hill as a forage. We added some lettuce to the forage – one of Negra’s favorite foods. She went right out! I think it’s the first time since September, when the hill was first opened, that I’ve seen seven chimpanzees out there at once.

Here’s a short video of Negra enjoying the forage:

Cinco Mil de Mayo Party

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In celebration of reaching our goal of 5,000 “likes” (fans) on the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest Facebook page (an increase of over 300 since yesterday!), we threw a Cinco Mil de Mayo party for brunch this morning.

On the menu was guacamole in lettuce with tomatoes and a side of watermelon, accompanied by sparkling seltzer water with lime wedges:

guacamole boat

 

And what’s Cinco de Mayo without a pinata?

cake pinata

 

Negra loves both avocados and lettuce, so she was very pleased with the party menu:

negra guac face

negre lettuce face

 

Missy also really enjoyed the lettuce guacamole wraps. She had a technique of licking the guacamole off first, then eating the lettuce:

missy lettuce face

missy with lettuce

 

Jamie enjoyed the refreshing sparkling water, served in plastic shot glasses:

jamie drink from shot glass

 

Burrito‘s strategy was to gather as many pieces of primate chow as quickly as he could:

fast burrito with chow

 

Annie also enjoyed the chow, though in a slower fashion:

annie with chow

 

Guess who got the pinata? Yes, indeed – the leader of the group, Jamie, claimed it as her own:

jamie with pinata in legs

jamie opening pinata

jamie eat nut from pinata

 

She must have left some nuts inside, though, because Negra was eating a walnut later in the party:

negra eat walnut

 

It was a pretty windy day, but Foxie took some time to explore on Young’s Hill with Dora:

foxie explore with dora

 

Negra decided the party was not complete without fresh grass from the hill, so she went out and helped herself:

negra huge mouthful of grass

 

For dinner, J.B. served the chimps baked sweet potatoes, corn, and celery. Here he is serving celery to Jody:

jb serves celery to jody

 

Of course, dinner was capped off with the traditional Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest night bag of seeds, popcorn, nuts and dried fruit. Jody lied down to eat hers:

jody lying down eating night bag

 

Thanks and happy Cinco de Mayo to everyone who liked the FB page for the first time yesterday and for those friends who recruited new fans of the Cle Elum Seven! Please explore the blog and the rest of the website to learn more about your new friends! And if you’re local, join us on May 20th in Ellensburg for Race for the Apes – our first 5K run / walk fundraiser.