As we’ve said before, Jamie is always up to something. Yesterday during Playroom cleaning, I heard a banging sound coming from one of the front rooms. As I peaked around the corner, I noticed Jamie had dismantled a plastic jack-in-the-box and found a couple of small metal posts. Using a pair of binoculars as a hammer, she was hammering the metal posts into a plastic needlepoint sheet. The girl is always busy!
Chimps’ Choice
Wanna make Jamie’s day? Give her some cowboy boots!
Some of our blog readers recently came up with an idea for us to highlight specific items for people to donate. It’s called “Chimps’ Choice”. This month, in honor of her new fascination, we would like to call on our blog readers to donate cowboy boots for Jamie. Not only will you make Jamie’s day, but if you do so within the next month, we will send you a photo of Jamie as a thank you!
As our regular followers most likely know, Jamie cannot seem to get enough cowboy boots! It all started last Halloween/Jamie’s Birthday, when volunteer Stephanie P. brought a pair she found at a Goodwill. She absolutely LOVED them and carried them around all the time, until they finally fell apart. Since then, she’s received a few other pairs and it’s beginning to become apparent to me that her excitement builds a little more with each pair. She got another new pair at the party on Sunday, thus it only seems fitting that more boots would be this month’s “Chimps’ Choice” item! We also put out more of the pink paper, which resulted in an EPIC-sized nest! 🙂
Window Play
The fundraiser for the new windows has all of us here at CSNW so excited! The thought of having 6 new cageless windows by the end of this year makes us so happy. Imagine spending 30+ years looking only through bars and then finally being able to see the world clearly! I think that having some caging is nice, because it provides places for the chimps to climb and brachiate. Particularly for chimpanzees like the Cle Elum Seven, who spent decades in small lab cages, the ability to move freely around their environment must be amazing.
However, having all those new cageless windows will bring a ton of light into the playroom and is also a unique form of enrichment for the chimps. The chimpanzees definitely seem to love spending time at the cageless window. Perhaps one reason is that it provides opportunities for them to interact with their caregivers in new ways. As you can see from the video below, the glass allows the chimps to get closer to their caregivers than they can through the bars and interact with us in ways that would not be safe through caging.
Paper Roll
What else would Jamie do with a giant roll of paper??
Jamie shares her boots
The other day, Jamie got yet another pair of cowboy boots from volunteer Jennifer Douglas. It seems that any pair of cowboy boots will make her day. Notice towards the end of the video how Jody approaches Jamie, seeks reassurance, and once she gets it, she snags one of Jamie’s boots. Excellent chimp work!
Burrito laugh
As some of you may know from previous blog posts (most notably, All About Burrito), Burrito doesn’t laugh too often. In fact, he sometimes bites his hand in what seems to be an attempt to keep himself from laughing. But yesterday, Foxie turned over his tickle box and he just couldn’t help himself.
Foxie is so cool.
Foxie has a way of making everything she does look cool, whether it’s eating a carrot, watching TV, or tossing a troll doll head around.
