Katelyn

February birthdays and the first early notes of spring here at the sanctuary are in the air! To all you February revelers, Happy Birthday, from all of us here!

And you lucky friends get the amazingly huge and floofy Nutmeg Steer as your birthday month twin! So I’d say things are off to a good and hopeful start. Nutmeg will be turning 8 years old this Friday, February 10th!

Behold: Eensy, wee, baby Nutmeg, and his mama, Betsy (I mean, it’s too much, right?!) – photo courtesy of Farm Sanctuary:

Behold: Not so eensy or wee baby Nutmeg (r) and his mama, Betsy, now:

But make no mistake, in the eyes of both Nutmeg and Betsy, photo number one is still the clear reality, Nutmeg, the forever baby boy. These two adore one another!

It’s a rare and special gift that Nutmeg and Betsy get to live out their lives together AND that we humans get the rare opportunity to truly see how family-oriented, intelligent and sensitive bovines are. We are so grateful to you all who make it possible for these two, along with their herd-mates, Honey, and her daughter, Meredith, to live out their lives in a manner of their own choosing that they’re most deserving of.

The family is staying warm with the help of their swoon-worthy, winter floof (Betsy, Nutmeg, Honey and the ever-independent, Meredith):

While it’s definitely still winter here in the Cascades, we’ve been seeing some signs of change ahead. And even though we know better than to think winter over, after the early and unrelenting cold and storms we’ve had, it’s a great sigh of relief to see the hopeful reminders of spring in the works. The first red-winged blackbirds have suddenly appeared, their territorial calls swirling out into the cold morning air from atop the cattails, and very surprisingly, a handful of the swallows have been returning to their sanctuary nesting site already.

And as you may have seen mentioned on the blog recently, style maven, Annie, has once again begun donning her annual spring/summer fashion of choosing to wear colorful headbands around her waist!

The chimpanzees have access to these headbands as part of their enrichment year ’round and can choose to do with them (or not) as they please, but Annie typically only starts showing up wearing these as one of our first harbingers of spring and then they just as suddenly go by the wayside by the end of summer. And much to our delight, Annie’s neighbors, Rayne, Honey B, and Lucky have gotten in on the delightful trend.

Honey B:

Curious and endearing, we can’t figure it out. What’s the cue? How do they decide, “It’s waistband season!” or “Of course, I’m going to wear this tiny thing around my waist for days on end.” For whatever reason, known only to the chimpanzees, wearing ’80’s style terry cloth workout headbands appears to bring them joy and add some interest to their days. And that’s all we need to know. That said, during one of our recent staff meetings a fantastic theory was proferred that perhaps when Annie is whistling away with her endearing “Annie-bird” noises, she and the early arriving birds are communicating the coming of spring. I mean the first day this year that Annie wore a headband was the same the first swallows arrived. Just sayin’. 😉

And even Betsy has begun her spring ritual of mud facials. Perhaps Betsy’s mud facials are the bovine spring fashion equivalent to the waistband? (We couldn’t figure this out either, but Diana recently observed her rubbing her face in mud along the spring that trickles through their winter pasture. Another sure sign of spring ahead!).

We brush it off, Betsy cakes it back on. Sorry, Betsy!:

Okay, friends, all of us here are wishing you the happiest of February birthdays and winter-spring days! May you don whatever makes your own heart sing and celebrate all the tiny things you can, that actually, aren’t so tiny at all. We’re so glad you are here with us!