Katelyn

Jody is such a delight. Sam captured these photos of her enjoying her breakfast oranges (as well as the ones of Gordo, below). We all speak of a sense of softening in Jo’s demeanor as the years pass. It used to be a given that pretty much without fail, she was going to give it her best attempt to poke you during meal service. And when you went to greet her in the morning it might start out well, but it often ended with her little finger suddenly hooking around the caging to try and give you a well-deserved jab. I say well deserved because I’m sure Jody had her reasons and who are we to question them. Or better yet, she’d follow you around with an unfathomable amount of water in her mouth to unleash like a river right in your face, preferably when you least expected it. It was just her way to put us in our place, or express her opinion if we did something she disliked.

Oh, Jody’s still spicy when she feels she needs to be, but more often than not, if she’s interacting with the humans she just wants to sit quietly while you groom her, lower her forehead against the caging for a gentle knuckle, or if she’s comfy in a floofy nest and can’t quite get up, she will reach her leg over and rest her foot against the caging so you can knuckle rub her ankle. Yep, her ankle! It’s as endearing as you might imagine.

Then there’s Gordo. I said, “Gordo, why are you so handsome?” He said, “I can’t help it, I was just born this way.” Here he was this morning, just hanging out, putting his foot up on his box. As you do.

At this very moment Gordo is somehow squeezed into the tiniest of boxes. I asked Chad to see where the box came from and he discovered that it had arrived with produce holding tiny grape tomatoes. Sam said this box was the equivalent of Gordo trying to squeeze into his skinny jeans. But he’s in there and happy as a clam, which is of course all that matters.

And a bonus photo of Miss Rayne. The chimpanzees have all spent a good portion of their day in the sun-filled greenhouses, but now are gathering together inside, nesting and grooming as the sky grows dark with incoming rain and all our bellies growl with the scent of roasting squash and onions for dinner. I don’t think I could tell you the number of times we humans have decided what we’re going to go home and cook for our own dinner based on what the chimps are having. And tonight is no different.

We’ve mentioned many times here on the blog how one of the biggest struggles is coming up with a blog title. After flailing about unsuccessfully for several minutes, I just yelled out in desperation, “Chimps! Give me a blog title!!” Gordo graciously responded, with grunts and hoots. Thanks, buddy!! Now everyone is grunting and hooting! Dinnertime!