Today’s blog is brought to you by a very tasty lunch menu: leeks and sweet potatoes.
Rayne and her leek
Cy enjoying some sweet potatoes
Lucky patiently waiting for her leek from Caregiver Sam
Negra saving the best for last: Leeks
Honey B
Photo Salad
This blog is filled with some random photos from the chimp house today!
Do you ever feel like someone is watching you? I definitely had the feeling this afternoon and saw Honey B keeping her eye on me from behind the bamboo.
She’s always watching.
Willy B taking an after lunch rest.
Dora hanging out in the Greenhouse.
Gordo finishing the rest of his lunch.
Cy took his reading material out to the Greenhouse.
I tried all day to get a photo of one of the chimpanzees in Negra’s group. I finally got one of Missy all bundled up in her nest.
Let it snow?
No, just kidding don’t let it snow anymore. At least right now! I grew up in Ohio so I’m used to snow, but this much snow? Not so much. Living in the Georgia mountains the past couple years I kept saying how much I missed being around snow. I think I just got more snow than what I asked for. At least it’s beautiful to look at and the chimpanzees are still enjoying all of their snow snacks.
Like the blog yesterday (What Now?) mentioned, the chimpanzees are making good use of their Greenhouses! The heaters are keeping them pretty warm and the sun was out for most of the day, so it was a good day to be out there. Here are some photos from how the chimpanzees spent their time in the Greenhouses.
Annie seemed very comfortable in her nest.
Missy on the move!
On the other side of the building Cy was looking very majestic in the Greenhouse.
Of course Lucky was too.
Rayne was peering down at me from the mesh above. This square is here so we can see while we operate a door between the Greenhouses.
In the other Greenhouse Willy B was hard at work on the hanging Frisbee puzzles his group got as enrichment for the afternoon.
While most others were in the Greenhouses, Honey B and I were playing a game of chase. She kept stopping by this window because normally we would run outside of the building and meet her there.
This is what the outside of the window looks like today!
Bonus photo from today: Rayne in a box!
A wrench in the plans
No day at the sanctuary is off to a good start when you have to call JB to do some emergency maintenance. His plate is full enough as it is and to top it off, we’re in the middle of a cold snap/snow globe situation in Central Washington which requires additional plowing work.
This morning I begrudgingly called for his help over the radio. “Anna to JB. Door G won’t close all the way. There is a 2 inch gap at the bottom and it refuses to go any lower.” The remote controlled door simply ground to a halt with nothing visibly blocking its progress.
Any door issues we have, we take very seriously and get them fixed as soon as possible. JB would need to take a panel off the door to examine the inner workings of the hydraulics and if he couldn’t fix the door himself, we would need to call in an expert (in the middle of a blizzard, don’t forget).
JB agreed to come do some trouble shooting of the chimp door later in the morning after we finished cleaning the playrooms. Luckily, we had an alternate plan for shifting Honey B, Willy B and Mave and we didn’t need that particular door to be closed to protect staff and start our work.
About a half hour into our cleaning process, Kelsi came to find me. The broken door mystery had been solved.
Now only one question remains. Was this an accidental coincidence? Did this toy casually roll into the door’s track, creating an unforeseen holdup in the morning cleaning routine? Possibly… We will never really know for sure…
But my bet is this was no act of serendipity. And there is just one suspect I have on my list that is equal parts mischievous and stubborn enough to pull off such a prank.
The Bees Knees
The thing about Honey B is that she really is the bees knees. I admire Honey B’s spontaneous nature, her silly demeanor, and when she sets her mind on something she won’t let anything get in the way. Honey B decided that yesterday front room 7 did not need to be cleaned. She was kind of right as it really just had toys and a lot of paper, just the way she likes it. However, today I really wanted to clean it for not just Honey B, but for Mave and Willy B too. It didn’t look promising at first, but eventually she shifted over for us.
Honey B in front room 7, just the way she likes it:
After all the front rooms were cleaned we handed Honey B and Mave extra rolls of wrapping paper from their Christmas party!
Mave was very pleased about this!
I will leave you with one last Honey Bees photos.
Icicle season
Negra, with Jamie behind her, was the first one by the door today when I gave her group access to Young’s Hill. She spent a good amount of time enjoying handfuls of snow!
Jamie, Annie, and Foxie getting their turn for some snow.
After we cleaned the seven’s playroom we filled up one of their tubs with snow and put some icicles in it. We had to to tell volunteer Lisa to save some for the chimps, since she wanted to eat it all.
After the chimpanzees got access back to the playroom Jamie was the first one to the tub of goodies.
The chimps on the other side of the building also got to enjoy some icicles and snow.
Gordo was first to investigate.
He picked up some icicles, but then went straight for the snow.
Rayne also came over to grab some icicles.
Snow was slowly melting and sliding down the roof of the Greenhouse and Cy was keeping an eye on it.
In the other Greenhouse Honey B was ready for a game of chase.
Bonus photos from after breakfast this morning.
Negra with her oranges.
Burrito with a mouth full of chow.
We have lots of fun things on our Amazon wish list for the Holidays! If you are interested you can check it out here!
The Unlikely Meetup
This week is an intro week and I spent a lot of the day trying to get Dora alone so she could spend time with Honey B’s group. However, Dora is really hard to get alone. To make Dora a little more comfortable we decided to try to do a quad with all girls. Rayne kindly stayed with Dora and I think Willy B had a good laugh when I thought I could get just the girls. With all my best efforts Willy B decided he could not be left out. So today’s meet up was Honey B, Willy B, Rayne, and Dora. This intro made us all a little nervous, Willy B isn’t always the best at giving the girls the reassurance they might need and Dora is still a wild card for us. We had decided that we would just stick to the mesh unless there were a lot of positive behaviors at the mesh. Well, right off the bat they were breathy panting, grooming, reassuring each other, giving kisses, and playing through the mesh. We had to open the door, so we held our breath and we let them in together. Overall, it went really well! Near the end Dora and Willy B had a miscommunication, which led us to separating them. As you will see in the video Willy B was having a blast with Rayne and Dora! What you all might not know is that Willy B and Dora have met a few times and they were non-eventual, but today Willy B really learned how Dora wanted to play! At first he was overwhelming her, so he backed off and waited for her to come to him. To see how far Dora and Willy B have come is really spectacular. Though it didn’t end on the highest note there was a lot to take away from this intro!
Also Rayne is the best at introductions! She is so good at making the other chimps feel at ease, she gives reassurance when needed, and distracts others by instigating play instead of screaming when they are nervous. She is one of a kind.
