jackpots Archives - Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about forages on Young’s Hill and trying something different by placing “jackpots” in some of the harder to reach areas. Today, I decided to up the ante and place even more jackpots around Young’s Hill to see who will get what. Similar to the aforementioned blog, it should be to nobody’s surprise Missy was the “winner” at finding most of today’s jackpots.

I wasn’t able to race up the hill in time to catch her snagging the whole ear of corn in one of the trees. I was, however, able to to catch her grabbing what essentially looked like a huge Easter egg.

A whole sweet onion!

While Missy was relishing in her discovery, Jamie also found a jackpot that unintentionally seemed to be made for her.

A jackpot of a decent sized stash of pear and chow biscuits in the hammock. She seemed pretty happy with her discovery.

Then the neighbors came out.

Time to hide all enjoyment and act serious. First a small patrol to let them know she’s serious.

Then resuming to forage like it’s no big deal.

There was still a hidden bell pepper amongst one of the many logs on Young’s Hill by the time I had to head back to attend our staff meeting. I’m not sure if anybody has found it yet. Only to ravens circling Young’s Hill and The Bray know.

Bonus Photos!

Foxie

It was to the tower structure. That was the location.

A doll for every occasion. Foxie had to put morning Strawberry Shortcake to bed and bring out Plum Puddin.’

Mave + Friends

When Mave went out onto the Bray this afternoon, she was greeted by Cy.

Then groomed with Lucky on the boardwalk.

You have probably read before that caregivers usually have mounds of unused photos and video clips. There are multiple reasons why they don’t make it to the blog: they didn’t quite fit that particular blog so they get lost to the wayside. They are too short to include into a full video. The reasons go on. Here are some clips I found on my phone that have yet to be used. Minus the Rayne clip, which I grabbed from the security cameras today.

Earlier today, you may have read it has been one year since we lost our beloved Jody Chimpanzee. I will be honest, it still is extremely hard for me to talk or even think about that day. This entire 365 days has felt like it was just yesterday, yet at the same time 1,000 years ago. There is literally not a single day that passes in which I don’t think about her.

On Jody’s burial spot, we planted some lilac trees, if you may recall. Right after planting the trees, they lost their leaves and seemed to be dead. We hoped that wasn’t the case and that Fall was just doing its thing. As the months passed and no sign of life, we began to lose hope that they survived. Well, I am happy to say, they in fact did not! On the contrary, they are thriving in this early Spring. When I noticed it as I was doing my morning run around Young’s Hill with Burrito, my eyes immediately went from dry to emitting a salty watery discharge.

Jody’s Lilac Tree with a smaller one in the foreground

Since noticing it, my entire day was filled with thoughts and memories of Jody. All the thoughts of our Joji gave me the idea to do something she loved: foraging. But I didn’t want to just do a normal forage as usual and call it a day. No. I decided to spice things up a little bit. I hid several “jackpots” around Young’s Hill. The more difficult to get to, the better the jackpot. Most of the jackpots were whole carrots and potatoes. But there was one jackpot that took a keen eye to spot and some athletic agility! (<– BIG foreshadowing of who got it.)

The prize?

A whole opal apple in one of the trees at the top of the hill! I will spare you the details of how I got it up there and got it to stay.

One person came to mind of who would reach it first. To no surprise, that person knew I was up to something at the top of the hill and it was worth skipping the bigger forage at large and see what was up there.

Initially, she found one of the easier to reach whole carrots. When she looked up though, she dropped everything and raced up the tree. I wasn’t able to get photos of it on account that I am not as fast as Missy and couldn’t make it up the hill in time.

I did, however, follow Missy the rest of the forage. During that time, Missy when to every single structure to see if any more big prizes were to be had. (Unfortunately for her, there wasn’t since some of the places she looked, I wouldn’t have been able to reach.)