A tribute to a few of Jamie’s favorite things.
Jamie
Rainy Sundays
Well, today turned out to be a mostly rainy day. The chimps took advantage and tried to recuperate after the crazy party yesterday! Jamie and I got to fit a few walks in luckily, but otherwise the chimps spent their day playing lazy games of chase, napping, and grooming.
Burrito took a mid-day nap on the floor:
Jamie found most of the Playroom forage (big nuts) and snacked on it for a while:
Later, Jamie took a nice relaxing nap with her boot:
Annie also took a minute to lay down and rest:
Jody decided to keep it pretty low key:
Jody and Annie spent a lot of their day grooming and laying in any warm sunshine they could find:
Sounds of Contentment
Raise your hand if you’ve ever made a vocalization similar to Jamie’s while enjoying a really good meal.
Ritual
Over the years, Jamie has continued to develop the ritual around her walks with staff and volunteers. These days, it goes something like this: First, Jamie selects a boot for the human to wear. Next, they walk around the hill together (on opposite sides of the fence, of course). When the walks are done, they reconvene in the greenhouse area, where Jamie grooms the caregiver and the boot. And finally, later that night, she will ask for the boot back before settling into her nest.
In anticipation of the grooming part of the ritual, Jamie will often grab a suitable tool during the walk and bring it back with her into the greenhouse. Today, Jamie grabbed a large tumbleweed that had blown against the fence and later used it to groom volunteer Patti and her boots.
Bonus Foxie photos:
Added enrichment
Believe it or not, Jamie, the self-appointed boss, has a tendency to hoard enrichment food puzzles. If we put out a dozen Kongs with peanuts in them, Jamie always winds up with a big pile and more than her fair share. To encourage “sharing,” we try to spread out the enrichment as far as possible and we attach a lot of the chimps’ puzzles to the enclosure caging. We use padlocks to hang raisin boards and other puzzles and we have recently introduced dipper tubes which we screw into fixed spots on the outside of their enclosure. With a lot of focus and determination, Jamie has made these new dipper tubes into her own unique personal project. As you’ll see, she loves a good challenge!
The infectious joy of grabbing feet
Last week after the chimps’ enjoyed a St. Patrick’s Day party in the greenhouse, Jamie and I went for a walk around Young’s Hill together. Like many of Jamie’s walks, this gives some of the other chimps an excuse to spend some more time outdoors as well. Missy was a bullet of energy, running around starting games of chase with Foxie and Annie. Her signature move of the day? The foot grab!
Missy going in for the “kill” on an unsuspecting Foxie:
Foxie chased Jamie down the hill making similar moves to grab Jamie’s feet:
Annie yanking her foot from Missy’s grasp:
A thousand beautiful things
What’s that saying, song, or something or other? At any given time there are a thousand beautiful things to see.
Jamie taking a brief break from running around the hill with her caregivers so she could spy 0n/supervise J.B. from afar while he worked on the property:
Foxie and her dolls, snuggling and napping:
