Today was a great day!

Way back in the spring, Charlie Nickerson of Troop 80 in Seattle contacted J.B. about doing his eagle scout project to help the sanctuary. We’re not able to say yes to all requests we get from people interested in doing volunteer projects like this, but we had just had a bunch of fire hose donated, so J.B. got Charlie started on the idea of making some fire hose hammocks to add to the interest of Young’s Hill.

A whole group of people joined in the hanging of the two awesome new hammocks, including other members of Troop 80, Shawn (J.B.’s new right-hand maintenance volunteer), John, and two CWU students – Ruth and Kyle.

It was pouring when they arrived this morning, so the chimps didn’t mind not having access to their outdoor habitat. The team worked outside in the wet weather with J.B. while volunteer Rachel and I cleaned up the chimp house.

In addition to the two new hammocks, the group also hung fire hose in various areas on the hill, connecting structures to each other.

Luckily, by the time they were finished with all of this manual labor, the weather had cleared up. So, the hardworking team spread a forage on the hill for the chimps and watched all seven chimpanzees forage for their lunch and explore the new features of their habitat.

I took what seemed like hundreds of photos of the chimps enjoying these new features and foraging, and I’ve narrowed down a couple of series to share in this blog post.

You probably know that we celebrate Jamie’s birthday on Halloween, which is just a few days away, but Missy might have thought all the new fire hose was a present just for her.

I am calling the below series of photos: “A Missy in Motion Tends to be the Best Thing Ever.”

Here is Missy standing next to Annie. Take a moment to admire Missy’s thigh muscles:

In her element, Missy tightrope walking and otherwise using existing and newly hung fire hose to traverse all over the hill:

Later in the day, Missy discovered some food cleverly hidden in new fire hose wrapped around a log post:

Every once in a while, she would stop to rest:

But not for long! Here she is climbing into one of the new hammocks:

I’d say it’s a hit:

This next series of Jamie I am calling, “Perfect Dismount”

A very cleverly hung piece of hose that Jamie couldn’t resist trying out:

Annie may have found her new favorite hangout:

Burrito explored a new hammock by himself later in the day:

And then he peeked at us from the lookout:

Thanks to everyone who helped make the day a great one, including all of you reading and sharing this – your support makes every day great!