In the past, we’ve gone to the big Salmon Days festival in Issaquah to watch the salmon spawn. This year, we opted to go to the hatchery on Monday after the festival and were pleasantly surprised to find lots of salmon, lots of FISH volunteers giving talks, and no crowds. (FISH stands for Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. Duh.)
Watching the fish come upstream from the bridge
Salmon flopping around in the creek bed
Watching through the windows in the fish ladders
Notice the Chinook salmon – top right in the picture
It was at the fish ladder that JT helped explain the life cycle of the salmon to some other children… a grandma-type woman had two little kids with her about JT’s age. She was showing them the salmon at this same window. She was talking about how the salmon come back to their home to lay their eggs. I had been having the same conversation with JT earlier, so he knew how the story ended. He looked straight at her with a dead serious face and, to finish her story, said, “And die.” She looked a little surprised. Both of her kids looked at her to see what she would say and I thought, oh great. But she smiled and said, “That’s right. And then they die.” So at least she wasn’t going to lie to the children about some sort of fish heaven. 🙂
Mom and JT checking out the fry salmon (not the salmon fry…)
Haley enjoying the hatchery
On the way home we met our friends Jen, Asher, and Abby at the park to play before lunch. The sun came out and the boys had a great time. There is a huge field at the park and they ran and ran and ran… nice way to work the wiggles out for nap time!
JT chasing Asher
Sharing a secret?
…and we all fall down!
On the way to the car, Jen pointed out a fuzzy caterpillar and the boys watched it crawl into the rocks. I feel as though we have adequately covered science for the week. 🙂
The Keene Family 