Sponges and the Fish Hatchery

First off, let me just say that the sponges in the storage bay have exceeded expectations.  It’s surprising to me how much water they’re trapping and holding.  The white basket to the right of the compressor has two sponges under it.  That basket is fairly heavy, and teaches us that the weighted sponges pull up more water than do the unweighted.  The two sponges to the left of the compressor are also sucking up a lot of water, as that is where the leak seems to deposit said water.  Since I took this picture, we used sidewalk chalk on the gaskets to see if we can determine the point of infiltration.  Failing that, Jim will have to sleep in the bay during the next rain storm.

Yesterday and today we went over to the fish hatchery.  The fish were way more active yesterday, but I only had the point and shoot so pictures were not great.  After they spend time throwing themselves at the weir, they get tired.  Eventually they’ll give up and just wait at the bottom until the fish ladders open.  This guy was catching some air – good jump, sir!

The fish ladders are closed, but since there is rushing water, the fish want to swim up stream.  They throw themselves at the gates.

I took this from the top of the gate.  That’s a fish coming up out of the water.

Once they go up the fish ladder, they’re held in big tanks.  Yesterday they were very rowdy in the tanks, throwing themselves into the air.

This is another holding tank, look how far out of the water he is.

More fish on the weir.

Notice how red this one is.

Most of the fish currently at the hatchery are Chinooks.  They are just enormous.

After the fish, we walked a loop through Issaquah and went by a house with a white picket fence and an arbor. They have an impressive display of climbing roses.

The weather people are saying it will not rain tomorrow.  That will be good.  We lucked out on both trips to the hatchery, as they were between rain squalls.  We just had another big one go through, so all my sponges are back hard at work.

Doesn’t it seem like the world has just gone off the rails?  Between the hurricanes, the earthquakes and the man made miseries there is just so much pain in the world.