Killer Whale Orcas Enjoying Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

Amusing photo on Facebook, this Sunday morning of the 7th day of the 2024 version of April.

The photo was posted by KOMO #SoNorthwest Photography's Facebook page.

KOMO is the call letters for Seattle's channel 4 ABC network TV station.

The attempt at humor here, with the text, "Seems the Skagit valley had some heavy rain..." is suggesting that so much rain fell that Orcas, also known as Killer Whales, made it to the tulips.

Those who have never seen the Skagit Valley tulips, this photo is what it actually looks like, other than the Orca. You can see the Mount Baker volcano hovering above the Cascade mountain foothills.

It is not too far fetched to think an Orca might make its way to the Skagit Valley, via leaving Puget Sound, by entering the Skagit River. Orcas like salmon. The Skagit River is host to a lot of salmon. 

The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival has an excellent website. This festival is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, to take place annually in Washington. And is the biggest tulip festival to take place in America.

The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival runs from April 1 to April 30. In other words, the entire month of April.

There are tulip events and attractions all over the valley. The traffic jams are horrendous. A bird's eye view of the tulip fields can be had by driving to the summit of Mount Vernon's Little Mountain.

This Morning Miss Tessie Takes Us Tiptoeing The Skagit Valley Tulips

This morning it is former Skagit Valley girl, Miss Tessie, who is making me homesick via photos on Facebook.

Like Miss Tessie says in her Facebook post, "It really is this beautiful."

Miss Tessie is what is known in the Skagit Valley as a Sakuma. The Sakuma's are big producers of agricultural products grown in the Skagit Valley.

From the Sakuma website...

Sakuma Brothers Farms
From the heart of Skagit Valley in Burlington, Washington, we are 100% vertically integrated in the small fruit industry. We grow conventional and organic:

• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Blackberries
• Raspberries
• Apples
• Tea

We provide:

• Research
  Leading edge of propagation.
• Fresh Market (temporarily closed)
  Seasonal small fruits grown locally in the Skagit Valley.
• Sales
  Fresh market and processed berries.
  

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I suspect the Sakuma Fresh Market is temporarily closed due to COVID. When I was in Washington the summer of 2008, on the way to Bay View State Park to meet Spencer Jack for the first time, we stopped at the Sakuma Fresh Market.

I was impressed at what a big touristy operation it was. Items like a train/tram device to take visitors out to the fields, where if I remember right, there was a You Pick option. Along with a lot of produce buying options, including freshly baked pies. We got a blackberry pie. Almost as good as mom used to bake.

Miss Tessie currently lives in California where she has developed a reputation regarding her dancing skills, particularly her prize winning Argentine Tango...

My Niece Ruby's Skagit Valley Texas Bluebonnets

A couple days ago I blogged Blue & Max Take David, Theo & Ruby For A Muddy Romp In A Tulip-less Skagit Valley Field regarding Blue & Max taking two of my nephews and my only niece to the Skagit Valley to tiptoe through the tulips.

In that particular blogging I complained that I had politely asked my poodle nephews to get a good photo of David, Theo & Ruby surrounded by tulips.

All I got was the trio in a field of mud.

But, today Blue & Max were looking through the pictures they took of their trip to the tulips and found the above beauty with Ruby standing in front of a lot of colorful flowers, some of which are tulips.

I found the blue flowers behind the first row of purple tulips to be interesting. These blue flowers appear to be Texas Bluebonnets.

The last time I was on Mount Rainier, August 11, 2008, I made the mistake of opining that a particular wildflower looked to be a Texas Bluebonnet. If I remember right I was told what I was looking at was a Mountain Lupine.

Well, color me shocked. I was right. The Mountain Lupine is a Bluebonnet. The state flower of Texas grows on Mount Rainier. And on the Flats of the Skagit Valley.

Spencer Jack Is Not The Uncle Of David, Theo & Ruby

My favorite ex-sister-in-law read the blogging yesterday about Spencer Jack and noticed I'd made an error.

So, my favorite ex-sister-in-law sent me another email, subject line: "I believe there is an error on the blog."

In the erroneous blogging I said...

"I had to ponder it a bit, and I think after pondering I have it right. That being that since I met Spencer he has acquired 2 new uncles and a new aunt. Who are all younger than Spencer is. The uncles are David Jay and Theo John. The aunt is Ruby Jean."

Regarding the above paragraph my favorite ex-sister-in-law said...

"I believe that Spencer’s relation to Michele’s children is first cousin, once removed.  When/If Michele’s kids have kids, those kids would be second cousins."

In the middle of the night I had a bout of not being able to sleep and got to pondering the Spencer being David, Theo and Ruby's uncle thing and realized that that could not be right. But there is no way I would have figured out the actual relationship being first cousin, once removed, because I just don't know about that type stuff.

That's what I have a favorite ex-sister-in-law for.

I forgot to mention, in the picture above, Spencer Jack is tiptoeing through one of the Skagit Valley tulip fields, sometime within the past couple months.