Saturday 18 May 2013

The mysterious Kedron Balls

Hello friends! It is a long weekend and we are busy with getting the garden ready for planting in the next 2 weeks or so. I will post how everything looks and what we did soon, but for now I wanted to share something that isn't directly Permaculture related, but still makes me think about patterns and motion. 

A colleague of mine brought in a phenomenal little thing to work the other day. It is called a Kedron Ball. The Kedron lakes are two lakes in New Brunswick, consisting of Little and Big Kedron lake. I personally know Big Kedron lake well, as it is where friends and I go for our annual fishing outing. Little Kedron lake isn't far from there, but I have never been. 
It is Little Kedron that produces the Kedron balls. These balls are made off pine needles and other woodland debris that ends up in the water and sinks to the bottom. There, small whirls and currents swirl the debris and pack it together. The end result you can see in the photo below. 

Truely a phenomenal freak of nature brought on by motion and patterns in current. 

I am wondering whether anyone has ever seen anything like this anywhere else in the world. Little Kedron lake is the only lake in New Brunswick that I know off that produces these little mysterious balls. 


The mysterious Kedron ball

18 comments:

  1. Hi there... I just found about 100 of these things in Alligator Lake, Maine, USA... Really cool.

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    1. I found three about the size of baseballs in Long Pond in Parsonsfield Maine today! At first although they were under the water close to shore, i thought it may be a weird nest of sorts. After i carefully picked one up i realized i had a round bunch of pine needles. I have lived in Alaska, California, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Maine is my home. I have only found these here in one pond. My entire life i have done outdoors things in lakes, ponds and the ocean and this is a first for me! Let's create a map of sorts. Long Pond is amazingly clean, natural sandy bottom and stays cool from the underwater springs. There are also, fresh water mussels and other neat birds and a pair of nesting loons on this pond also! I live three miles away and am blessed to have this place to cool off after a long day of working. So cool! I will keep these and put them on a shelf in my barn with my antiques and other oddities. tom

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  2. We have them in Montana too

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  3. i have 3 nicely formed Kedron Balls i got myself about 10 years ago... can only find them at the northern tip of the lake...

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  4. We just found one in Lake Hortonia, Vermont, USA

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  5. You find them in the Cairngorms in Scotland. Nan Shepard wrote about them in her wonderful book The Living Mountain

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  6. I found them in Hayden Lake which is on the coast of BC, and I thought they were rare, but apparently more common than I thought

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    1. Duff I also have one of these strange balls that my father got from hayden lake 40 plus years ago

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    2. Duff I also have one of these strange balls that my father got from hayden lake 40 plus years ago

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    3. I just acquired one recently. I’m told that it came from Hayden lake

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  7. Found some this weekend in the Scottish Highlands....cool.

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  8. We found a couple of these on conkle lake British Columbia. We called them conkles. Never seen any others as well.

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  9. Friends found one of these washed up on the shore of Panther Pond (lake) in Raymond, ME. Someone else found one in another western Maine lake. In all my years on the lake, I have never seen one!

    Connie Cross, Aug. 26, 2016

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  10. Absolutely, we have them on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan, northwest shores of the lower peninsula of the state of Michigan. They're great. Wonderful to decorate the boughs of big pine trees.

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  11. Southwest corner of South Trout Lake in Vilas County, Wisconsin. About a dozen of these intriguing orbs in May of this year.

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  12. i have one since 1970 which came from Heydon Lake in BC Canada.

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  13. I've been going to the Kedron Lake my whole life I think they are awesome balls, I have one here at home and when we go we always look for them ever year.

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  14. They have been in Kedron Lake as long as I can remember not fat from where I live. Hank

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