Balls on the river

A wonderful spring day kayaking on the Housatonic. The sky is blue, the hawks circle in the sky eyeing fish below and occasionally diving for their prey then soaring on a draft and dropping the catch near its nest. Beavers can be seen paddling across then slipping into the brush obviously hiding from me.




Being early spring there is only the slightest amount of green and color, foliage that is. What I did notice on this trip was an abundance of balls. Yes balls!



There were soccer balls and softballs, kick balls with the paint and covering flaking off.



There were tennis balls and softballs that had obviously been floating for a while given that the core had expanded and the cover separated. There were balls that were on the shore and tucked into bushes.



All these balls in just a quarter mile stretch of the river surrounded only by meadows and countryside. Who knows how many lay further in either direction.



As I paddled I tried to think of where they might have come from. There is a playground and a school a couple towns away that is close to the river. That would be several miles up river. These balls have obviously traveled a while. Bobbing with the spring currents and snow melt or washing along with the spring floods; some becoming trapped in bushes and on the side as the water level dropped.



In the bends of the river there was a collection of balls along with all sorts of other trash you can imagine. The same rushing water that carried the balls also brought with it bottles and cans none of which were in a place I could pick up, if I happened to have something to carry them with. Some will wash away with the next big rain and some will settle into the mud and perhaps travel again with the next floods. They aren't much for recycling given the PCBs in the mud.



So it isn't just nature that is interesting to see along the river. The image of these balls playfully bobbing along and thinking of how they might have made their way into the river and journey this far makes me smile.