Puddingstones

One of our other favorite activities on Drummond Island was hunting for puddingstones. The puddingstone (aka pudding stone, plum pudding stone) is a common name used mainly in England for a conglomerate consisting of well-rounded pieces whose colors are in such marked contrast with the abundant fine-grained matrix or cement that the rock suggests an old fashioned plum pudding. This colorful type of sedimentary rock was formed a billion years ago in the river channels of northeast Canada. During the Ice Age, they were pushed down through Eastern Michigan from Ontario Canada by the glaciers. The white is quartz sand which is combined with orange jasper to form stones of various sizes, shapes and colors. Some puddingstones may even contain fossils.


After dinner one evening we decided to take a boat ride out to Harbor Island with the boys to check out the shoreline and beach. We had to park the boat away from shore since it was fairly shallow and wade in to shore. As we were all walking I spotted a puddingstone under the water and picked it up to show John and the boys.


We have several large DI puddingstones in the plantings around our house that we moved from Michigan to Ohio to Pennsylvania. They are really large rocks that took Grandpa, John, and I hours to get into the boat in the first place. They are beautiful, but we have never talked to the boys about their significance. By the way Mom and Dad, did you know that one of the stones in the chimney of the cottage is a puddingstone?

So we explained what puddingstones looked like and set the boys loose on Harbor Island. It turns out that Harbor Island is a great place to find puddingstones that are nice and small. We found a lot of puddingstones.

Sam was the best puddingtone hunter. He spent a lot of time studying rocks in the water before reaching down and grabbing one. Then, without fail, he had correctly identified a puddingstone every time.

Wyatt was a decent puddingstone hunter. He picked up tons of rocks that were not puddingstones, but recognized which were which.

Jonah found lots of clam shells. I don't think that he found a single puddingstone on his own. But he had fun trying.

After we got home the boys got busy cleaning all of our rocks (and clams). They scrubbed them with brushes and tried to remember who picked out which rocks. Then they lined them up based on size. They were entertained for hours. It was a great adventure for our family and we are looking forward to doing it again next year!