June Hail

Yesterday around dinner time the Hinton Hill District was treated to a really strong storm cell. Pea-sized hail followed by heavy rain. A real frog-drowner, as a friend once said. By the time I got home from work there was about 5 cm of hail on my front lawn. The hail severely damaged the newly sprouted leaves on deciduous trees and neatly plucked the small new candles of spruce needles from a tree beside the house. All the bedding plants my wife put out over the weekend were thrashed.

At 10:00 PM I went over to the Boardwalk to see if there were any changes. Happy Creek was raging at bank full depth, and the beaver dam was overflowing at many places. Two beavers were swimming back and forth watching for big leaks, but otherwise they weren't attempting to repair the flows. The dam is designed to take floods in stride - the excess water washes over but doesn't breach the dam.

At Maxwell Lake 3 more beavers were either feasting on water lily pads or up on the bank bending over willows to eat the new leaves. I watched two up on the bank about 10 m away for 15 minutes as the light faded and the mist after the rain wafted over the lake. Then a barred owl called 3 times from across the lake. A fitting end to an unusual day.