Weather Stick

So I was out there yesterday, in the pouring rain, pulling bamboo stalks from the garden and it got me thinking of the weather stick that Breanne's grandmother got for me. It's sometimes called a Maine weather stick, or a Vermont weather stick, but they're all the same. It's a small switch carved from a balsam fir branch and it is extremely sensitive to moisture. Some Native American tribe used the balsam branches to determine what the weather would be like, can't remember which tribe.
Well Breanne's parents brought us the stick a few weeks ago, and the first 6 days we had it were long days of endless rain. The weather stick, in predicting rainy and moist days, points almost directly to the ground like a skinny, flaccid penis. Preceding a warmer, rainless day, the stick will stand erect and curl up towards the sky. It's nailed to the front of the house with a tiny golden nail that came with a picture framing set.
As I mentioned, Breanne's grandmother bought it for me. I barely new the lady. I met her a few times but she seemed a bit senile and the family told me she was a heavy drinker. She let us borrow her car a few months ago because her doctor told her she was unfit to drive, and a couple weeks later, she was dead. So, Breanne's uncle put the car in Breanne's name and now it's ours. A PT cruiser. I remember the day she said we could use it, we were visiting her in the hospital in Houlton. Houlton Regional. We went up to her room and chatted with her quietly for 30 minutes or so. She talked about her garden, what Breanne was doing, local happenings. We talked about President Bush for a little while, and I mentioned that he was smug. She thought I said smart, and seemed taken aback that I would consider him so. It happened in a flash and I didn't have the chance to correct her and as I mentioned, I never did.
That's what makes it so strange that she bought me a weather stick. I'm told she wasn't a very generous person with her money, at least not concerning her family. She told Breanne's parent's she thought the stick was something I'd like, and she was right, I do think it's a cool ornament, whether it predicts weather or not.
I've tried to be as friendly and involved with Breanne's grandparents as I can because I regret not knowing my own better before they passed. I think I would have liked her Grandmother- she seemed to have a lot of moxie. Breanne still has her other set of Grandparents, her dad's parents, which she's always been closest with. Meme (ma-MAY) and Pepe (pa-PAY), old French catholics.

Anyway, it's raining again; 5 days in a row this time. And the garden looks like it might just float away, with moats between the rows of plants and some Burpee seedling clumps have had all the soil washed away from them and were just sitting atop the rows like shipwrecked vessels yesterday. I replanted them, a little deeper than I had originally but it's pouring again.

On a side note, I just found out Pepe was brought to the hospital with a fever of 103, and they determined that he had pneumonia, but I guess he's OK now. He saw a guy he knew in the waiting room and when the guy left he called him a "peckerhead", which is very uncharacteristic of him.