Weather in Germany: Watching the Seasons Change with the Davis Hill Weather Stick

My wife is German, and as I’ve mentioned before, Germans tend to be a very well-traveled bunch of squares. My wife has been all over the world, and she spent a lot of time in the United States. She even traveled around New England and made a bunch of friends there. One of these friends gave her a very peculiar parting gift before she returned to Germany: The Davis Hill Weather Stick.

Weather sticks are shaved twigs from balsam trees, and they’re supposed to predict the weather by bending sharply upward or downward. With absolutely no clue where to hang this goofy thing, my wife lugged it around from apartment to apartment for the next decade until she finally met me. After we moved into a house here in Hannover, Germany, I wasted not one second nailing this thing to the wooden divider in our back yard.

Here’s how the magic works, according to the back of the card:

The Weather Stick, from the folks on Davis Hill, will tell you what the weather is doing. With good weather about they will point to the sky; and when things aren’t so pleasant they will point to the ground. We don’t know why, but the old timers had faith in them and that’s good enough for us.

Mount it outdoors with the nail up. Under an eave, on a window frame, or out on the garage wall. Anywhere where you can see it from inside.

These country Weather Sticks are harvested at the right time of year and carefully prepared and dried. When first put up they will take a short while to get used to your house so be patient with them and they will serve you well for a long time.

We’ve seen sticks that are fifteen years old so you won’t need another for quite a while. However, if you’d like another you can get one at this store or write us.

THE DAVIS HILL COMPANY
P.O. BOX 44, GREENSBORO, VT 05841
(802) 533-2400

Now, I can’t find an actual website for this company, and that address and phone number are so old they probably don’t work anymore, but you can totally order the Davis Hill Weather Stick online at Amazon.com or from the Shelburne Country Store. Also, this stick doesn’t have any magical (or even mysterious) properties at all; we know exactly what makes this thing bend up and down: humidity.

Anyway, once I noticed the stick bending exactly as promised — and looking like the thinnest, creepiest penis in the world — I started taking pictures of it. From the fall of 2014 to the fall of 2015, I took pictures almost every day for an entire year. Then, I stitched them all together to make the animated .gif below.

Check it out, and have a great week everyone!

— OGM