In a warehouse on Rt. 32 in Waldoboro, Evergreen Farms has been making weathersticks for about 30 years.
The craft dates back to the Native Americans, said Bill Karas, owner of Evergreen Farms. A weatherstick is an approximately 16-inch-long balsam twig that arches up when the weather will be fair, and arches down when rain is coming.
They work by absorbing moisture in the air, which changes the shape of the wood, Karas said.
“They’re definitely a novelty item, but people swear by them,” Karas said. Evergreen Farms sold about 30,000 weathersticks nationwide last year, and this year they’re trying to up production.
“We get calls from people that say they’ve had their weather stick for years and it broke in a storm,” Karas said. “They give you a whole story about how they’ve used it and why they need a new one.”
Evergreen Farms employs five people in the office and shop and several more gathering the balsam branches the weathersticks are made from. Karas said his biggest struggle is finding enough sticks.
A collector gathering balsam sticks for Evergreen Farms can make about a hundred dollars in a few hours in the morning, but the sticks need to come from young balsam firs and most people with sizable woodlots don’t have enough incentive to take the time to gather branches from trees they typically roll over with a skidder.
All of their weathersticks for the year must also be gathered, stripped, sanded and dried in about a two-month period between the beginning of May and the end of June. The reason is that the only time of year they can be easily stripped of bark and prepared is when the sap is running, Karas said. When the sticks come in, they must be cut, peeled of bark, sanded and dried immediately, while they’re still green.
In the morning on May 27, Karas went out to a back section of the Evergreen Farms property and demonstrated how to cut weathersticks.
With a large pair of shears, he chopped sections of balsam firs about an inch above branches and two inches below. The branches must be at least 16 inches long, thin and very straight.
As he cut two-dozen sticks over the course of about 20 minutes, he explained the reasons Evergreen Farm wants to increase their production of weather sticks.
For decades, Karas has run a nursery out of the Rt. 32 property. As the real estate market dwindled over the last few years, so did the nursery business.
“The two are very closely linked,” he said. Nurseries have to plant their stock years in advance, so financial downturns can be brutal on the price of trees. “When no one’s buying, there’s a huge surplus out there.”
Weathersticks, which were once a side project for Karas, are now becoming a staple of his company. “You have to find out what you can do to keep going,” Karas said. Later in the year, the company turns to making Christmas wreaths.
Evergreen Farms has done good business selling weathersticks directly, via local stores such as Renys, and wholesale to companies nationwide that repackage them.
Maggie Macy-Peterson, Evergreen Farms’ Marketing and Sales Director, said a lot of the appeal is that they’re natural and homemade.
“It’s not something that’s plastic and stamped and made in China,” she said.
For more information, call Evergreen Farms at 832-7576, or email info@freshmainewreaths.com.
