It's Going to Rain

It's been raining a lot here where we live. This much rain is very unusual for our climate this time of year. Today Curious George and I were talking about the rain. We checked out a book at the library on Tornadoes and Hurricanes. It's one of those big, fat eyewitness books (and it's Jesse Bear's favorite book to read right now :). Anyway, I was reading it to Jesse Bear and one page had this picture of a pine cone on it. I was reading that one way to predict the weather is by looking at a pine cone. If the pine cone's spikes are open, that means the weather is dry and hot. When the pine cone's spikes are closed that means there's humidity in the air. So I guess if you're looking at the open spikes on a pine cone every day and one day you wake up and they are closed, then you could predict that it might rain that day. I really didn't think much of this method - it seemed a little far fetched to me.

So anyway, it must have inspired Curious George because we were walking to swimming lessons today and he picks up this pine cone. "Hey Mom," he shouts. I look back and he shows it to me. "It's going to rain so we won't be able to go to the park." (We had planned on going to the park with some friends after swimming lessons). Sure enough,the pine cone's spikes were closed. I told C.G. that since it's been raining all week there's a lot of humidity in the air so the pine cones haven't had a chance to dry out and open their spikes. The sun was shining, and it really didn't look like it was going to rain today. Plus I was trying to be optimistic about going to the park. Well, we got through swimming lessons, the sun was shining and it was beautiful. But sure enough, just as soon as we got to our friend's house, the rain came. So, there you go. I'm outsmarted by a four-year-old again. And now you know how to predict the rain in case you're ever wondering... :)