Tag Groundhog Day

Beyond a shadow of a doubt

Michael 8 Comments

He’s on his way. Just four more days until Groundhog Day 2023! This entire blog could be dedicated to Groundhog Day and the other 51 weeks be just filler material. Actually, it could be dedicated to the Groundhog, Phil, the one, the only, Punxsutawney Phil.

Not a year has gone by that I hadn’t written something of Phil and/or his exploits. At least I don’t think so. You can search “Groundhog Day” if you’re really that interested.  And if you haven’t read the 10 or 12 posts that will pop up there, you should. There’s a wealth of information there. Why, two years ago I even wrote a Groundhog Day carol.

Groundhog Day lovers aren’t known for assiduously adhering to the facts when it comes to our favorite rodent. We are known for our unwavering support for the little furry guy. Phil gets all kinds of non-respect. Meteorologists (the science guys and the TV people) don’t like him (just because he’s more accurate than the science guys and more popular than the TV people). People who don’t like winter (because he predicts a longer winter way more often than an early spring (137-20)), don’t like him. People who want an early spring don’t like him (see previous sentence). Southerners don’t like him (apparently some Georgian poser by the unlikely name of Beauregard gets the confederate vote). But that’s okay because the 42 quadrillion of us who do like him love him, and we love him a lot. How could anyone not love Punxsutawney Phil?  A furry woodland creature not known for building dams, outsmarting waskly hunters, or becoming Daniel Boone’s hat, gets more than his 15 minutes of anthropomorphic fame each February 2 with the power to captivate us mere mortals more than any other animal alive.

So what will this year bring? I’ve said it before, I’m not the prodigious prognosticator that Phil is, but … Considering our hollow trees are a mere 90 miles apart, we are working with the same weather, and this year’s weather in Western Pennsylvania has been anything but predictable. The average temperature has been higher than normal and the average precipitation has been lower. But on the day when it’s been cold, it’s been COLD and on the days it’s been wet and snowy, it’s been WE – well, you get the idea. I say we throw all that together with the fact the Lunar New Year heralding the start of the Spring Festival was so early this year, and Phil can look around all he wants, but he won’t see his shadow and we will thus have an early spring. Yay! Or not.

Is the best way to help, support, and encourage yourself to help, support, and encourage others? We answered that question last week on Uplift! on ROAMcare.org. Read all we had to say.

SAMSUNG

 

Chasing Groundhogs

Michael 6 Comments

20210202_083853

For Twelve days I chased that groundhog, that rodent brought to me …

Twelve handlers handling
Eleven chipmunks chatting
Ten marmots munching
Nine ground squirrels chomping
Eight gophers going
Seven woodchucks chucking
Six lemurs lounging

five – hollow – trees! 🐾

four woolen mufflers 🧣
three top hats 🎩
two fur-lined mittens🧤

and a shadow for him to later see 🕳

 

 

((C) MRoss 2021, All Rights Reserved)

 

Prepping for Phil

Michael Leave a comment
 

Phil

Happy Groundhog Day Eve! I’m not gong to try to post links of all the GHD related posts I’ve written.  There aren’t enough electrons and bits or E-ink or whatever makes things visible on these screens to do that.  Trust me that there have been a bunch and you can search for them, even the one that actually is moderately educational. Okay, so there is one link for you.

 
Here’s another link for you. You see, unlike some of the more “intelligent life” on this planet, Punxsutawney Phil knows the danger of going out in crowded conditions and is encouraging everybody to celebrate his coming out for 2021 remotely. You can see him accurately predict the coming of this spring livestream on the Visit PA site starting at 6:30 am EST, Tuesday, February 2. (My prediction is six more weeks of winter.)
 
Come back here tomorrow for a special Groundhog Day  post, Real Reality style, 2021 edition.
 

Have a Heart, Please

Michael 2 Comments
For such a short month with only 28 days, 29 this and every Presidential election year affording candidates an additional 24 hours to make fools of themselves, February is chock full of imposters, sequels, and me too holidays.
 
The most famous of non-holidays comes up next week but has been in full fledged celebration by car dealers, furniture stores, and discount houses for weeks now. Of course that is the never authorized, not recognized Presidents Day.  Not being an official national holiday has not stopped business from taking advantage of consumers with “the biggest savings of the year” nor unions taking advantage of businesses with demands of yet another day off with pay. Of course the real holiday is Washington’s Birthday, never celebrated on his actual birthday because that would mean the loss of a 3 day weekend in most years. Bonus points for anybody who can identify Washington’s actual birthday without Google.
 
Looking for a reason to drink to excess and St. Patrick’s Day is a whole month away. Don’t fret or fear, Mardi Gras is here. What started out a few hundred years ago as a day of atonement and confession before Lent begins has morphed into “let’s eat everything in sight, have parades all day, drink all night, and show our boobs (pardon me) in exchange for a string of plastic beads.” Although the date varies because Ash Wednesday varies because Easter varies (you remember those days, right?), it most often is during February that merchants along Bourbon Street grease the poles outside their establishments to deter drunken idiots from trying to climb them.
 
For 134 years a peace loving furry woodland creature has been forecasting Spring’s arrival in a quaint Pennsylvania town. Of course this is commemorated in the most important day in the modern calendar, February 2, Groundhog Day. Sometime, details are sketchy exactly when, meteorologists began celebrating National Weatherman’s Day, now known of course as National Weatherperson’s Day on February 5. There’s logic to this they say. That is the birthday of John Jeffries, purportedly the first to record daily weather observations. That would be fine. Many professions recognize their pioneers. But this year I noticed on February 5 more news snippets decrying Punxsutawney Phil’s bold prediction of an early spring with repeated references to his predictions being accurate only 40% of the time. I did a little research on this. Phil is predicting for 6 weeks! According to National Weather Service data although a 7 day forecast is accurate 80% of the time, a 45 day forecast (about 6 weeks) has an accuracy rate of 40-50%. Hmmm. Methinks and all that jazz. 
 
February is the month of love recognized as National Weddings Month (I would have thought June, no?), Creative Romance Month, and Affair to Remember Month (no clarification if that refers to the movie or a tryst), with International Flirting Week (for the not so serious?) tossed in on the month’s third week. But if those and the chocoholic’s dream date Valentine’s Day don’t fill your bill we can now add, and on this very day, Galentine’s Day. A day with origins similar to and about as real as Festivus and Friendsgiving which are now also apparently really real. And yes, the wanting to be next to be really real, Palentine’s Day is making inroads also. And here all these years I’ve been sitting at home alone without a romantic other half to celebrate. Gee, who would have thought one could make a holiday out of picking up the phone and asking a couple friends to go out for a drink. I would have have missed the boat and called that something like Thursday but then I’d have missed out on the greeting card conscesssions. (Oh yes you can. Check out your local card shop.) 
 
One day in the month that should be a real deal holiday with cards, gifts, TV specials and days off for proper celebrations (with pay if you can swing it) is February 14, no, not the flowers and chocolate day, but National Organ Donor Day. Hop over to organdonor.gov to find out about how organ and tissue donation works and how to register to donate. Ah, the gift of giving your heart to someone. Now that’s true love. And nobody will throw beads at you.
 
 
GTHeart
 
 

Groundhog Day Eve Eve Eve… and it better not be the last one!

Michael 2 Comments
I love Groundhog Day. There. I said it. Again. And will again. And again. It’s a love that never abates. How could anyone not live Groundhog Day?  A furry woodland creature not known for building dams, outsmarting waskly hunters, or becoming Daniel Boone’s hat, gets more than his 15 minutes of anthropomorphic fame each February 2 and the ensuing six weeks.
 
The great and wonderful groundhog with special and semi-secret skills has the power to capture man’s interest and captivate the entire human race or at least those in the know like no other furry friend since the mink in the 1950s. Without the groundhog we would never know if we should pack away our parkas or beef up our boggins. Yes, our resident rodent is truly righteous.
 
But now the prognosticator of prognosticators, the seer of seers, the meteorological marmot is under attack, personal attack, attack by name, as in we want you Punxsutawney Phil, to be no more, to cease and desist the sharing that special knowledge of seasonal weather patterns with the ever waiting world, and retire to a life of obscurity and be replaced by a (my hands are shaking as I type this), by a (deep breath here), by a, a, a robot. A robot! Hmmph!
 
That animal support group that assumes only its ways are the ethical ways to treat animals yet cannot count even one single groundhog, nor any other animal for that matter among their leadership, claim to know what is best for that most famous furball and insist it is “long overdue for Phil to be retired.” Notice “to be retired” not even just ‘retire’ like it would be his choice, but “to be retired,” like some old horse put out to pasture. All true Phil fanatics know this is no ordinary groundhog living his peaceful and quite cushy existence at Gobblers Knob. He has been forecasting for 134 years. That one single, extraordinary example of Marmota monax has been the center of the winter weather world for 134 years. That’s one hundred, thirty seven years! To suggest he is “to be retired” is to encourage and support age discrimination, hardly an ethical stance for any mammal.
 
And what would those manic meddlers suggest we do every Second of February for our prophetic forecast fix? Artificial Intelligence.  Hmmph – again! As stated by a representative of that nebby group, an AI module attach to an animatronic groundhog could “actually predict the weather.” I can see it now, the president of the Inner Circle knocks on former Phil’s front door and says, “Alexa, tell me the weather for the next 6 weeks.” Double Hmmph!!!
 
I say no! This is not the time for Punxsutawney Phil to be retired. Not this year, not any year. We’ve seen what so-called progress does. Bulging landfills, holes in the ozone, pet rocks! When will our march to oblivion stop? Now I say, now! This is the time to embrace Phil (not too tight – he is 134 years old after all) and demand he never retire and will always guide us to our destinies. Or at least to the next six week. 
 

Phil

The robots are not coming! Long live Phil!

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Groundhog Day. Again.

Michael 2 Comments

With Groundhog Day approaching I was certain I could count on welcoming an early spring. Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, home of the master prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil, is just a hair over 90 miles from my front door so the weather isn’t much different. I don’t have Phil’s innate forecasting power but I could do a reasonable imitation of him by crawling out of my home and looking for a shadow and we would be working under the same sun. Well, naturally it would be the same sun but you know what I mean.

Anyway … I was certain I could count on Phil not casting a shadow because I am certain he is smart enough to stay inside in weather like this. For the past two days I woke up to -5° temperatures. Not fit weather for man (that would be me) or beast (Phil, of course). Then this morning I heard on the morning weather guess (they like to call it a “forecast” but we know better) this Saturday we will be waking to temperatures in the 30s. That’s above freezing! In fact, if you are to believe the amateur prognosticators, Sunday temperatures might be in the 50s, Monday close to 60, then the back the teens and 20s by Tuesday. This is a week after days that never got out of single digits followed by a couple 60° afternoons then this latest foray into sub-zero land.

freezerI think everybody in the world (except San Diego) can honestly say “if you don’t like the weather just wait a day, it will change!” but this is ridiculous. It’s also not uncommon. Without trying to annoy the climate change crowd or those who feel climate change is a socialist plot, the world is not made for stable weather patterns. It’s a not quite spherical orb spinning at a not quite constant speed on a tilted axis while revolving around a not consistent heat source on a not quite regular ovoid orbit. If you don’t believe me I give you from prehistory the Sahara Forest, from modem tourism the Great Lakes, and from calendar makers’ nightmares throughout time leap year.

But forget the long range consequences of our planet hurtling through space with the surefootedness of a vertiginous ballroom dancer. We feel earth’s uncertainty every day. Every single day sunrise and sunset happen at a different time. And not even consistently. Every. Single. Day. Seasons “officially” change on a different day every year. We can’t even figure out how to divide a year into even proportions. We say there are 12 months in a year but they are of three different lengths. We say there are 52 weeks in a year but then ever year starts on a different day of the week. We say there are 365 days in a year yet there’s that leap year thing going on.

So in the midst of all this terrestrial and celestial turmoil we put our trust in a furry woodland creature to tell us if we should plant the corn early this year. Eh, he has a better track record than the guys getting paid to do it so why not?  But if those hotshot weather forecasters are wrong about Saturday morning and we wake up to -5° again and Phil wants to stay in, let him take the day off. Spring will get here even without him. Eventually. We’ll just not be sure exactly when but then why should this year be any different? It’s already different enough anyway.

 

 

Timing Is Everything

Michael 4 Comments

Time’s Up

Yesterday for Easter, the family went out for dinner. It was a very good and we had just as much fun visiting and chatting at a table among other tables of families doing the same as we would have had at a table within one of our own set of walls. The only downside was that after the meal, after the dessert and coffee, after sitting back into a good stretch for a moment or two, as we waited patiently for our check, our patience ran thin as that patient wait ran to 20 minutes before we even spotted the person with our check to be in her apron pocket. Not for the first time did an efficient wait person who was always ready with a suggestion, always available with a drink refill, always timely with the next course, was nowhere to be found when the time to say goodbye came around.

 

AprilSnowThe Little Scamp

Yesterday was a hockey night and on the way into town as the late afternoon sun shone through the car windows warming the interior close to July levels I almost thought about switching on the air conditioning to have a good preseason run through knowing it wouldn’t be long before warm days become hot days. This morning, the day of the local baseball team’s home opener, we woke up to four (yes, 4 (!)) inches of snow. I know Punxsutawney Phil promised us six more weeks of winter but he usually orders them up consecutively.

 

Best of Two

Today is Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Yes, it is. Really. To celebrate I was going to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, something I do maybe once a year, usually on Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Plans were going well. I got out the peanut butter. I got out the jelly. I got out the bre… hey! there’s no bread. Then I remembered that late night post hockey game ham sandwich assembled on the last of the bread and saying to myself it was ok, I’d run out in the morning and get some. For those of you following along, that was the same morning that found 4 inches of snow on the ground and me saying boy I’m glad I don’t have to out for anything this morning.

 

Sometimes the time’s timing is running a little bit late.

 

Never Too Much of This Good Thing

Michael 12 Comments

Happy Groundhog Day Eve! I don’t have to remind anybody that of all the 382 special observances of the days, weeks, and month during February, Groundhog Day is my personal favorite not to mention the most useful.

Phil

Photo: Pittsburgh Patch

But I have to question the blatant commercialism that is detracting from this great day. It’s quite alright that Punxsutawney Phil has his own Instagram page or his own souvenir shop. That’s reasonable for a celebrity of his stature. But it’s all this other stuff that everybody else is doing to horn in on his popularity that has to stop.

 

BSBMoon

Photo: NASA

First there was that movie from 25 years ago about the day that kept going and going and going. Now there’s Mother Nature throwing her triple threat Super Blue Blood Moon into the mix a mere two days before Phil’s annual excursion into the public eye. And then there’s that silly football game on Sunday that’s already hogging up all the television time. Honestly, what does it take to get the world’s greatest weather icon his more than deserved respect?

His lack of respect doesn’t stop Phil from his appointed tasks as well as making personal appearances (take that you big extraterrestrial object) and even inspiring love songs (take that you hardly universal sporting event).

GiL

Now just in case you’re too busy tomorrow morning to be in Punxsutawney personally, you can catch Phil streaming his shadow, or lack of, here.

And remember, even if Phil should see his shadow, no matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.

 

Prepping for Punxsutawney

Michael 1 Comment

Last week I was watching a hockey game and heard mention that somebody’s back-up goal keeper is from North Pole, Alaska.  What struck me was the North Pole part. Obviously because not even a week later do I remember the who or even the team. That North Pole part struck me because I know that Alaska doesn’t make it to the North Pole. So, I just had to look it up, because, after all, – all together now – I have that kind of time. Seems that North Pole isn’t along Alaska’s northern shore, not in the northern counties, not even in the northern half of the state. It’s a suburb of Fairbanks. Now how about that. That’s almost akin to false advertising naming North Pole North Pole when it’s around 1,700 miles south of the North Pole.

I must be going somewhere with this, you muse. And you muse correctly. It got me thinking about some of the names we call our hamlets. And the hamlet I thought of first, because it will be a Mecca for about 100,000 more people than just me this Thursday, is Punxsutawney. Even the most irregular of regular readers know I have a special fondness for Groundhog Day and the festivities that will take place at that Western Pennsylvania village. Punxsutawney Phil is so dear to me that his was the first picture to accompany a post on this blog.  (See “Six Weeks,” Feb. 2, 2012.) (If you want, it doesn’t have anything to do with this post but it still makes interesting reading.) (Well, I think it’s interesting but then I think the other 9 or 10 posts that mention Groundhog Day are interesting also.) (Actually I think all of the posts are more than fairly interesting or I wouldn’t have posted them now would have I?) (Or darn, I did it again. Where was I?)

20170129_175057All that thinking about North Pole, Alaska and how names are given to places got me thinking about just what “Punxsutawney” means. So I looked that up too. It means “land of the sandflies.” Punxsutawney was a 1700 era settlement of the Delaware nation and presumably named by them. I’m not really in a place to question their observations and aptitude for naming places, but I don’t understand how a clearing on the edge of the Allegheny Forrest, in the mountains, over 300 miles from any ocean, over 900 miles to any water hot enough to have a sand beach presumably with flies, could be considered the “land of the sandflies.”  The “land of” would indicate that whatever comes after “of” is so indigenous to that area that one cannot think of the “land” without automatically thinking of the “of.” I don’t know about you but Punxsutawney Sandflies doesn’t fall from my lips instinctively.  Not even the local high school picked the sandfly as its mascot even considering the origin of its town’s moniker. (In fact, they are the Punxsutawney Chucks, as in woodchucks, as in groundhog.)

And there we are, back to the groundhog and Punxsutawney Phil and Groundhog Day. And I am positively thrilled that inhabitants of the “land of the sandflies” got over that as quickly as they did. In time somebody noted that February 2 was midway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox and was ideal for predicting the severity of the balance of the season so the spring plantings could be planned. And no animal was better suited to make that prediction than the humble groundhog.

And now I know how Punxsutawney got its name. And so do you. Aren’t you glad you read all the way through? Yes you are.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

The Groundhog and the Chicken

Michael Leave a comment

One thing that makes this country great is our sense of tradition. Granted we’re homing in on only 240 years of tradition and not the thousands you see in Europe or the tens of thousands in the very cradle of civilization but I’m still quite happy with our couple hundred years. And now it’s under attack – and it’s under attack by some of our very own people, the marshmallow peeps people who are trying to take over the groundhog’s God-given right to tell us when spring will begin.

Yes, the folks at Just Born Candy, makers of those cloyingly sweet, overly sticky, artificially colored candy barnyard animal facsimiles are trying to dethrone Punxsutawney Phil as Pennsylvania’s, as America’s, as the world’s number one prognosticator of the commencement of Spring. For 230 of America’s 239 springs, Phil has been the constant by which people have determined whether it’s safe to venture out or remain sheltered for six more weeks.

So universal is Phil’s attraction that official chapters of the Groundhog Club are found across the globe. So loved is Phil that over 30,000 people visit the small town of Punxsutawney situated in western Pennsylvania not far from the Allegheny National Forest to catch a glimpse of Phil emerging from his tree stump on Gobbler’s Knob.

Now the eastern Pennsylvania candy-makers claim their mascot is the true sign of the coming of Spring coinciding with the arrival of their marshmallow Peeps in stores. What a bunch of greedy hogwash if you’ll excuse my frankness. Those silly, sickly sweet confections are in the stores year round. There are peeps masquerading as marshmallow ghosts, Christmas trees, hearts, cherries, bunnies, and snowmen. Phil knows when his job is done he gets to take a well-deserved rest and chill out for the rest of the year content in the knowledge that he doesn’t have to try to invade our lives lest we forget his contribution to society.

Peeps versus Phil. How ridiculous! We’re supposed to substitute a fake chicken for a real groundhog? Ludicrous. Who ever heard of a ground chicken? Hmmm, ground chicken. Now that might be worth pursuing!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Clearly you can tell I’m more than a bit passionate about Punxsutawney Phil. So much so that the only picture in the entire blog is of him, sort of. That little guy has made it into close to a dozen RRSB posts making him a Real Reality frequent flyer. See his debut – and his “picture” – here (Six Weeks, Feb. 2, 2012).