Happy Groundhog Day

In keeping with the age-old tradition, officials in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania dragged Phil the groundhog out of his hole this morning, causing him to see his shadow.  Yep, six more weeks of winter.  But, after all, it is February; do we really need a rodent to tell us that we still have six more weeks of winter left?  Couldn't everybody just look at the calendar and see that we actually have more than six weeks left until spring officially arrives?  We could, but it just wouldn't be as fun. 

The principle of Groundhog Day makes sense, though - after hibernating during the winter months, groundhogs (along with other animals that hibernate) come out to see if it's time to stop hibernating.  Makes sense to me.  I'd want to come out and check to see if it's time to come alive and start mating, too.  But animal experts will be the first to tell you that unfortunately for Groundhog Day lovers, most groundhogs don't come out of their burrows on February 2 of every year.  It's usually late March or early April when they come out to check on the weather.  Down in the groundhog's burrow, the temperature doesn't change with the weather, so the ground hog has to come outside to see if it's spring yet.  If it isn't, they go back down for another cycle.  The cycle, however, does not run six weeks, as in the legend.  Groundhogs rouse themselves from hibernation every two weeks. All time totalled, roundhogs hibernate on the average of 8 months.  Now that you mention it, we don't see them at The Compound except in the summer and early fall. Now I know why. 

Groundhog Day started in Europe, but it wasn't called Groundhog Day then.  The holiday was Candlemas, a Christian holiday.  The legend about the animal and its shadow was part of Candlemas, but back then the animal was a hedgehog.  The Pilgrims brought the tradition to America but couldn't find a hedgehog here, so they used the next best thing: a groundhog.

Warm temperatures have nothing to do with winter being over.  A Canadian researcher did a study and found out that the groundhog gets it right about 37 percent of the time.  If my reputation depended on predicting spring and I got it wrong 63 percent of the time, I'd rather be hibernating, too.