Groundhog Day!

In an ode to the rodent called 'groundhog' I may just watch that classic Bill Murray movie tonight. I am not particularly fond of Andie MacDowell, but what can you do? Otherwise, it is pretty damn funny.

Apparently, the Canadian groundhogs are divided on whether winter is coming to an end or not... I kind of feel that Wiarton Willie (from Ontario) is correct because I can already see the flower buds in several garden beds lately. The temperatures are also getting milder and the days are much longer and brighter than they were just a few weeks ago. All in all, it looks like spring is coming early in Vancouver.
If you think Groundhog Day is as ridiculous as it sounds, here is an article explaining this year's groundhog results from various places and a brief history of how it came to be.
Hint: those crazy Germans are at it again!


Wiarton Willie


Cdn. groundhogs offer contradictory forecasts

CTV.ca News Staff
Winter-weary Canadians eager to know whether Jack Frost is packing his bags received dissenting opinions from weather-forecasting woodchucks on Groundhog Day.
Both Ontario's Wiarton Willie and Alberta's Balzac Billy forecasted an early spring when they emerged without seeing their shadows.
Yet in Nova Scotia, Shubenacadie Sam left the comfort of his heated den, where he is catered to with meals of carrots and broccoli, and saw his shadow Wednesday morning -- which means another six weeks of winter for Atlantic residents.
The world's best-known groundhog weather forecaster, Punxsutawney Phil, also waddled out of his hole in an oak stump in Pennsylvania and saw his shadow -- to the dismay of the booing 2000-strong crowd.
"He's only the messenger!" responded one of the members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club -- the volunteer group in charge of the town's festivities.
Every Feb. 2 on Groundhog Day, crowds gather in anticipation to watch groundhogs make their bogus verdicts.
"It's of particular interest to Canadians, who suffer like prisoners being tortured once a year in the winter," Murray Pomerance, who heads the sociology department at Toronto's Ryerson University, told Canadian Press.
"What Groundhog Day does is give everybody a kind of holiday where they can officially get together and hope for the end of winter, which is a kind of public celebration. So I see it as the true Canadian winter holiday."
Groundhog Day stems from a tradition started by early German settlers in 1887 in Punxsutawney, Penn.
They believed that there would be snow in May if the sun shone on Feb. 2, the Christian feast of Candlemas.