Ground Hog Day

My month long hiatus from serious blogging is now over. I'm glad to be back to my normal self. I left this blog with "Flying Pigs" and I am returning with "Ground Hogs". I should change the blog name to "The Porcine Picayune". But then, I promised pertinence.

The Ground Hog is also known as a Marmot, a Woodchuck, and a Whistle pig. It is a large sized member of the squirrel family. (Sciuridae) It makes a whistling sound when it is alarmed. Ground hogs generally live from two to three years old, sometimes as long as six years in the wild, but they have been known to live up to twenty-two years of age in captivity. They weigh from four to nine pounds. They eat seeds and clover, they love alfalfa, and make real pests of themselves in alfalfa fields. They eat bugs and bones to a smaller degree than ground squirrels do. They climb trees and often rest in the branches. They have a two layer fur coat that keeps them quite warm. They live in ground burrows, and hibernate during the winter. They stick their heads out in the early spring. They look around a little bit then go back into hibernation. It’s probably fun to watch them speculate about whether or not it’s time to get up, much like we peek at the clock in the morning when it nears time to arise.

The old story about Ground Hog’s Day, is that he comes out of his burrow on February the 2nd, and if the ground hog sees his shadow, we will have six more weeks of winter. I guess that means that if he comes out and the sun is shining, he knows that it is a false spring, and he goes back into hibernation. I figgur’ that it’s a trick, because they don’t say what happens if he comes out and it’s raining. Does that mean that we are going to have instant spring? Oh well, we don’t need to worry all that much about it, the old-timers told me that all of the local north coast ground hogs must have drowned back in the beginning of history, because we don’t have any around here.

When I was a kid, we used to go out and try to find a ground squirrel to see if it would give us a weather forecast, but we usually got rained out.

I’ve always thought that they should make Ground Hog’s day a national holiday, after all, there is no celebration between New Year’s Day and Saint Patrick’s Day. Ground Hog’s day is right in the middle and it would be a great time to have a party! So I will be celebrating February the 2nd, I can hardly wait to surprise my wife.

The legend of Ground Hog’s Day is sketchy; “The legend of Groundhog Day is based on an old Scottish couplet: "If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there'll be two winters in the year." It must have some connection to that old legend. Again, I’m just going to have to guess, I figgur' the old timers got as bored with no-holidays as I do, and they got to making up stories about why the ground hogs stuck their heads out of their burrows.

Anyway I’m back, just like I promised. As far as being pertinent now, that was just another one of my jokes.

Happy Ground Hog’s Day!!!

Addendum:

Olmanriver wrote about The Hibernating Woodchuck. I found it to be more interesting than what I wrote, so I moved it up here to the front page. I didn't ask his permission so I'm going with the old saw: "It's easier to say that you are sorry than get permission". I'm sorry Olmanriver!

The following is by "Ol Man River":

The humble woodchuck has an amazing ability to hibernate, the facts of which may fascinate this audience; perhaps as much for what scientists are willing to do as for the facts: "A hibernating woodchuck is coiled into a tight ball with the head resting on its lower abdomen and the hind parts and tail wrapped over the head. During this deep sleep, respiration and heartbeat are greatly decreased, and body temperature is considerably lower than when the animal was active. In general, the metabolic rate of animals in hibernation is between 1/30 and 1/100 of the "resting" metabolic rate of non-hibernating animals. During hibernation, the breathing rate may be reduced to only one breath every five or six minutes, while the woodchuck's heartbeats may be as few as three beats per minute, in contrast to the normal rate of 80 to 95 beats per minute. Rectal temperature reaches a low of 3°C(38°F) during hibernation, while the normal summer reading is 32°C(90°F)." this deep hibernation also has hidden benefits....it is a weight loss program allowing the woodchuck to eat all summer long, get good and fat and then... during hibernation males will lose about 47% of their body weight and females about 37% of their body weight. this higher loss rate in males is thought to be due to energy consumed by spermatogenesis during hibernation. (so that is why i was skinny when i was younger!) the male groundhog wakes up first, starving and horny. and that is what we base our "weather report" on.

Addendum two:

This is probaly the basis of the "Ground Hog Weather forcast". All males wake-up starving and horny, and that is that leads to the first decision of their day. They have to decide whether They are most starving, or whether hey are most horny. A newcomer came along and changer the spelling to "Weather". It's all coming together for me now!