Well, it's official. Punxsutawney Phil evidently saw his shadow and we will be having six more weeks of winter. Why am I not surprised? My spouse has assured me that he's ok with six more weeks of winter a long as the worst three weeks of it are while we're on our cruise to points south.
My west coast brother has informed me that not only are groundhogs prognosticators of weather, but so also are hedgehogs, marmots and sled dogs. Who knew? I can understand sled dogs. They do know enough to come in out of the cold.
I had a groundhog move into the space under my deck some years ago when I lived out almost in the country. I might never have known except it came up to sun itself on the deck a few times (and left little 'presents' behind). I decided I must have it removed because it seemed to be burrowing very close to the air conditioner and I was afraid it might start gnawing on some lines. Being a kindly soul, I had a pest specialist come out and set a live trap, that would just catch it, not hurt it. He came and set it, with an apple as bait, three evenings in a row. Each following morning a happy raccoon was sitting in the trap, eating the apple and waiting to be let out. Since raccoons didn't ordinarily come near the house, I told the trapper to just let it go. It could have been the same raccoon all three nights. On the fourth night the groundhog finally took the bait, and was sitting in the trap the next morning, not looking nearly as happy as the raccoon. Maybe it didn't like apples? The trapper assured me that he would take the groundhog far out in the country and release it, and I would never see it again. By that point I was so pleased to see it go that I wouldn't have cared if he made stew out of it, but I presume that wasn't the case.
Anyway, if all goes as predicted, by mid-March we should be enjoying the first signs of spring.
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