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I'm a 50 something daughter, sister, wife, aunt, mother and friend. I have a husband and a son with my parents living in my basement. Keeping it together through menopause, the teenage years and the golden years. I hope you visit often.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Punxsutawney Phil

I'm a bit late with this entry, but I wanted to comment on Groundhog's Day. It seems that we are in for an early Spring according to Phil, the weather forecasting groundhog that lives in Gobbler's Knobb PA. It was a cloudy day, so he did not see his shadow.  I hope that Phil is right, we have had a pretty harsh winter and I'm looking forward to a nice warm, early Spring. I was interested in finding out about Phil so I looked him up on the Groundhog's Day web site. He has lived about 21 life times. Apparently groundhogs live for 6-7 years. Phil has been around for 125 years. The web site states that in the early 1800's the German settlers in Pennsylvania thought the groundhog resembled the hedgehog from their native land. This animal helped them to ration out their hay. When the hedgehog appeared, they should still have half their hay. Why they didn't just ration it out by months is a good question, but they decided to go by an animal behavior instead. So, since Pennsylvania is low on hedgehogs and overflowing with groundhogs, Groundhog's Day was born. Originally Phil was called Br'er Groundhog. The problem with that was ANY groundhog could be the magical weather predicting rodent. Phil was picked out of the preverbal crowd and given the name Phil, after King Phillip. On each Groundhog's Day he is given the "elixir of life" to extend his life 6-7 years. That's how he can be over a century old. He is also supposedly 100% right. I find that hard to believe. I've never met anyone, especially male, to be 100% right. This makes me question more things. Is Phil really Phillis?? That would explain some things. Is that elixir of life legal? Was it tested on humans before given to Phil/Phillis?  But what really makes me question if Phil is 100% right, he predicted the Steelers were going to win the superbowl! GO PACKERS! Take care!

1 comment:

  1. Ha ha, cute post! It's funny because a friend and I were just talking this week about how we wondered how this Groundhog Day tradition ever got started, it seems so silly. It's interesting to know how it came about.
    And I agree, GO PACKERS! :)

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