Happy Groundhog Day

Have fun and don't drive angry!

Happy belated GHD everyone.  Whenever I think of groundhog day I think of an old timer (which I guess will be me before I know it) who told me they always used groundhog day as a midwinter check point.  It's when you'd look at your stored wood to see if you were more or less than half way through it.  Then you'd know if you had to slow down or not on your burning to make sure you didn't run out.  Running out is no fun!!!  (I did that ONCE)

Here we are again!

This groundhog day is unique, and what sets it apart is the numerical date: 02/02/2020 - it's a palindrome, that is it reads the same way forwards, left to right, as it does backwards, right to left.



Happy groundhog day!

No Groundhogs here - if there were, they'd be drowning! After twice January's average rainfall, things are past soggy and on to fully saturated. We actually had a waterfall yesterday. Don't know if it will still be there this morning.

Oh Onion, you tickle my ribs!

Depressed Groundhog Sees Shadow Of Rodent He Once Was

The Onion and Oatmeal make my day ^.^

https://www.theonion.com/carhartt-introduces-rugged-work-thong-1819587919

I called it a woodchuck, same animal, when I posted this last fall   Sign of a bad winter coming?
And due to weirdness in the weather pattern, we had snow 2 days ago, will have snow 2 days from now, but today they are predicting 73!! WHOO! If woodchucks CAN tell the weather by their shadow, he can definitely see it today (if he'll come out from his tarp-insluated burrow...) I'm headed out to work in the sun, since if this is right, I still have a lot of winter ahead (and I think I do, but hey, I ain't a groundhog....)

There's a Nor'easter going on and he saw his shadow again?  Come on!  Oh well....happy mid point of winter y'all!  Time to make sure you still have half your wood left!  

What, again?

Masanobu Fukuoka's birthday.  Feb 2, 1913.

Also, Mike Oehler died on Feb 2, 2016.

Bernie and punxsutawnew Phil

New meaning to the expression, "A Lap Warmer"!

Not much sun on my farm, but if a groundhog lived here and had happened to come out at *just* the right second, he might of seen his shadow.

paul wheaton wrote:Masanobu Fukuoka's birthday.  Feb 2, 1913.

Also, Mike Oehler died on Feb 2, 2016.

Paul, do you have a super cool Permies calendar?  

Just memory.  

It would be cool if somebody made a permies calendar.  I bet we can find lots of cool dates to put on it.  And maybe even make some up!

paul wheaton wrote:Just memory.  

It would be cool if somebody made a permies calendar.  I bet we can find lots of cool dates to put on it.  And maybe even make some up!

Could put the Wheaton HAH on it so we all are thinking about you guys and what you're up to!

Re calendar: add a bunch of made-up permie festivals perhaps? International Mulch Appreciation Day?

I think somebody was pushing for a permaculture day in early may.

We could put the garden naked day on there.

And, yes!  The half-assed holidays!

paul wheaton wrote:

We could put the garden naked day on there.

All for that, but could we declare a full week? Too easy for the one day to be a let down, and anyway, a full week has the potential to start new and healthy habits :)

Greg Martin wrote:Happy belated GHD everyone.  Whenever I think of groundhog day I think of an old timer (which I guess will be me before I know it) who told me they always used groundhog day as a midwinter check point.

I was thinking about how a much older significance for Feb 1st-2nd is the festival of Imbolc, or the (broadly Celtic) first day of Spring.
That never made sense to me when I lived in New England, but after moving to Ireland, it seemed spot-on-time.


In Ireland it is more often recognized as St. Brigid's Day, or Lá Fhéile Bríde.

Brigid was originally an 'Immanent' goddess, associated with the Tuatha Dé Danann, whose legends survive in tales of the Fae or Fairy Folk (not Tinkerbell, but a force both powerful and primal).
She was synonymous with Eire, the island of Ireland itself. Her body was the land. One and the same. Literally embodied. That's what I mean by 'immanent'. Abrahamic religions have a single god, and glorify 'transcendence'.

Then downsizing happened.
Along comes Christianity, which specialized in 'adopting' local gods and goddesses, then recasting them as Christian saints.
("Hey we aren't asking you to change much, you can keep worshiping these spirits. Only now they have a new name. And that sacred grove? Yeah. That has to go. We're using the trees to build our church there instead. The sacred spring can stay. We'll use it as a Christian holy well.")

If not as long-term thinking as the First Peoples, the Church still played a long game. After a few centuries of building their celebrations around adopted 'saints' in 1969 they decided to de-list some of the older ones.
Not sure if St.Brigid made the cut or not. I've read conflicting reports.

The Vatican merged St Brigit's Day with their 'Candlemas', enabling them to spread it across the Christian Empire. Other cultures would find no significance in an erstwhile goddess from a land far away.
(Although they adopted the primary brand pretty well, despite his association with a patch of desert most followers couldn't even imagine, much less visit for themselves. But I digress.)

This also helped blur associations with the ancient Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia. Religious imperialism can get pretty messy.

Finally, the US installs a groundhog to fully secularize the symbolism, yet still celebrating Spring!

So, starting with an all-powerful goddess whose body is an entire island, many centuries later we're listening to a cranky rodent.

Anyway, a belated happy Imbolc, y'all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbolc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatha_D%C3%A9_Danann
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupercalia

a little late, but worth it...