Groundhog Day

Wiarton Willie is our special albino rodent of weather prognostication. There are many groundhog forecasters but we have the only albino one. He gets hauled out of his hole or house or wherever they have him in the town of Wiarton on the shores of Lake Huron. He's treated well. I'm not sure he's very accurate or any more accurate than Shubenacadie Sam from Nova Scotia (who, like Willie, predicts an early spring). Their American counterpart, the famous Punxatawney Phil from Pennsylvania disagrees. He predicts six more weeks of winter. Since winter has not really come to Canada (extremely unusual) it doesn't seem like a bad deal either way. Unless, of course, old man winter makes up for slacking off thus far...

While Groundhog day is a fun diversion in winter, I prefer Squirrel Day, which in our house is pretty much every day. Actually, it is technically a squirrel day. Groundhogs are very large ground squirrels of the marmot variety.