It's party time in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania ...

Phil saw his shadow this morning that means six more weeks of winter.

You might ask why -- What does this small beast and yard pest, bane of tractors, have that weathermen don't?

First, this is just about halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. In the time without clocks, everyone would have noticed that the rising of the sun and length of day was longer.

First redux: weather fronts and storms move across the USA in a distinct pattern of days. Go ask the Farmer's Almanac about predicting daily weather based on historical records.

Second, the critters stop hibernating come of out burrows and seek mates.

Third, Punxsutawney Pennsylvania stages a week-long drunken binge for the entire town and all its guests. It ends with a sunrise ceremony and a shrieking, screaming of a rodent dragged from a fake den by a nearly comatose drunken mayor in front of a crowd of drunken fools...

And it's "Philomena" not "Phil" because Phil bit like a madman and scratched with claws that could remove eyes and leave facial scars... Plus, sticking your hand and trying to grab a scared animal while drunk is a good way to lose fingers.

You didn't think that some groundhog actually lived in that den, did you? Philomena is kept in a zoo, treated well.

You didn't think people did this silliness without alcohol?

You didn't think that Punxsutawney is so bucolic, nostalgic, and rurally attractive that people flocked there in the cold of winter to discuss Proust, did you?

It's a party, party, party for days before and a massive hangover on the way home.

Has anyone wrote a story about Castrating the Groundhog? perhaps this could be a cause for such a story to be written...