Mukilteo Musings

Ground Hog Day

Some people never give this day a second thought. But for me, I have always found Ground Hog Day to be nothing but confusing. As the years pass, the day bothers me more and more. First of all, as a child I knew a lot about animals thanks to my Dad. In Western Montana, we had gophers, lateralis (ground) squirrels, regular squirrels, chipmunks, badgers, marmots, muskrats, beavers, various mice and rats, shrews and moles, skunks, porcupines, raccoons, cute little pikas, martens, weasels, and river otters but we did not have any GROUND HOGS.

Actually, as I name all of the above rodent like creatures, memories come to mind. As previously stated on this blog, we had a lateralis squirrel named "Chipper" as a pet and a raccoon named "Cooney". (Obviously, I must have named them.) The others I have seen in the wild both alive and dead as roadkill. I remember my Dad after a morning of salmon fishing in Idaho, fishing for gophers. A little gopher hole existed near our campsite and we had seen some babies scurrrying in and out. "Chipper" had been long gone so Dad decided we could use another pet from the wild. I am now totally opposed to capturing healthy wild animals as pets but this was the 60's and we did that sort of thing back then. Anyway, my Dad who had also tried fly fishing for bats unsuccessfully, rigged up a little noose from his fish line and placed it around the gopher hole. He then backed up with his fish pole, made himself hidden from any nearby Mama gophers and waited. The plan was to jerk his pole a bit, enough to tighten the noose around a baby gopher without hurting him and "voila", we would have "Gophie" for the next couple of years. Little Janet was excited. But alas, Mama gopher must have been watching the entire operation from an adjacent secret hole because we never did see any gophers--baby or otherwise--after that.

Back to Ground Hog Day. Every year in school we did some art project with ground hogs--an animal I had never seen nor knew a thing about. I tried to envision marmots which were about the closest thing we had to a ground hog and I knew from my personal experience that they were not afraid of their own shadow. And if the marmot cast a shadow, then this would mean the sun was out; if the sun was out, it must be a nice day which would mean spring might be just around the corner. After I had my own children, Ground Hog Day became even more complicated because around here, the existence of a shadow was even more indicative of a gorgeous spring-like day. And we do not have ground hogs here either!!

Evidently, today that ground hog named Phil in Pennsylvania saw his shadow and it was proclaimed six more weeks of winter suffering. I have decided that rather than be totally confused about Ground Hog Day, none of the hoopla applies to us. We do not have ground hogs and shadows mean sunshine. Sunshine in February means spring is here in the Puget Sound area and believe me it is. We have had weather in the 50's with no chance of rain; the mountains have been out and, last night......WOW......last night the sunset was so gorgeous, it made the news on King5.

On King5, pictures were shown from Federal Way which is South Sound. I live in North Sound and it was just as spectacular here. At 5:30 P. M. last night, the entire Puget Sound area was ablaze with beauty. Even the mountain beavers perched next to their little dens with a shadow behind them must have paused without fear.... and in complete awe.








photos taken at 5:30 P.M. on Ground Hog Day Eve