{"id":45919,"date":"2020-02-01T22:48:24","date_gmt":"2020-02-02T03:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=45919"},"modified":"2020-02-01T22:49:45","modified_gmt":"2020-02-02T03:49:45","slug":"first-groundhog-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2020\/02\/first-groundhog-day\/","title":{"rendered":"First Groundhog Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On February 2, 1887, Groundhog\nDay<\/a>, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at\nGobbler\u2019s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania<\/a>.\nAccording to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and\nsees its shadow, it gets scared and runs back into its burrow, predicting six\nmore weeks of winter weather; no shadow means an early spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Groundhog Day has its roots in the ancient Christian\ntradition of Candlemas, when clergy would bless and distribute candles needed\nfor winter. The candles represented how long and cold the winter would be.\nGermans expanded on this concept by selecting an animal\u2013the hedgehog\u2013as a means\nof predicting weather. Once they came to America, German settlers in\nPennsylvania continued the tradition, although they switched from hedgehogs to\ngroundhogs, which were plentiful in the Keystone State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groundhogs, also called woodchucks and whose scientific name\nis Marmota monax, typically weigh 12 to 15 pounds and live six to eight\nyears. They eat vegetables and fruits, whistle when they\u2019re frightened or\nlooking for a mate (they\u2019re sometimes called whistle pigs) and can climb trees\nand swim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They go into hibernation in the late fall; during this time,\ntheir body temperatures drop significantly, their heartbeats slow from 80 to\nfive beats per minute and they can lose 30 percent of their body fat. In\nFebruary, male groundhogs emerge from their burrows to look for a mate (not to\npredict the weather) before going underground again. They come out of\nhibernation for good in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1887, a newspaper editor belonging to a group of\ngroundhog hunters from Punxsutawney called the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club\ndeclared that Phil, the Punxsutawney groundhog, was America\u2019s only true\nweather-forecasting groundhog. The line of groundhogs that have since been\nknown as Phil might be America\u2019s most famous groundhogs, but other towns across\nNorth America now have their own weather-predicting rodents, from Birmingham\nBill to Staten Island Chuck to Shubenacadie Sam in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1993, the movie Groundhog Day starring Bill\nMurray popularized the usage of \u201cgroundhog day\u201d to mean something that is\nrepeated over and over. Today, tens of thousands of people converge on\nGobbler\u2019s Knob in Punxsutawney each February 2 to witness Phil\u2019s prediction.\nThe Punxsutawney Groundhog Club hosts a three-day celebration featuring\nentertainment and activities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 2, 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler\u2019s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}