Who Would Have Thunk It?

well, i certainly didn't when i set out this morning to celebrate the feast of the presentation (candlemas) and groundhog's day. but bless The Lord is His great and unbridled mercy to me...there is a connection. you see, we watched this movie and i highly recommend it. in addition to all of the great 1980's sky high bangs, mullets and quiet riot t-shirts, it does a great job of telling all about the town of punxsutawney and how they became so famous for groundhogs telling the weather. in the 18th century german immigrants, commonly referred to around here as pa dutch brought this tradition to pennsylvania and the town of punxsutawney. in germany they had used the badger as their weather predictor. but since badgers were in short supply in their new home they assigned the duty to the plentiful groundhog. and all of this happened, you guessed it, on candlemas because "if candlemas be fair and bright, winter has another flight. if candlemas brings clouds and rain, winter will not come again." in other words, if it's sunny...he sees his shadow...and if it's not...well, you get it. so we had fun celebrating candlemas and groundhog's day that flowed out of this holy day. we made candle cookies out of pepperidge farms cookies with some red fruit roll up for the flamelike i saw over at catholic cuisine. and we made groundhogs
that "pop" out of their burrows.

overall, a great, very informative and enjoyable...yet very low key day. and those are the kind i love! :)