I know, I know, I KNOW! You’re getting that funny feeling again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like you’ve been here before. Like you woke up and read this stupid story back in 2007 and then again in 2013. It almost feels like the quick Sliver blog is stuck in some kind of loop. Weird!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1) February 2nd is the\nmidpoint between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2) Early pagan farmers paid\nhomage to this moment with the hope of ensuring a good planting season ahead.\nThey’d build a bonfire and roast a virgin or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3) Christians disapproved of\nsuch things, so naturally they co-opted it. They named it “Candlemas”\nand instead of a virgin they suggested everybody burn a candle in the window.\nSweet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4) If the sun made an\nappearance on that day, the candle would throw a shadow. For some\ncounter-intuitive reason, they felt this would signify there would be a longer\nwinter of “six more weeks” and the cold would last until the Equinox,\non March 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5) When Europeans came to\nAmerica, they found that the Delaware Indians of Pennsylvania believed their\nancestor to be “Wojak, the groundhog.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
6) As good Christians, they\ndisapproved of such things, so naturally they co-opted it. They named it\n“Woodchuck” and suggested everyone keep an eye out for one to pop out\nof the ground like a candle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
7) The name Punxsutawney\ncomes from the Delaware, “ponksad-uteney” which means “the town\nof the sandflies.” Which for some odd reason makes it the perfect place to\nhost a bizarre Pagan\/Indian\/Christian agricultural ritual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
8) The town officially\ncommercialized the day in 1886.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
9) Punxsutawney Phil weighs\n15 pounds. Instead of wild grasses (his natural diet) he eats dog food and ice\ncream. He lives in the town library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
10) Since records have been\nkept, Phil has predicted “longer winter” 103 times, and “early\nspring” only 17 times, and he’s been right only 39% of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What all this means, of course, is that Phil is gonna have to keep improving, this strange annual ritual will keep repeating, and you’ll be reading this story again in 2025. Weird.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I know, I know, I KNOW! You’re getting that funny feeling again. Like you’ve been here before. Like you woke up and read this stupid story back in 2007 and then again in 2013. It almost feels like the quick Sliver blog is stuck in some kind of loop. Weird!…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[526,1720],"class_list":["post-1482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-groundhog-day","tag-punxatawney-phil"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Punx-Phil.jpg?fit=960%2C801&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1482"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1488,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions\/1488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}