The annual observance of Groundhog Day has deep agricultural roots going back to 1887 when Pennsylvania Dutch Germanic farmers gathered to celebrate what had been an old-world religious observance called Candlemas. Candlemas was celebrated by lighting candles as a seasonal recognition of the celestial station of midwinter.

The badger was the original animal conjured up as the animated soothsayer of forecasting weather. If he saw his shadow, it was an omen of a long winter, although this interpretation has frequently been questioned as the other way around.

On this side of the pond, the groundhogfilled the part of the nearest indigenous species to the badger. And at this time of year, it similarly was aroused out of hibernation by a biological alarm clock to refresh itself and look around. Most of the year it was a spirit of light and shadow in a subterranean bedchamber. This is usually a two-entrance burrow, with one just a ground-level peephole for observation position without coming outside. It is usually dug into a hedgerow with a wide view of lush farm pastures and green meadows.

A dairy farm is an ideal habitat for a groundhog like the one near to my home on Sconticut Neck in Fairhaven. I have often seen them out and about early in the morning or late in the day. They frequently pause from feeding to stand up and look around as a familiar sentinel for approaching danger and between feedings. They look like a sentinel and a familiar landmark of a bucolic countryside.

However, the peace and tranquility here was about to change two weeks before Thanksgiving with the early seasonal arrival of a snowy owl.

This unscheduled appearance was not climate-driven, but caused by an artic shortage of the snowy owl’s staple diet, the lemming. Farmland somehow has a similar appearance to their native tundra with barnyard scattered grain attracting lemming-looking rodents of mice and rats. As one of the two largest owls, they will take squirrels, rabbits, ducks, and geese – or even a groundhog. This timing of the snowy owl’s appearance changes the playing field for our friend the groundhog.

The Amish’s culture of subsistence agricultural farming left them today with a unique plain living, disciplined earthly lifestyle. They often connected animals with meteoric seasons like Groundhog Day. The Yankee farmer generation similarly followed the Native Americans whose celestial almanac linked five of the moons with living creatures, and February as the snow moon. Regardless, spring will come on time during the March 20 Vernal Equinox at exactly 5:58 pm Eastern Time when light and shadow will be of equal length all over the world, passing overhead as a planetary movement turning winter to spring as we revel below.

By George B. Emmons

We made it. February 2 marks the halfway mark of winter and here we stand, relatively unscathed by the ghastly torrents that winters past have rained (and snowed) down upon us and winds that knocked us down along with everything else around us. On the seasonal front, I dare say we have fared well thus far, only having to tolerate the diminished light of these shortened days, the early onset of evening alleviated only by the steady sequence of astonishing sunsets, not to mention the sun’s exquisite apologies for its late appearance every morning by some equally astounding sunrises.

Groundhog Day, that February 2 quasi-holiday on which The Wanderer places an overemphasis every year started out centuries ago as Candlemas. The day has multiple significances in Christianity and the Pagan religions, and February 2 is significant in cultures all across the globe. My thoughts this year are of the old Western European tradition of clearing the fields for the first plantings of spring. And even so today, we move towards spring with the promise of the returning light, the rebirth of life and the world around us, and perhaps even within ourselves.

During Candlemas, people would light candles blessed at church to dispel the darkness. My very close Danish friend in Copenhagen hated this dark half of the year. Over in Scandinavia during winter the sun would never truly rise high in the sky, instead slanting its light burning long shadows all across the daylight. She would burn white candlesticks every day to penetrate the long nights that would extend late into the morning and return early in the afternoon. I embraced her tradition a couple years ago to see me through the dark half of the year she died. After all, it was never the cold of winter or even the snow that got to me; it was always the darkness, which I have come to accept and even now find comfort in with my white candles glowing and the promise of a slow, gradual return to the light half of the year.

That slow, gradual return to light is the predictable part of winter. But we are yearly at the mercy of the uncertainty of winter as inhabitants along the coastline of New England. The 2019 Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts more rain than snow for us in the Tri-Town with mostly average temperatures for the most part through February.

And what say you, groundhog? To what are we beholden to endure these next six weeks? Will that traditional first spring flower cover of The Wandererbe in February like it has been in the past, or in March as it was last year? And, speaking of covers, congratulations to Hannah Ramalho of Mattapoisett, the winner of the annual Wanderer Groundhog Day cover contest. Thank you to all the participants who entered their artwork into the contest, and we hope to see you again in October for our next Halloween cover contest. Until then, go Patriots! And come on, spring!

By Jean Perry