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In the United States, a German belief about the badger (applied in Switzerland to the wolf) has been transferred to the woodchuck, better known as the groundhog: on Candlemas he breaks his hibernation in order to observe the weather; if he can see his shadow he returns to his slumbers for six weeks, but if it rains he stays up and about, since winter will soon be over. This has earned Candlemas the name of ‘Groundhog Day’. In Quarryville, Lancaster County, Pa., a Slumbering Groundhog Lodge was formed, whose members, wearing silk hats and carrying canes, went out in search of a groundhog burrow; on finding one they watched its inhabitant’s conduct and reported back. Of twenty observations recorded, eight prognostications proved true, seven false, and five were indeterminate. The ritual is now carried on at Punxsutawney, Pa., where the weather prophet has been named Punxsutawney Phil. (The Oxford Companion to the Year)

By Sydney Beveridge

Every February Second, people across Pennsylvania and the world look to a famous rodent to answer the question—when will spring come?

For over 120 years, Punxsutawney Phil Soweby (Punxsutawney Phil for short) has offered his predictions, based on whether he sees his shadow (more winter) or not (an early spring).

The first official Groundhog Day celebration took place in 1887 and Phil has gone on to star in a blockbuster film, dominate the early February news cycle, and even appear on Oprah. (He also has his own Beanie Baby and his own flower.)

In addition to weather predictions, Phil also loves data, and while people think he is hibernating, he is actually conducting demographic analysis. As a Social Explorer subscriber, he used the site’s mapping and reporting tools to look at the composition of his hometown.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Punxsutawney, PA, located outside of Pittsburgh, is part of Jefferson County. Examining Census data from 1890, Phil learned that the population was 44,405 around the time of his first predictions. While the rest of the nation was becoming more urban, Jefferson County remained more rural with only one eighth of the population living in places with 2,500 people or more (compared to nearly half statewide and more than a third in the US).

Many Jefferson residents worked in the farming industry. Back then, there were 3.2 families for every farm in Jefferson County — higher than the rest of the state with 5.0 families per farm.

Less than three decades after the Civil War, the county (located in a northern state) was 99.9 percent white, which was a little higher than statewide (97.9 percent) and also higher than nationwide 87.8 percent. (The Census also noted that there was one Chinese resident of Jefferson County in 1890.)

Groundhog Day was originally called Candlemas, a day that Germans said the hibernating groundhog took a break from slumbering to check the weather. (According to the Oxford Companion to the Year.) If the creature sees its shadow, and is frightened, winter will hold on and hibernating will continue, but if not, the groundhog will stay awake and spring will come early. Back in 1890, there were 703 Germans living in Jefferson County (representing 1.6 percent of the county population and 11.3 percent of the foreign born), making Germany the fourth most common foreign born place of birth behind England, Scotland, and Austria. Groundhog Day is also said to be Celtic in its roots, so perhaps the 623 Irish residents (representing 1.4 percent of the county population and 10.1 percent of the foreign born) helped to establish the tradition in Pennsylvania.

Looking to today’s numbers, Phil was astonished to learn from the 2010 Census that Jefferson County has just 795 more people than it did 120 years ago. While Jefferson grew by 1.8 percent, the state grew by 141.6 percent and the nation grew by 393.0 percent.

Phil dug deeper. The 2008-10 American Community Survey data reveal that the once-prominent farming industry had shrunk considerably. (Because it is a small group, “agriculture” is now grouped with other industries including forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining.) While Jefferson residents are more likely to work in the industry than other Pennsylvanians, that share represents just 4.4 percent of the employed civilian workforce.

According to the Census, Jefferson is still predominately white (98.3 percent), while the rest of the state and nation have become somewhat more diverse (81.9 percent white in Pennsylvania and 72.4 percent nationwide). Today there are 24 Chinese residents (out of a total of 92 Asian residents).

As Phil rises from his burrow this February second, he will survey the shadows with new insight into his community and audience. To learn more about Punxsutawney Phil’s hometown burrow (and your own borough), please visit our mapping and reporting tools.

Sydney Beveridge is the Media and Content Editor for Social Explorer, where she works on the blog, curriculum materials, how-to-videos, social media outreach, presentations and strategic planning. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. A version of this article originally appeared on the Social Explorer blog. You can use Social Explorer’s mapping and reporting tools to investigate dreams, freedoms, and equality further.

Social Explorer is an online research tool designed to provide quick and easy access to current and historical census data and demographic information. The easy-to-use web interface lets users create maps and reports to better illustrate, analyze and understand demography and social change. From research libraries to classrooms to the front page of the New York Times, Social Explorer is helping people engage with society and science.

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The post Burrowing into Punxsutawney Phil’s hometown data appeared first on OUPblog.

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This illustration appeared in last May's issue of the children's magazine Clubhouse Jr.
It's now available here in my Etsy Shop.

I don't know if I have any local readers, but in case I do I thought I'd bring up something very cool that's happening here in Dallas. Storyopolis Entertainment has established a speakers series featuring various children's book luminaries. The speakers give their presentations in both the Ball Park in Arlington and the Allen Public Library. Here are links to the list of speakers at both locations:
Ball Park: http://www.storyopolisentertainment.com/texas-rangers
Allen Public Library: http://www.storyopolisentertainment.com/allen

I went to see Raul Colon last month in Allen and really enjoyed the presentation. I'm going to try to see them all!

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Keilana didn’t sleep through the night until she turned two, but she was well-behaved in the evening. Unless someone tried to put her to bed. Then she would turn into a whirling wildcat with unlimited aggressive energy. Given this, I learned early on that, contrary to endless criticism, if I let her stay up until she was sleepy, she would snuggle with me when she was ready and drift off. So, when Connor came along, I mistakenly assumed it would be the same. One night when he was a month old, nothing was working. He wouldn’t sleep in the family bed, wouldn’t nurse or rock or walk to sleep, wouldn’t just give up from exhaustion. Finally, worn out, I decided to take a break, put him down, and walk away for a bit. Even if he cried hysterically, it had to be done. I walked with purpose, to steel my resolve, into the bedroom and bent to place him in his crib, braced for the guilt-inducing wails. But there was silence. The moment he touched the mattress, he stretched out his arms as if to give the bed a big hug, laid down his wee head, and fell asleep with a heavy sigh. Just like that. All he wanted was to go to bed at a decent time and be left alone. Who knew? In Claude Clement’s Go to Sleep, Little Groundhog, everyone keeps bugging the little guy to help him drift off. Maybe he just needs some alone time.

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Cp_27%3AClaude%20Cl%C3%A9ment&field-author=Claude%20Cl%C3%A9ment&page=1

http://www.librarything.com/author/clementclaude

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Here's the new December Drawing! For a chance to find this booger in your mailbox just click here!

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First the poem by Shel Silverstein, then the story.

I made myself a snowball
As perfect as could be.
I thought I’d keep it as a pet
And let it sleep with me.
I made it some pajamas
And a pillow for its head.
Then last night it ran away,
But first — it wet the bed.

Thanks for coming to Poetry Friday. Round-up available at Big A, little a. Interested parties may stay for the story; all others may file out quietly.

My husband woke me up at 6:45 a.m. this morning to ask where he might find the camera to bring on his trip. While a phrase went through my mind as to where he might find the camera, I mumbled a reply and staggered to the kitchen to look for the rechargeable batteries. When he woke me, I was in the middle of a dream where a friend was telling me that I must know that we really weren’t friends and I should get over it. In the dream, I felt like I was punched in the stomach. And then I woke up, and I still felt emotionally jarred from the dream, because it was probably pretty accurate. There’s not a lot of hope for a day in which you’ve been rejected before you even woke up.

In this half-awake, emotionally raw state I said goodbye to my husband, who is going to Seattle for our film’s inclusion in a Sci-Fi short film festival. Then I convinced the girls to snuggle in bed for a few minutes (like twenty) before really starting our morning. We were all disappointed by the lack of snow, which had been predicted for overnight. My oldest told me a near equivalent of the snowball poem above, which did amuse us. Then the girls “phypnotized” each other to change their behaviors — one to stop picking her nose, the other to start eating corn. Too soon, we dragged ourselves out of the warm bed, dressed, ate breakfast, and I drove them to school.

As we approached the school, I realized that no one was walking to school. As we got to the school, we found the parking lot was nearly empty. Is it possible that the start of school was delayed due to light rain? As it turns out, yes it is possible, because this is the suburbs of D.C., where even the threat of sleet or snow is enough to cancel school.

We confirmed our guess on the Internet, and I went back to bed in an attempt to start the day all over again. but the forced sleep didn’t take, so here I am.

At least the groundhog didn’t see his shadow, so maybe spring will come early this year. At this moment, it’s all I can hope for. Unless... I look at the groundhog’s prediction as another sign of global warming, in which case the day is back to totally sucking.

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