{"id":13419,"date":"2015-02-01T07:01:56","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T12:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=13419"},"modified":"2015-01-30T11:10:53","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T16:10:53","slug":"about-that-groundhog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2015\/02\/01\/about-that-groundhog\/","title":{"rendered":"About that groundhog (and his day)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The groundhog, a.k.a the woodchuck, or marmot, or whistle-pig, or weatherman? Photo: Cephas<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

Researchers are still puzzling over the age-old question, \u201cHow much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood,\u201d but I may have a solution. Re-brand the woodchuck.<\/p>\n

Like the words skunk and moose, woodchuck is a Native American term, Algonquin in this case. I don\u2019t know its English translation, but I\u2019d guess it means \u201cfat fur-ball that can inhale one\u2019s garden faster than one can say \u2018Punxsutawney Phil.\u2019\u201d Or something like that.<\/p>\n

Too bad the name woodchuck implies they\u2019re employed in the forest-products industry. Woodchucks haven\u2019t the teeth for chewing wood, nor do they have much use for wood in their burrows. (We can only assume their dens aren\u2019t paneled.)<\/p>\n

Much as I respect the origin of \u2018woodchuck,\u2019 I\u2019m in favor of sticking to one of its other names, groundhog, which is more descriptive. Not only do these rotund herbivores reside underground, they\u2019re such gluttons that I\u2019m pretty sure even swine call them hogs. Tellingly, another common name is \u2018whistle-pig,\u2019 referring both to groundhogs\u2019 warning call and their voracious appetite.<\/p>\n

Mature groundhogs in wild areas typically measure 15-25\u201d long and weigh 5-9 lbs. <\/b>With access to lush gardens or tasty alfalfa, though, they can grow to 30\u201d long and weigh as much as 30 lbs. Now that’s a ground hog<\/i>. Needless to say, vacuuming up fields and gardens has given them a bad name in some circles.<\/p>\n

Native to most of North America from southern Alaska to Georgia, groundhogs are a type of rodent called a marmot. They\u2019re related to other marmots and to ground squirrels out west, but in the northeast they have no close kin. Given what a marmot can eat, that\u2019s a mercy.<\/p>\n

They may be gluttons, but they\u2019re not lazy. Groundhogs dig extensive burrows up to 5\u2019 deep and 40\u2019 long, each having two to five entrances. Supposedly, the average groundhog moves 35 cubic feet of soil excavating its burrow. (I\u2019d like to know who measures these things.)<\/p>\n

Alfalfa rustling is bad enough, but this hole-digging hobby really riles farmers. Groundhog holes and soil piles can injure livestock, weaken foundations and damage equipment. Many a farmer trying to mow hay has cursed the groundhog when the haybine \u2018found\u2019 a soil pile. Hard to appreciate groundhogs\u2019 cuteness while you replace cutterbar knives for the tenth time.<\/p>\n

True hibernators, groundhogs usually den up in October, their winter body temperature dropping to 50F and their heart slowing to a few beats per minute. Groundhogs might emerge in February in Pennsylvania, but up north you won\u2019t find one blearily sniffing around for a mate that early. I\u2019ve seen a burrow entrance in March with a halo of dirt scattered on the snow from where the critter had recently burst out, a squint-eyed dust mop looking for love.<\/p>\n

The notion that sun on February 2 means a late spring began in ancient Europe. That date marks the pagan festival of Imbolc, halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox. Imbolc was supplanted by Candelmas as Christianity spread, but both traditions reference the \u201csunny equals more winter; cloudy equals spring\u201d idea.<\/p>\n

Mostly because Europe lacked groundhogs, Groundhog Day was invented in the New World, first popping up among Pennsylvania Germans in the mid-1800s. Though Punxsutawney Phil was the original prognosticating marmot, others like Wiarton Willie in Wiarton, Ontario; Jimmy the Groundhog in Sun Prairie, WI and General Beauregard Lee of Lilburn, GA followed.<\/p>\n

We know how much ground a groundhog can hog: a lot, especially if beans and peas are growing on it. I say we pull those researchers off the wood-chucking quantification project and have them find\u00a0 how to make Groundhog Day overcast so we can get a break from the deep-freeze.<\/p>\n

Paul Hetzler is a horticulture and natural resources educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers are still puzzling over the age-old question, \u201cHow much wood could a woodchuck chuck […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6205],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13419"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13419"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13499,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13419\/revisions\/13499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}