Groundhog Day

You can tell my blog has been around a long time when I start repeating topics. Two years ago I exhausted all of my Groundhog-Day-themed material, so for this year's groundhog drawing, I'm just going to have to write about the groundhog itself. Here are a few things I just learned about groundhogs:

"The groundhog, also known as the woodchuck, land beaver, or whistlepig, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots."

Okay, I'm familiar with the term "woodchuck," mainly because of all the times I've been invited to consider the amount of wood a woodchuck could chuck, considering it could in fact chuck wood. But since when are groundhogs also known as whistepigs? Who knows them as that, and what asylum do they call home? As for land beaver... don't we already have a land beaver? That's like calling an elephant a "land cow." We already have a land cow... it's called a cow. The paragraph goes on to say:

"Most marmots, such as yellow-bellied and hoary marmots, live in rocky and mountainous areas, but the woodchuck is a lowland creature."

"Yellow-bellied" and "hoary?" Who's naming the different kinds of marmots, and what resentment are they harboring? Isn't "yellow-bellied" the Old West term for someone who's cowardly or spineless? I think that's what the Sheriff of Nottingham called Marty McFly. My vote is for "lily-livered" marmot... it just sounds a little more insulting. And then there's the "whorey" marmot... I know that's not how it's spelled, but marmots can't read, so it all sounds the same to them. Yellow-bellied or whorey... the poor marmots can't win.

From now on, instead of calling it "Groundhog Day," I will know February 2nd as "Lily-Livered Whistlepig Day." Just when you thought this holiday couldn't make any less sense...