How’s the weather? Ask a groundhog?

 What’s the Forecast?—Ask the Ground Hog?

A couple of days ago—maybe three or four by now we started.hearing about the approaching winter storm.  the weather people  here started  their all too familiar fear campaign and even predicted “storm aged in”talking about snow totals  ov a foot and a half in places etc.  They went on and on about  how it was going to snow for  36 hours straight.  Well…. Thankfully they were as usual all jacked up about something that just didn’t happen.  This leads. To two seeking peace and joy questions.

How often  do we  get caught up in the fear of things that we cannot  control and that may not ever happen?  

These weather forecasts  sort of teach us to expect  to pay attention to things that might happen and that could  cause us anxiety.  

The second  question is—“Why don’t we have “Wonderful Weather  Warnings?”  

Seriously, why don’t we have  the National Weather.Service tell us when it’s going to be an exceptionally great day to take a walk, plant a tree, or play your guitar out on the river bank?  If the weather service can  tell us to prepare for rotten weather wouldn’t it be nice if two or three days before the best day of the week  was upon us we knew to have  our cooler  and music devices ready for a picnic lunch?  Why  don’t we get advised to slow down and. To enjoy the gentle breeze and sunshine?  

Oh and what about  this whole. Ground Hog’s Day. Weather prediction deal? 

First of all  shy in the world is a ground hog anyway?  

Well according to National Geographic the G-Hog  (that’s its rapper name, is related to squirrels and can be found. In most of the North American. Continent.  Farmers and Carl the assistant grounds keeper don’t much care for these critters that are generally small,however  can grow up to 16 pounds.  Generally  the larger varieties get called “wood chucks’ and though there are not scientific studies one would imagine they get rather tired of answering questions about how much wood they can chuck if in fact they  could. 

Now… because it’s vital we know the record  low for March 25th 1937, we have kept track of the weather for quite some time.  So it is possible to  make a factual statement  about  the accuracy of  g-hog forecasting. When it comes to Gobbler’s knob’s most famous furry  forecaster.  As it turns out Phil predicted six more weeks of winter yesterday and as it turns out Phil is only correct about 40% of the time.  But come on now  it’s a g-hog… it doesn’t consult climatologists about carbon footprints and atmospheric  changes.  Phil comes out—get’s his 15 minutes of fame and if it’s sunny  we have winter in February…. Oh and in a few weeks of March sometimes.  

so  all of that  boils down to this.  In seeking peace and joy we put up a lot of barriers because  our world is full of folks who seem to have more skills at selling. Fear that selling peace.  Weather  is a subject we love to talk about, however we can’t do much about it.  Seeking peace and joy  may work better  if we spend time talking about things we want to change and if we find folks who want to work toward that change to talk with.  Also. It is good to balance  out the anxiety. We might experience with an expectation  that there will be sunny days ahead.  It is also good to remember that  we get to  chose whether  a day is partly cloudy or partly sunny and that counts when it comes to seeking peace and joy.  *—