Sunday, February 06, 2022

NEW & OLD BUSINESS -- GROUNDHOGS FOILED

OLD BUSINESS

A few years ago I wrote here of my frustration with an unexpected large expense when my neighbor's back wall caused an attached segment of my wall to need reconstruction to prevent my own wall from completely falling.   My neighbor refused to acknowledge his wall was adversely pressuring my wall despite our both being able to literally see his whole back wall was leaning.  He saw this in person on several occasions, but denied the effect of his wall on mine.   In fact, over the time I gave him to become convinced, his wall could easily be seen to keep leaning further and further.  Additionally, I had sent him periodic measures and photos of the changing effects on my wall.

I finally consulted with our city authorities, they inspected, then gave me permission to detach his wall from mine.  I had to have my wall section reconstructed to prevent a worsening situation.   While that was in progress I had received notice my home insurance was in jeopardy.  My neighbor later told a city official when they asked him that he would provide some financial reimbursement to me for the corner of my damaged wall's reconstruction.  He never did.  

I ultimately determined my legal pursuit of him for my costs, or even a part of them, was not best at that time for a variety of reasons.  A few years later he subsequently sold the house.  He had only been renting the house anyway since he was living somewhere in Los Angeles.  I learned this week that during our storm the neighbor's backyard wall finally fell over.  I feel sorry for the new owner who I haven't yet met, but at least his wall no longer has any effect on my wall. 

RECENT BUSINESS

Writing of our SoCal weather,  I might add we've continued to have Santa Anna/Santana's (devil) winds.  Given the strong winds downing over 300 trees in our city, damaging some homes.  I have continued to withhold putting my trash bin out at the curb for weekly pickup lest it be blown over as would have happened the week I wrote of earlier.

I must not be living right because I had another weekend power outage about a week after the first power loss.  I had been able to regain electricity the first time the furnace mechanism had been affected but had power after that for only a week before this second sudden loss.  Only a service person was able to completely reactivate my power when he discovered a special code for restarting my furnace was required.  At least I hadn't caused the problem I was relieved to learn since my thermostat adjusting efforts trying to turn on the furnace had been lacking.  

Naturally, outages and breakdowns only occur on a weekend when repair service isn't readily available.  That second weekend of power outage was miserably SoCal cold again for me, but nothing compared to what people in the rest of the U.S. have been having with snow, ice, zero and below temperatures so I shouldn't complain.  Interestingly, this coming week our temperatures are going to be in the 70's - 80's F.  This is unusually warm for these months.

The wonderful December rainfall we received has not been repeated, so our drought seems to be dominating again.  There are no storms predicted in our future.  February and March are typically the last months of our rainy season.

HUMANS FOIL GROUNDHOG'S WEATHER PROGNOSTICATIONS

Groundhog Day this past week on February 2nd brought thoughts that come to my mind every year.   I'm finally going to share them here in a somewhat light-hearted questioning manner -- maybe even humorous.  As if we don't have enough truly serious matters in the world -- what do you think?

Living many years beginning in my youth in a state adjoining Pennsylvania I always heard a lot about Punxsutawney Phil on Gobbler's Knob, long before he became a national celebrity with a special day observed in all groundhogs honor.

Phil, a groundhog, was said to exhibit behavior that would tell us on February 2nd if we would have more winter or spring, depending on whether he saw his shadow when he emerged from his burrow and hibernation.  Learning more about various creatures lives as I became an adult, I soon concluded Phil's human owners actions were not only exploiting him but interfering with anyone's ability to reasonably judge by Phil's behavior future weather conditions.

Not only does Phil have to cope with variable weather issues, he's not even allowed to emerge from his burrow when he thinks the timing is appropriate as described in Mary Bernath's Sunbury, Pennsylvania's Danville News article linked here.   One observer is reported to have noted:

"Phil doesn't want to come out, so they have to grab him by the scruff of his neck to pull him out."  

Well, in my view, no wonder Phil has such a poor weather predictive accuracy record.  Seems to me Phil's knowing when to emerge to see if he can see his shadow is a critical element in determining any prognostication for future weather.

Bernath reports people turn out in large numbers to see Phil on Groundhog Day:

"While all this hoopla is going on, most ordinary Pennsylvania groundhogs are still soundly asleep in their burrows.  According to Jon Beam, naturalist at the Montour Preserve and assistant director of MARC, groundhogs settle in for the winter in late October and don't awaken until the last half of February or even early March.  Males get up first, to wander around and check out female burrows to see who is awake.  They might go back to their burrows for a while to keep warm, but the deep sleep is over."

I think we're long past time when Phil needs the freedom to determine for himself when to emerge from his burrow after awakening from hibernation.  Maybe then Phil and other groundhogs will give us more accurate weather predictions about when or if winter is ending and spring is coming.  

18 comments:

  1. I had problems with my upstairs neighbour in our apartment complex with water leaking from his bathroom. It took a great deal of persuasion from the Managing Committee to get him to agree to share the expenses of repairing the problem. I can understand your angst with your neighbour.

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    1. Glad you were able to have your water leakage from neighbor’s bathroom expenses shared. Our city doesn't get into issues like mine as a rule, then the official to whom my neighbor reportedly made the commitment to share my expense left so there was no record or even a consistent replacement person with whom I could consult when I tried to pursue the matter.

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  2. Congrats on the winds to solve your neighbor problem.
    So sorry about your power outages. We were lucky in that respect. Just sleet, snow and really cold weather
    Poor Phil. Jerked out of his warm bed while the other Groundhogs get to sleep away. Nature can't respond on the same day each year. You would think we would know better. I'm all for a Free Phil campaign:)

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    1. Does seem unfair to poor Phil and furthermore that the weather prognostication story persists.

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  3. Living in NEO, only six more weeks of winter would be a delight. So no matter what Phil--or his Ohio counterpart, Buckeye Chuck--says, it's pretty much the same thing to us.

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    1. Yes, the weather variations in different parts of our country does complicate matters, too, and Cleveland does get severe winters, probably ending later especially with the Great Lakes (Erie) effect. Buckeye Chuck must have come into prominence after I was away from Ohio as he’s new to me.

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  4. I guess one of the most famous groundhogs did pass away. I am glad that your house situation was resolved. I hate when people do not step forward for their responsibilities.

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    1. I expect there's quite a turnover in ground hogs since nature studies report in captivity they can live only 10 years. Otherwise, in the wild their life span is 4 to 5 years, but they can live up to 6 years.

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  5. Note: i see Buckeye Chuck became active in weather prognostication in the 1970s. His burrow is in Marion, Ohio. Contrary to Phil, Chuck says there will be an early Spring this year. I wonder if they drag him out of his burrow, too. or if he’s allowed to emerge naturally? I suspect it’s the former. You can read about Chuck here: https://www.google.com/search?q=buckeye+chuck&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS796US796&oq=buckeye+chuck&aqs=chrome..69i57.7039j0j7&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

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    1. Groundhogs are also called wood chucks. A popular tongue twister I heard as a child:
      How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? He would chuck, he would, as much as he could, and chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

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  6. Having had experience with terrible neighbours, I totally sympathize with what you went through! Even legal recourse can be futile and additional expenses piled on top of the first.
    XO
    WWW

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    1. Yes, you pinpointed the complexity of what can initially seem quite simple to resolve.

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  7. Neighbour disputes can get very nasty. Luckily we've had few such quarrels, mainly over neighbours being too noisy (in one case having all-night parties every week). Walls and fencing have never been a problem. In fact neighbours have several times put up fences that strictly were our responsibility.

    Yes, they should leave Phil alone and let him come out of hibernation when he's good and ready. Someone should sneak him away to some place where no one can find him!

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    1. My relations with the neighbor were always pleasant so I was surprised with his reaction. I shared with him the problem and made it clear I would cooperate and support his contacting the 2 different shopping center owners whose shrub growth on their side of his section of the block wall was the cause of his wall’s problems. In turn his wall was the cause of my block wall’s beginning to collapse. I don't know why he didn't want to accept the obvious, but I had little choice but to act as I did. This was the only time I or my husband and I ever had neighbor issues.

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  8. I am so sorry you had such a bad neighbor! Hope that doesn't happen to me.

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    1. Difficult to understand why that former home owner responded as he did since otherwise he had been very nice.

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  9. Sorry about your neighbor and how things turned out. I think you said he was "only renting the house" but then said he sold the house. How can that be? Poor old Phil always has his share of backers and critics !

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    1. That former home owner did not live in the house — he rented it out to other people.

      Phil hasn't been the problem so he has my sympathy as the humans put him on their schedule rather than his own natural one. Of course, that likely would mean Phil would no longer emerge from his burrow on the same day each year, but could be different days dictated by each year’s varying weather conditions, not some manmade calendar schedule.

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