Groundhog Day is over, but I felt I should report that Punxatawny Peaches also saw her shadow yesterday. We had just come home from dinner last night and were settling down to watch TV when Peaches stood frozen in the entrance to the hallway barking an alarm. We were a trifle worried that something might be amiss. Was a burglar lurking in the back bedroom? Was it a rat? A ghost come inside to dry out on a rainy, blustery night? (This was not so hard to believe since we had just come from seeing a rather creepy performance of the Sacramento Opera's "Turn of the Screw.") Since there were no intruders of any kind to be found, we couldn't understand why she was still standing there barking her head off. Then I noticed our shadows being thrown on the wall by the floor lamp. We laughed and began making shadow rabbits on the wall with our hands. Then the game was afoot, and she barked even more.

I just hope this doesn't mean we'll have six more weeks of winter! If they could just get Punxatawny Phil to bark, we'd be celebrating Grounddog Day from now on.