About twenty residents met at Sandy Wayside Park this past Saturday to do some volunteer work on the trails and, by chance, get a glimpse of Barlow or Belle Boomer. Boomer Day, being February 2nd, is half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. This "cross quarter" time is observed in pagan as well as religious ceremonies. For us, and especially this year, after a rather long cool, snowy spell since Christmas, Boomer Day turned out to be beautiful, sunny and mild. And did indeed remind us that spring it definitely coming.
So this band of local volunteers enjoyed the quiet, peaceful visit into mountain beaver territory. One person briefly saw one of our boomers quickly hide under the dense canopy. Now did the Boomer see its shadow? We can argue whether or not there was a Boomer shadow to see, as under the dense canopy it is all shadow. Now if we could grab the Boomer and carry it out to the parking lot, then it would see its shadow because it was a lovely sunny day. This philosophical discussion needs to be clarified much as the humans have decided in the most famous of all groundhog publicity shows. In this case we would argue that yes the Boomer would have seen its shadow if it was out and away from his/her natural habitat.
And what difference does it make? In some climates there can be more distinct weather changes of continuing cold or nice warm up associated with spring. Here on the western slope of Mt. Hood and the Cascade Mountain Range, we live in a rain forest with 100" or more of rain. More than twice the rainfall of Portland which is only an hour drive downhill into congestion. So these months (February, March, April, and May) are significant for their rainfall. The rain clouds come and stick around the tall trees and moss on our foothills like velcro. So our paradigm is not six more weeks of winter vs. the appearance of an early spring. Our paradigm is more like six or twelve more weeks of rain.
So in the tradition of previous (in all time) of hedgehog and groundhog sightings, our Boomer "saw" its shadow and twelve more weeks of rain (our modification) is the Boomers forecast. The sighting was attested to by a local group of anonymous (but not hermit) neighbors who enjoy the wilderness on both sunny and rainy days.
So this band of local volunteers enjoyed the quiet, peaceful visit into mountain beaver territory. One person briefly saw one of our boomers quickly hide under the dense canopy. Now did the Boomer see its shadow? We can argue whether or not there was a Boomer shadow to see, as under the dense canopy it is all shadow. Now if we could grab the Boomer and carry it out to the parking lot, then it would see its shadow because it was a lovely sunny day. This philosophical discussion needs to be clarified much as the humans have decided in the most famous of all groundhog publicity shows. In this case we would argue that yes the Boomer would have seen its shadow if it was out and away from his/her natural habitat.
And what difference does it make? In some climates there can be more distinct weather changes of continuing cold or nice warm up associated with spring. Here on the western slope of Mt. Hood and the Cascade Mountain Range, we live in a rain forest with 100" or more of rain. More than twice the rainfall of Portland which is only an hour drive downhill into congestion. So these months (February, March, April, and May) are significant for their rainfall. The rain clouds come and stick around the tall trees and moss on our foothills like velcro. So our paradigm is not six more weeks of winter vs. the appearance of an early spring. Our paradigm is more like six or twelve more weeks of rain.
So in the tradition of previous (in all time) of hedgehog and groundhog sightings, our Boomer "saw" its shadow and twelve more weeks of rain (our modification) is the Boomers forecast. The sighting was attested to by a local group of anonymous (but not hermit) neighbors who enjoy the wilderness on both sunny and rainy days.
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