Six More Weeks of Winter

from the Punxsutawney Phil file

Phil's secret elixir for long life (from his blog)

"You will need a 50-gallon cast iron kettle and a cord of firewood from the Giant Sequoia trees of California. The fire must be lit by rubbing together 2 dried limbs from a Gingko tree. (Any attempt at lighting the fire with conventional methods such as matches, lighters, etc. will void the mixture and make it worthless and powerless). When the sequoia wood has burned into flaming embers, place a 100-pound chunk of ice from Antarctica into the kettle. Hopefully you'll be able to figure out that the fire should be under the kettle at this point. Let the ice melt down and come to a rolling boil. Add 10 pounds of apples, 7 large carrots, 3 stalks of celery, 5 pounds of alfalfa sprouts, a bucket of acorns, a bushel of dandelion roots, 3 cloves of garlic, and 20 packages of strawberry Kool-Aid. Allow to simmer for 4 days at precisely 215 degrees. After the 4-day simmer is complete, add 2 cups of pasteurized, homogenized, distilled Lochness Monster urine (yes, I know - this is the really tough part). Allow to cool then strain liquid through an old pair of underwear that has been certified to have been worn at Gobbler's Knob on February 2nd by a member of the Inner Circle (of course the underwear should have been laundered first!). Salt and pepper to taste. Serves 1 groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil."