Spanish Joe - the World's only psychic Groundhog!

What can I say, Spanish Joe is just one famous hog! And ain't he a cute little fella?

Spanish Joe is asking the mayor if he might consider having the Town of Spanish adopt him as the official mascot.

Spanish Joe explains that he is very low maintenance and would not be a burden to the taxpayers.

He only asks that he is at least brought out once a year, but further explained that he would be very happy to promote local events and who knows, maybe we could even become the capital of Canada.

Editors note: Spanish Joe aims big LOL

Hey look, it's Chef Ramsay! Bet ya didn't know that Spanish Joe hangs with some pretty famous humans eh?

What can I say, he loves to cook on those long winter nights!

Yes, occasionally I do have time to keep up with the furry varmint. Check out what he has been up to, he does get around.

It was a dark and stormy night .... ok, so it really wasn't, but don't all stories start that way? In March 2003, in the middle of the night, Rick bolted upright in bed and said "Spanish Joe is telling me that there is something wrong". Without any further hesitation, Rick jumped into his clothes and into the truck and he quickly departed, Spanish Joe in tow.

They both returned a couple of hours later with a very tiny baby groundhog, who barely fit in our hand. Apparently, Spanish Joe had psychically informed Rick that there was an orphaned baby groundhog nearby and he needed to be rescued, pronto. The rescue site was next to a bridge in a high traffic area, and Spanish Joe found out that the groundhog's family had been unfortunate victims of that traffic. Now sometimes other groundhogs families in the area will take in an orphaned groundhog, but this was sadly not the case here. This adorable little groundhog was so young, we estimated only a couple of weeks old, that he had no fear of humans, plus I think Spanish Joe was a very calming influence.

A make-shift home for the baby groundhog was constructed. We used a new snowmobile boot liner, with the toe cut off, as his new burrow and Marvin took to it immediately as it was nice and warm and dark. When Marvin smelled the fresh dirt on any grasses we put in, he would go nuts and would start trying to dig and would continually nuzzle the dirt.

He was too young to feed vegetation to, so Rick asked Joe what to do. Joe suggested a natural baby formula mixed with Soya milk and using an eye dropper for a delivery system made feeding trouble-free. The baby groundhog attacked the eyedropper like a starving Siberian timber wolf when he was first fed, and he earned his nick name of "Starvin Marvin" at that time.

Marvin was very smart and learned quickly that when Rick made a certain sound with his lips to call him, that feeding time was at hand and Marvin would go ballistic. He started to gain weight like crazy and was gradually weaned off the special formula mixture. His new diet now included nice fresh grasses, clover, clover flowers and dandelions; with shaved carrots and lettuce for those in-between snacks.

After awhile it was time for Marvin to be returned to the wild. He was taken to a very remote and safe area, a secret spot where Rick knew other groundhogs were living. He had gained so much weight Rick had a lot of trouble getting him out of the boot liner, which we had already been adjusted once to accommodate his growth. He was finally free in the wild, and as he had been handled very little, he would adjust to the wild quite easily.

Rick tried to give him one final pat good-bye and Marvin promptly tried to bite him. I guess Marvin never heard of the saying "Don't bite the hand that feeds you!

The basic story here is true and we did rescue this little baby groundhog. We do drop by his new home from time to time and we are happy to report he is quite happy.

Spanish Joe was interviewed for many years by Helen Morley of the Mid-North Monitor in Espanola for his Groundhog Day prediction along with other weather related predictions, ok, ok, and sometimes he rambles on about other things too!



Groundhog Day 2012 - No Shadow Early Spring
Groundhog Day 2011 - No Shadow Early Spring
Groundhog Day 2010 - Saw Shadow Six More Weeks of Winter
Groundhog Day 2009 - Saw Shadow Six More Weeks of Winter
Groundhog Day 2008 - No Shadow Early Spring
Groundhog Day 2007 - No Shadow Early Spring
Groundhog Day 2006 - No Shadow Early Spring
Groundhog Day 2005 - Saw Shadow Six More Weeks of Winter
Groundhog Day 2004 - Saw Shadow Six More Weeks of Winter
Groundhog Day 2003 - No Shadow Early Spring
Groundhog Day 2002 - No Shadow Early Spring
Groundhog Day 2001 - No Shadow Early Spring
Groundhog Day 2000 - No Shadow Early Spring
Groundhog Day 1999 - No Shadow Early Spring

See below to read all the funny newspaper articles that went with his predictions.

Spanish Joe was often interviewed by local newspapers for his insight and predictions for the upcoming year.

See below to read all these hilarious newspaper articles.

Groundhog, the Original Weather Prophet
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