Usually I use this forum to talk about Autism, but occasionally I diverge. Today I choose to diverge and talk about another passion of mine, hedgehogs! As many of you know, I have two of them. They are both girls, Sunny and Emily Rose. Left to their own devices they would sleep all day and spend their nights foraging for food and running on their wheels. This behavior is similar to how hedgehogs would act in the wild. They sleep during the day and often appear at night, or sometimes dawn and dusk, to look for food. A hedgehog will travel up to a mile a night looking for juicy bugs.
Yesterday our nation focused its attention on a rather grumpy groundhog who was hauled out of his nice warm den, shoved in front of video cameras and was told to tell us when spring is coming. But, did you know that before we relied on groundhogs to tell us when spring was coming, people relied on hedgehogs? Really. Our favorite spiky friends live in the UK. People there used to rely on the hedgehogs, and their shadows, to foretell the advent of spring. Time passed and people moved to the United States. Hedgehogs are not indigenous to the US, so what were these poor immigrants to do? There was not a hedgehog to be found. So, they picked the next best thing which is a groundhog, and so groundhog day was born. There is a zoo in Oregon that has several African Pygmy Hedgehogs and remains true to their roots. Every February 2, they bring out their hedgehogs to see if they see their shadows. Interestingly, over the years, the hedgehogs have been right 50 percent of the time while the groundhog was right only 38 percent of the time. I am laying my odds on the hedgehogs.
So, there is your daily dose of hedgehog trivia. If you want to know more about our prickly friends shoot me an email or text and I will inundate you with all of my hedgehog knowledge and lore. Thanks!
Harriet's Hedgehogs and Autism Advocacy 