Happy New Year to all my Coffee friends. I wish you joy and happiness.

In an early morning ceremony today, Punxsutawney Phil rose from his heated burrow at Gobbler’s Knob, PA, and signaled to his handlers that he saw no shadow today and accordingly foretold an early end to winter. Over the 125 years that the ceremony has taken place, Phil has seen his shadow 98 times and not seen it only 16, counting today. (Records don’t exist for every year.) The last time he didn’t see a shadow was in 2007. In 2008, the crowd booed the prospect of “six more weeks of winter,” as they no doubt would have today, when a smaller than usual crowd stood in the freezing rain to watch the ceremony.

I got a great I found you e-mail from Darius over at Oliver di Place. This is his folk music week, and he’s invited us to drop over and visit.