Sunday, March 13, 2011

Morning Has Broken, Daylight Savings Edition

We sprang forward last night.  All day yesterday I heard media people declaring "an extra hour of daylight". 

There is no extra hour.

Daylight Savings Time simply means we take an hour from the beginning of the day and shift it to the end.  Same number of hours in the day.  It's that simple.

Except it's really not simple.  The photo above was taken at 7:30 am.  Not exactly "morning light" by my reckoning.  I live just to the east of the division between Eastern and Central time.  People here extoll the wonders of the evening sun -- by June, when the days are longest, I will sometimes go to bed before the sun goes down.  You may enjoy that.  I'd rather have some morning sun.

Before I moved here, I lived just to the west of the division between Eastern and Central time.  In June the sun rose around 5:30 am.  To me, that was an extra hour of daylight.  I would arise with the sun and have the great luxury of time before work.  To walk the dogs.  To work in the garden.  To bake or cook.  The sun would set around 8 or 8:30, giving me a short bit of darkness before bed each and every night.

I liked that better.

But we all know you can't always get what you want.  So I struggle through the new morning darkness.  With some effort, I hope to put my long evenings to good use reorganizing the barn, pruning shrubs, and getting the vegetable garden ready for summer.

Right after I have another cup of coffee.

3 comments:

Sheryl at Providence North said...

I don't mind watching the sunrise and the bats come home while having my morning coffee on the front porch. Not now, of course, as we still have a foot of snow, but in the spring.

The JR said...

I'm hoping I can get more done in the evenings, but it will also mean getting to eat much later.

Roberta said...

Viva la coffee. I'm on my second cup as I write this. It's always nice to have some daylight left to putter in the garden after work.