Saturday, March 10, 2007

 

What Time Is It?

It's 11:00 O'Clock. Or it it actually Midnight? No, Daylight Saving Time doesn't officially start till 2:00 a.m. I guess they don't want to make the bars close an hour early because of the time change.

But is it ever 2:00 a.m.? Because then it will be 3:00 a.m. And why call it daylight saving time when we actually loose seep time?

And whom do we have to thank for this abberition? In early March no less? My American friends! Friends who post blogs about bright sunny days and "it it winter or spring." Well, in my corner of this time change its very much like winter. Well, the last few days were quite nice, but now its back to snow, snow, snow!

Apparently the first proponant of DST was an American (go figure). Benjamin Franklin calculated that we could save a lot of energy by make better use of the summer sun. Well, guess what? That's why we are experiencing the abberition so early this year.

I'm a little surprized because when I was a teen-ager, and we first experienced DST in our area, the argument was so the city folk could enjoy a longer evening playing golf or barbequing or whatever they did while us hard working farmers were slaving away doing chorse and working the fields from sun-up to sun-down no matter what the clock said (well, almost).

Dad, like most farmers, did'n like DST at all. He figured if the city man wanted to get home from work earlier, he could just get up earlier (with Dad), instead of messing with the clocks.

The cows don't like DST. Dad claimed that it took two weeks for their milk production to return to normal when he started milking them an hour early. And chickens? When Colleen worked on the chicken farm, they would adjust the artificial lighting and automatic feeding gradually over a two week period. But one year the new manager (a city boy) decided to make the change all at once. Well, it threw the chickens routine into such a tailspin that Colleen was two hours late getting home from picking eggs. And humans? On the first Monday morning of DST, there are more traffic accidents! (And less on the Monday we swith back!)

Here in the north the amount of daylight we get changes so much that changing the clock is almost redundant. We'll soon have more daylight than we'll know what to do with!

So what can I do? Stubbornly stay on standard time? Dad wanted to do that in his grumpier moments. Well, I could move back to Saskatchewan where they stay on Central Standard Time the year around. Why? The time zone division goes down the middle of the province, so this it the compromise they made. Works for them! And just west of here, in B.C.'s Peace country, they stay on Mountain Standard Time the year around. So during the winter they are the same as us Albertans with whom they do the most of their business, and during the summer they are the same as the rest of their province.

Meanwhile, I'll crawl into bed soon and complain about the early hour in the morning. Probably the worst thing about DST is that in happens on Sunday morning, and all across North America people will arrive at church an hour late!

Good night, see you in the daylight! Hope you're not late for church!

Comments:
It means I can stay longer into the evening out to Grand Haven.I don't like the springing forward in the spring.I do definately enjoy the falling back in the fall.Every time you guys get a snow storm it comes down to us.We also had more snow earlier in the week.It is now all thawing beginning to show some green grass.This morning was very hard to get up.I kept telling our four granddaughters a couple more minutes please and I'll get your breakfast.My eyes are very tired.
 
Now Uncle Ed, I was reading some of your previous blogs, which were quite interesting by the way, and you made a coment that I thought I'd remind you of. :)

My Dad lived virtually all his life here in Alberta, but he remained an American citizen throughout. So that means that for a Canadian, I'm about as American as one can get Nov 2004

Now you were blaming Americans right?! He he =)
Love you
Annette
 
You got me there Annette. I did get your comment about Runtlers on the Range. That was one of my Dad's favorite stories to tell.
Uncle Ed
 
Wow she sure got you on that one! Good catch Annette! Love ya everyone.
 
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