My children’s father liked to build things and, occasionally, when something went wrong, he’d grin and say, “Hmmm. I cut it off twice and it’s still too short.”
I’m pretty sure that the people who invented Daylight Saving Time used that motto, or the notion that cutting off the bottom of the blanket and adding it to the top makes the blanket longer.
I know you people in town like getting off in the middle of the afternoon to play golf, or whatever other hobby you enjoy, but here’s why country folks hate the time change.
We work from “Can see to Can’t see,” and by the time you can see now, we are already behind.
There are no more evenings to relax. By the time “can’t see” comes and we go indoors to make supper, it’s already going on nine o’clock.
When haying time arrives, it will be nearly noon before the field is dry enough to work.
Social life stops. Every event we might want to attend begins long before our workday ends.
That’s enough for a sample. Never mind the parents needing to get youngsters to bed while it’s still daylight, and up again for school when their inner clocks say they should have another hour to sleep.
My own kids never got any time off from chores once the time fell forward. Adults were in the calving lot when school ended, and there was a note on the table that said. “Your horse is saddled. Come and find us.” I don’t imagine it’s much different for the teenaged grandkids now. Homework can be done in “can’t see” time, so bedtimes come later as the calendar advances.
This is the time of year when schools suddenly realize that classroom days are fading fast so they add more activities, just when the kids are needed at home to help take up slack.
One of my daughters in law uses Scrabble tiles as part of the house décor. Different seasons of the year are represented by messages about what’s going on around the place. Past examples were, WRESTLING and RODEO. Now I see BALLIN, (two teens are involved in state basketball events) and another says, CALVING. Before long we will probably see, BRANDING and FENCING, followed by HAYING. One I’ve never seen, and don’t expect to, is SLEEPING.
I don’t know when she finds time to change the messages, since she’s generally outdoors. Probably while waiting up in the wee hours for a calf to be born.
Enjoy your extra hour of daylight. I hope it’s being fun. Also hope that someday Nebraska will wake up and join a few other renegade states that refuse to be involved with Daylight Saving. Of course, then some fool would probably introduce a proposal to put the whole state in one time zone, and it would likely be Central, because there are more votes and fewer cattle folks in the east, so I’ll just stop complaining and remember to be careful what I wish for.