We get back to Standard Time today.- Now,
which way do we turn the clock?- It is really quite simple.-
Adjust your clock so you get to sleep an extra hour Monday
morning.- That means if you wake at seven am on the old time,
fix your clock so it says six.-Then go back to sleep for
another hour.
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VIKI MATHER |
Autumn is a natural time for getting more
sleep.- The turtles and frogs are tucking in for winter, as are
the bears and bats.- Let's face it.- The daylight hours are
getting too short, the outside temperature is getting too cold,
and there's not much left to eat out there in the wilds.- Why
not just go to bed until the sun comes back in spring?
Sometimes I would just like to step in line
with the animals that sleep through the winter.- There is good
reason for being tired when it is dark so much of the
time.
Still, there are creatures that tough it
out.- Moose manage just fine.- They eat twigs and sleep under
the stars.- The grouse does well on buds from the trees, and
the snowshoe hare nibbles away on the bark of shrubs.- They all
have better coats than I do.
They are also fortunate not to have clocks to
manage their days.-
Nonetheless, I love the mornings in early
November.- I am in no rush to "adjust" to the time change.- For
the first time in weeks, I can get up just as the sky starts to
get light, and take some time to enjoy the morning before I
have to get on with the day's chores.- No one else is up and
about.- It's quiet.
I may go out for a walk in the frosty
morning, or I may just sit by the window and watch as the sky
changes colour from deep blue, to pink and gold.- I can watch
the fog rise from the lake.- Sometimes it obscures the sun, or
rises to become puffy clouds.
The first week of the autumn time change is
glorious in the morning.- I delight in the extra light.- It
gives an energetic start to the day.- But alas, we
pay dearly for the joy of bright November
mornings.- Suddenly it is dark at 5:30 in the afternoon. The
euphoria of the brilliant morning is lost in the gloom of the
darkening afternoon.
There's not much to see out my window in the
evening these days.-I can only sit and stare into the darkness,
and wonder how the creatures of the wild cope with these long
nights. Do they sleep more now than in summer?--
Alas.-Fifty-one more days till the winter
solstice.-And each one a little shorter than the last.
Viki Mather lives by a lake near Sudbury.
