Daylight Saving Time Ends

Today is Wednesday, now the fourth morning since we changed the clocks back.  How does it affect our farm animals?  Not at all as they are ruled by the sun and stars.  But for me, I usually can adjust within a week or so.  We always go to bed between 8:30 pm and 9 pm during the school year and I get up at 4:30 am.  No alarm needed, it's just when I wake up, no mater what time I go to bed.  Now, with the clocks changed, I'm going to bed a hour later but still get up at my usual moment, now 3:30 am.  So I'm losing an hour of sleep each night.

Double Digging a winter bed with some help from our friends

Why do we do this?  "Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun." - Wikpedia. There is no way with my current lifestyle I could go to bed at 7:30 pm, too much to do.  Last night in that last hour I sliced up a batch of pears to dry in the dehydrator, put away all of the dried runner beans into large glass jars, and made a batch of Kefir cheese.  

Fall and Winter have become two of my favorite seasons.  I remember last Spring showing our goats off to a friend, she asked how do I do it?  I sighed, and said that I'm looking forward to December when I don't have to go out to the barn until 7 am and have everyone put to bed by 5 pm, and no milking the goats (they usually stop producing milk in late November until after they give birth in mid-February).  We are almost there, at least with the timing.  Two of our goats I am still milking and we love the fresh milk.

Lots to do today, real estate meetings from 9 am to 1 pm and then I need to get home and winterize our water system.  The irrigation system in the orchard needs to be turned off and drained to protect the pipes from deep freezes, I need to change the oil in the generator and run it for a little bit, and install a new frost free water hydrant near the buck yard.