authorpages, Books, Nature

Don’t Mess with Time

59 Comments

It was an eventful weekend. We went to two craft fairs and sold lots of books. Some people were repeat customers who were eager to read my second book, Library Lost. Always a good thing for an author to hear.

It was also the weekend where we set the clocks back an hour and went from daylight savings time to eastern standard time. I always live in dread of this weekend when we mess with time, and night comes crashing down an hour earlier. I am not a fan of short days and long nights, and, to my way of thinking, it would be easier to adapt if we could approach the long dark more gradually. Simply put, I wish we could do away with daylight savings time and stick to eastern standard time year round. This would allow for more light in the morning when people are heading to work and children are going to school. We would sacrifice an hour of light in the summer, but having dusk come at 8:00 p.m. instead of 9:00 p.m. should not be a hardship for too many people. Seems unlikely to happen, but I continue to hope.

At least three weeks behind schedule, the first hard frosts of the season came this weekend. This was the temperature when I got up this morning.

The frost nipped the nasturtiums. Although the orange flower is still perky, the leaves are decidedly droopy.

Autumn is a time of subtraction. First the hummingbirds go, then the geese, and many other birds follow. Butterflies migrate. Leaves fall. The crickets’ song has been stilled, and I miss the sweet sound.

Still, there is beauty in November’s austere landscape.

Looking down in my own yard,

and across the Kennebec River, about ten miles away from where we live.

Winter subtracts even more. But that is yet to come.

 

59 thoughts on “Don’t Mess with Time”

  1. The changes are relentless, but the return to Spring lies ahead. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving and Christmas help to keep the depression of this cold time from taking over. We look forward to visiting with the two of you again.

    1. Just wish we could ease into the darkness rather than be dumped into it. Busy, busy, busy with book and fairs. After the holidays, life will slow down.

  3. We’d much rather have the same time all year round too Laurie and the whiplets agree. We have to adjust their feeding times gradually before the clocks change, as feeding an hour later is too big a difference for them. The river looks beautiful and the raindrops on the leaf are gorgeous too! 🤗💖🍁 xxx

  4. Congratulations on all your book sales.
    I agree wholeheartedly about the time change – why not stay on British Summer Time (or daylight saving time) all the time? It’s so miserable otherwise 😣

  8. Congrats on selling more books…& to readers who have read your previous books…..That says it all. Wonderful.
    Daylight saving is a love-hate thing for Australians too. We have four seasons here in the south so we love the extra long light, warm evenings… my cousin lives in the far north of Australia & they have had enough of the relentless hot sun by the evenings. It was interesting to read about your situation in the US. Autumn is in the way by the look of the frost in your garden.

  10. I do wish we’d stop the silly changing of clocks. I think of it as a clock change rather than a time change because we don’t change time one whit: days shorten and nights lengthen, no matter what number we put to it. A resolution introduced in the Texas House to put the issue to the voters died somewhere: committe, probably. If they did put it to a vote, those who want to get rid of daylight saving time would win by a huge margin.

    It’s great that you had such a successful weekend, book-selling-wise. It seems like you have many more such fairs than we do — it sounds like they’re a perfect venue for you. All to the good!

    1. Right you are! But as someone who loves the notion of time travel, I like to think of it as messing with Time. 😉 We have lots of fairs this time of year, and it is indeed the perfect venue for us. Yes, all to the good!

      1. But which time? We’re limited, because we only have one word for it, but the Greeks had two: chronos and kairos. We have our chronometers, of course, but I prefer to stick with my kairometer — it measures things rather differently!

  11. I actually like the time changes, though the one in spring is a bit difficult. The one in fall allows me to get myself back on schedule, makes getting up easier and snugging in for the evening nice, since it’s dark. And in the summer, I just love that extra hour. Your leaves are lovely. Quite a few of ours are still green, but they will get their comeuppance Friday or thereabouts with first frost. So glad the books are selling well. I must order mine!

    1. Nice to read about someone who enjoys the time changes. My new book—“Out of Time”—won’t be out until next fall. So you’ll have to wait awhile. 😉

    1. We were particularly amazed by the Elks Club fair in Waterville. It was packed, and people were buying. We took in three times as much as we expected. Yay!

  14. So with you on wanting to keep on standard time year-round, even at our much lower latitude. I hated taking my granddaughter to school in the dark! Now it’s light when I taker her. I think I’m going to start contacting congresspeople about staying on ST. Also, here in the deep south we’ve already had our first hard freeze! I covered plants on Halloween! And today will be in the 70s. It’s hard to keep up.

  15. Hi, Laurie – The good thing about daylight saving time in retirement (at least in my retirement) is that except for appointments, you can pretty much ignore it. Last night, I went to bed at 8:30 pm. This morning, I got out of bed and began my day at 4:30 am. Ah, the freedom of retirement!
    Congratulations on your book sales, and another well-written post (with beautiful photography). I especially loved your second last image!

    1. Thanks, Derrick. A few blogging friends have noted they do not mind setting the clocks back in the fall and then ahead in the spring. But they are the minority.

  17. Nice post, Laurie. You’ve summed up the ‘season of subtraction’ very well. Six weeks until we turn the corner and the days start to lengthen again. I miss the sun already!

  18. Yay for all those sold books! Life seems very busy in your neck of the woods, Laurie.
    I don’t really mind the time changes in Spring and Summer. The EU have voted to dispense with the time change and will be implementing this law for the first time in 2021, I think. What this will mean for us, I don’t know.

  19. Getting rid of daylight savings time is my wish also. The springing forward and falling backward always messes up my internal clock for at least a week. As many people share feel the way we do, and the energy savings are not as great as initially touted, I think there is a good chance we will see our dream come true (fingers crossed, anyhow).

  22. I’m with you on Daylight Savings. The adjustment seems to get harder as I age, and it frequently messes up my grandchildren. There doesn’t seem to be any point now — if there ever was a good one.

  23. I agree with you too. We were travelling and didn’t realise our clocks (phones) had automatically gone back until we couldn’t understand why it had gone dark so early. Perhaps we should have a vote on it… then again, perhaps we shouldn’t. We’d probably end up with the clocks going back two hours to suit a vested interest.

  24. Love the shot of the leaf and I also wish we would do away with daylight saving time. Wonderful description and photos of the changing seasons and congratulations on another great book weekend!🙂

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