Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Animals and Nordic skiers live by the sun

Since the forced move to Daylight Relocating Time, I have had to drag myself out of bed in the dark. As the night pales to dawn, I see birds and animals beginning to move around in the forest. No matter what I do, I seem to get moving when the light says I should, so I have been running later than usual every day since the time change.

At the touring center, skiers don't show up until what would have been 8 or 8:30. The ten o'clock rush comes at eleven. They're coming in for lunch around 2:30. And no one can believe it when five o'clock pops up.

We've all had decades to get used to a certain pattern of light. When the time changed after the equinox, with day length already well over twelve hours, the shift did not change the impression of time as radically as it does now.

The animals have the advantage. They don't know what time it's supposed to be.

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