The dogs don鈥檛 know what time it is.
And little wonder 鈥� they don鈥檛 deal in artificial constructs like units of time.
They just wake up when they need to wake up.
Sam wanders up to me and stares at me until my subconscious tells me he needs to step out into the yard for a moment. If my subconscious is slow to react, a cold nose usually gets my attention pretty effectively鈥� or a carefully aimed 鈥渂wooof!鈥� accompanied by hot breath that catches me full on my face every time.
Daylight Saving Time means nothing to him.
That鈥檚 always been the problem with changing the clocks twice each year.
Animals are smarter than we are. They don鈥檛 care what number is flashing at me from the bedside clock that always seems to take me to just before the next power outage to figure out how to reset the time and stop it from flashing.
Animals set their internal clocks sometime very early in their lives, and then they just seem to know when to get up, when to go to sleep, when to eat, and when to do all the other things that animals do.
It鈥檚 what we all did鈥� until there were trains.
Time wasn鈥檛 a big deal at all, until clocks were invented and the trains began running on schedules.
Before time 鈥� that is, before our modern concept of regimented time 鈥� people operated on a need-to-get-something-done basis.
The blacksmith opened his shop any time one of his neighbours had a wheel to fix or a horse to shoe. Do you need some nails to fix a window? As you鈥檙e wandering past the smithy, poke your head in the door and let him know how many. Next time you wander by, they鈥檒l probably be ready.
The village seamstress operated on the same basis 鈥� except she didn鈥檛 do nails, because that was the manicurist鈥檚 job鈥� but I digress.
Farmers got up to milk the cows and feed the chickens, usually at the crack of dawn or some similarly sun-related time. Scheduling was at the mercy of the seasons, and the goats and sheep rarely minded.
Then along came the trains. And the next thing you know, all the gentlemen wore pocket watches so they could get to the train on time and catch their ulcers and heart attacks on their way to office jobs with bosses who docked their pay for every minute they arrived late.
And Bessie the cow gave her milk every morning and every evening at 5:00, whether or not the sun was up or down, which meant some days, the farmer had to burn extra candles or turn on the 鈥榣ectric so he wouldn鈥檛 miss the pail.
Making 5:00 a.m. earlier in the summer saved candles and or electricity.
And that鈥檚 how Daylight Saving Time was born.
Silly, isn鈥檛 it?
