Am I the only one who is still wondering why George Bush Jr. and the United States Congress decided in their infinite wisdom to increase daylight saving time by 4 weeks back in 2005? They claimed we would save more energy by starting it 3 weeks earlier and extending it by a week. Like usual, this piece of legislation was buried in a wide ranging bill that got attention for giving oil and gas companies nice fat tax breaks.

According to the Washington Post, candy manufacturers have lobbied for years to stretch daylight saving time to encompass Halloween. Now parents can rest easier knowing that kids will have more daylight to navigate the neighborhood streets on that frightful night, and an extra hour to consume even more candy.

I was surprised to learn that recent research from Carnegie Mellon University has found that you are 3 times more likely to be hit and killed by a car just after the time switch. They speculate that drivers go through a week of adjusting to the new schedule. It might be a good idea to use extra caution this week if you find yourself crossing the street even once.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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