LIVING WITHOUT DAYLIGHT SAVINGS IS NOT THE BEST REASON TO MOVE TO HAWAII

LIVING WITHOUT DAYLIGHT SAVINGS IS NOT THE BEST REASON TO MOVE TO HAWAII
F O R A G E R
17 MARCH 2009
Steven Sprinkel
The Farmer and The Cook

 
There’s Hanelei Bay, and Pikala, and all the country spots on the leeward side of Kauai, as well as the papayas, the local honey and the sense that you can survive fairly well even though the place is in constant economic turmoil. But the fact that Hawaiians abide not by the cursed time change is cause for serious contemplation. When I lived there long ago how could I have been barely aware that the entire state ignored the practice? I was in the bliss of ignorance. Without the current angst there was no baseline for comparison.


I am sure a majority of us feel antipathy towards daylight savings. The data is searchable, and credible, unless the only people who complain blog it out and the only supporters are too busy playing softball after dinnertime. I now dislike the blasted custom so deeply that over the years I have made myself an expert on the subject. I revulse it so much that I won’t even bore you with the minutiae of said expertise. (No that was not a verb until I created it as one.) Because I am semi-feral, ever cognizant of moon, stars, tides, the coming and going of frogs and falcons, feeling botanical portents continually signaling, the artifice of springing forward or falling back is like government authorized theft. I am glad the wolves and the mockingbirds don’t have to deal with Mr. Hudson’s folly (sorry, I had to show off at least once). To many, the nuisance is ephemeral: you gain an hour of daylight and you’re cranky for a day or two but you become accustomed as you accustom yourselves to so many other inconveniences.  But for the semi-feral, who are governed by primordial circadian rhythms, daylight savings bursts on our lives like two flat tires at once. Some of us feel like we lose two hours in the process of gaining one. The hurry up! is an unnecessary intrusion to the natural evolution of the year.


 Accustomed to arising at dawn and calling it a quarter to six, one is astonished when daylight gets savaged by federal decree. We now arise at seven, damnably late for all our early markings, with no time to ponder the orange daybreak over yonder mountains or sip a cup of tea and read the New York Times back in bed with my wife for a good 22 minutes or so. Now I get up at eight, feel like its four, and stumble forward into confusion and despair. On my computer, I look at the waves breaking down in Ventura and realize that those people skimming along on them have been there for three hours already. It could have been me, but no, I am way late to pick perishables under a steadily climbing sun putting a full wilt on the product. The leaves must be picked in the morning, once the roots have filled them overnight with water. After nine or ten, you are playing a losing hand. The sun is not your friend. Before we sprang forward, one could chance an early paddle out when there was but a dim gray glow beyond the Santa Monicas, feeling quite elite about still having a good two hours of crisp available upon my salty return. Besides, the land might even have frozen the night before, so the genius is nearly impossible to absorb, even if it is my own.


To cease this complaint, I will only note that at sundown, if you are a farmer, your work is never done until day is gone and the hour now is eight thirty. You inevitably drag out the last moment as if you’re seven and you can barely even see the baseball any more. So much to do! It will never get done but let's try anyway! The first month or so is particularly galling because I am forbidden by the authorities to open a water valve until five PM. When the sprinkler-irrigated crops are done, this is not so onerous a demand.


Now to your box: The springtime paltries require we supplement with organic celery and spuds. And those foreign bunches are indeed edible and occasionally decorative. The bunches with the white roots are rutabaga thinnings. I think you should wash them some more and casually munch on the leaves while observing Rachel Maddow on MSNBC or reading an absorbing historical novel like Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel. They also are suitable to cook or be salad.  The curious variegated multicolor bunch is flowering kale, which can be observed in a vase or utilized however you usually prepare kale to eat. We deliver some mighty fine arugula considering the warmth of the season and some salad mix. Collards will no longer be a regular, not much to our mutual boo-hoo. It's time for zucchini, something that will really try a vegetable lover's patience.
The field was this week a blaze of yellow brassica flowers. A farm gone to seed. We will have a strained mid-Spring turnaround as we plant summer and eke out the greens. There will be carrots! The only negative regarding the frequent winter rains is that I was prevented from planting for a period and its always tasky to weed in the mud, so we abound in weeds, small crops and a stunning springtime onset of burrowing creatures. One can hear them eating underground while you work.


 

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