SEQUIM – During the pre-spring spring forward this past week, some felt a jolt.
An act of Congress brought Daylight Saving Time on soon this year – three weeks earlier than normal – as an energy conservation measure.
The federal government has tried this before, for similar reasons.
Americans were first told to set their clocks an hour ahead in spring 1918 to save energy for World War I; President Franklin D. Roosevelt reinstated daylight-saving time to save fuel during the second world war.
And in the winter of 1974, President Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act, putting daylight-saving time into effect for eight months in 1975.
But these mornings, at least one segment of the population finds no comfort in such ancient history.
“I was exhausted,” Monday, said Anahlise Whiting, a Sequim 17-year-old, about her feelings a week ago today.
She awakened 20 minutes before the start of her first class at Peninsula College, and just made it thanks to her carpool.
But Whiting is a typical teen, in that she needs more sleep than the average adult.
Last year, the National Sleep Foundation’s “Sleep in America” study found that teenagers need eight and a half to nine hours of sleep each night – and most aren’t getting it, partly because adolescent brain chemistry tends to keep them awake later into the night than their parents and younger siblings.
Chelsea Nimz and Ally Taiji, both 13, unequivocally confirmed that.
When Nimz awoke last Monday, “it felt like 4:30 a.m.,” though the liquid crystal display read otherwise.
For Charisa Nelson, 21, a barista at The Buzz in Sequim, it was 4:30 a.m., at least according to her body clock.
She rises at 5:30 a.m. to start making espressos at 7 a.m.
“But I do appreciate having more daylight in the evening,” Nelson said.
Some Peninsula farmers also welcomed the extra light, although it’s still too early for planting.
“I can work later in the afternoon,” said Mark Ozias, owner of A New Leaf, a wholesale nursery just outside Sequim.
Still, the early switch “seems a little odd.”
Nash Huber, who grows organic crops on 400 acres across the Dungeness Valley, said artificial things like clocks don’t dictate when he works.
“We’re governed by when the sun comes up and when the sun goes down,” he said.
But when you’re both teenager and farmer, Congress’ early removal of one hour’s slumber can seem cruel.
Kayla Brown, 17, milks 46 Jersey cows every Monday and Friday morning from 7 a.m. to 9:45 a.m.
She’s been at it since she was about 10, when she learned milking from her dad, Jeff Brown.
Last Monday morning, “it was hard,” Kayla said.
By Friday morning, “it was pretty easy.”
Kayla lives and works at her family’s farm, the Dungeness Valley Creamery.
After milking, she goes to class there too; she’s home-schooled by her 25-year-old sister, Sarah.
Six other family members and a few farm hands help with other jobs: running the creamery store, bottling and delivering milk.
Kayla welcomes the added hour of evening light, which was good “especially for feeding calves . . . and for driving.”
Helping to run one of the Dungeness Valley’s last two dairies – Maple View is the other, with 350 cows – is "stressful,” Kayla said, “because you have to deal with the farm, and school, and extracurricular activities, and your own life.”
Kayla, an 11th-grader, is a Sequim High School varsity cheerleader, so she spent much of last week traveling to and from Tacoma for state basketball championship games.
And how many hours a week does she work on the farm?
“I have no idea,” Kayla said.
She likes the jobs, “for now.”
But Kayla plans to attend college an become a journalist.
“I want to travel, and write about the places I’ve discovered,” she said.
At the same time, she values her experience as a dairywoman.
“I think it’s a great thing that I get to be a part of that. . . when I have kids of my own, there won’t be many dairies . . . and I’ll be able to tell my kids that I used to milk cows.”
