Of cows and bakers: Early risers adjust to daylight saving time

Baker Diana Stewart will set her alarm clock an hour ahead long before 2 a.m. Sunday rolls around.

Because she has to get up two hours later, and she doesn't want to miss the time change, she said.

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The owner of Westphalia Baker in Harvey, N.B. serves fresh-baked goods every day.

She said the first week after switching to daylight savings time is always "quite an adjustment" for an early riser.

"And sometimes you just want to hit the snooze button," she said.

One hour forward

Yes, it's that time of the year again.

In most of the country, digital clocks will jump one hour ahead at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 12.

All other measures of time will have to be adjusted manually.

Stewart joked she could probably sleep in, because many of her customers show up an hour late anyway.

The nearby churches also find attendance is lower on the Sunday after the time change, she said.

"People are not noticing or they haven't changed their clocks," she said, adding that she will get up on time either way, but maybe enjoy a nice sliceof freshly baked bread while awaiting her customers.

"At some point you have to adjust because everybody else does," she said.

"Just grab the bull by its horns and get up."

At the farm

Speaking of bulls, the some 100 cows at Robert Speer's dairy farmwon't be complaining too much about the time change this year.

The Holmesville, N.B.farm uses robotic milkers, so the cows are milked whenever they feel up to it, he said.

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Contrary to what most people think, they do adjust to the time change, he added.

When the cows feed milk to their calves, they also don't do it based on a specific time, he said.

"Babies wake up at different hours," he said. "And the cows will adapt to that."

He added the only difference now is that the farm has to adjust the automatic lights in the cow's shed to daylight savings time.

And theycan only milk the cows for 23 hours on Sunday, "but once that one day changed you are right back to the same," he said.

"Everybody has to adapt for a while, waking up earlier, but the cows adapt the same way."

Stewart recommends that anyone not sleeping in on Sunday should go to bed early and make sure the time is changed and the alarm set.

"And another thing you can do is move your alarm across the room, so that you can't hit snooze," she said.