Lighten Up

By Caroline Kettlewell
Friday, March 9, 2007

I am no fan of winter, and you may take that as a gross understatement.

I don't like the cold. I don't like the pale, watery light. I don't like the bare gray branches and the dry brown leaves scuttling ahead of arctic breezes. Winter may be an essential part of Earth's natural cycle. It may bring joy to the hearts of skiers, snow-shovel manufacturers and Santa Claus. But if there is anything good to be said about winter, you won't hear it from me.

Among the many faults I hold against the season is the whole darkness-before-dinner thing. Just when we need all the sunlight we can get to fortify our spirits against the cold, the sun itself succumbs to a wintry ennui, rising late and dragging itself anemically across the sky before sinking below the horizon in a listless swoon like the consumptive heroine of a Victorian novel, abandoning us to the long hours of the night.

So it was with unqualified joy that I learned that this year, by an act of Congress, the sun is being called to duty early -- almost a month earlier than last year. Thanks to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, daylight saving time, that herald of summer's sunlit abundance, will begin not on the first Sunday in April, but on the second Sunday in March. This Sunday, in fact. On Saturday, the sun will set on Washington at 6:10; on Sunday, at 7:11. Just like that, we are granted a magical extra hour of afternoon light.

What will you do with yours?

Feeling Sunnier

First, let's shed a little light on the subject of springing forward. For one thing, it is daylight saving -- not savings-- time; try officiously correcting people on that point all weekend just to make yourself popular. For another, nothing really happens to daylight itself, of course; the sun will look down upon us for virtually the same number of hours Sunday as it did Saturday. Only our clocks will change, cranked forward an hour so that Saturday's dusk will be Sunday's lingering late afternoon.

The main argument for the earlier start to daylight saving time (let's call it DST for convenience) is that, by turning our lights on later, we'll save a small but meaningful amount of energy. But this is not the first time DST's start and end dates have been repositioned on the calendar. In fact, since it was first made into national law in the United States (in 1918, when it was set to begin March 31), it has come and gone and darted all about according to the whims of political fashion. The 1918 version lasted until 1919, when it was repealed. (This and a host of other interesting facts about DST can be found on the WebExhibits site at http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving.) The latest jiggering of the dates came courtesy of an amendment introduced by Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), the latter of whom noted cheerily that, in a statement released by his office, "the beauty of daylight saving time is that it just makes everyone feel sunnier."

Now that we're all feeling better, here are some suggestions on how to use your shining hour.

Save Your Energy

Hedging its bets, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 includes a provision to revert to pre-2007 DST dates should those potential energy savings fail to materialize. But since I heartily endorse a sooner-the-better policy when it comes to DST, I would like to propose that (just as you're supposed to use the changing of the clocks as a reminder to change your smoke-detector batteries) you use the arrival of DST as a reminder to review your own personal energy policy. Every watt and British thermal unit you don't burn, after all, is money in your pocket.

You could decide to keep the lights out after your (later) sunset and spend every evening by candlelight -- a romantic proposition and a good way to test whether you did remember to change the batteries on those smoke detectors -- but for more practical suggestions, I turned to Ronnie Kweller, spokeswoman for the Alliance to Save Energy ( http://www.ase.org/).

One easy idea: Let the sun shine in. "We do recommend that people keep their window treatments open during the day to let the solar warmth help heat their house," Kweller says. And speaking of light, the group says that replacing your five most-used incandescent light bulbs with Energy Star-rated compact fluorescent bulbs could save you as much as $60 a year in energy costs.

If you're looking to really make a difference, consider taking the alliance's "Six Degrees of Energy Efficiency Challenge" ( http://www.sixdegreechallenge.org/), which seeks to help consumers better understand how our energy use affects ourselves, our community and the world beyond. "Small steps by many people add up to a big difference," Kweller says.

Hit the Park

For a major metropolitan area, the Washington region has an astonishing abundance of parks, with an equally robust range of recreational options within them, from pedaling to picnicking, horseback riding to skeet shooting, paddling to bird-watching and a great deal more.

Seneca Creek State Park in Gaithersburg (11950 Clopper Rd.; 301-924-2127) features an 18-hole disc (a.k.a. Frisbee) golf course in addition to the 16.5-mile Greenway hiking trail and 90-acre Clopper Lake.

In the District, you can wheel over to Rock Creek Park, where sections of Beach Drive are closed to cars and open to in-line skaters and bicyclists from 7 a.m. Saturdays through 7 p.m. Sundays. Beginning April 21, Washington Area Roadskaters ( http://www.skatedc.org/) will host free skating clinics in the park, meeting Saturdays at noon in Parking Lot 6.

If you've been chafing at those winter workouts brought to an early end (or forced indoors) by the setting sun, you can greet the earlier arrival of DST and go the distance on the 45-mile Washington & Old Dominion trail, which offers multiple access points across Northern Virginia and runs to Purcellville in Loudoun County.

The W&OD trail is part of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (703-352-5900; http://www.nvrpa.org/), which offers 21 parks and "quite a lot for folks in this area to do with their extra hour," says Mark Riddell, marketing and communications manager for the park authority. Spread out among the parks are miles of hiking, equestrian and even paddling trails, including an eight-mile mountain biking trail at Fountainhead Regional Park (10875 Hampton Rd., Fairfax Station; 703-250-9124) and the 17.5-mile hiking and horseback riding Bull Run-Occoquan Trail, which crosses several parks ( http://www.nvrpa.org/trails.html).

A Play Date With Fido

There is no look of long-suffering, silent reproach quite like the one your dog gives you as you hustle it, yet again, on a brisk and brief circuit around the block. Let's face it: On those dark, dreary winter nights, the walk is a desultory affair, quickly dispensed with. Well, now the day grows longer, and it's time to make it up to Fido with a nice long frolic at the local dog park.

As it turns out, our region rather takes the biscuit when it comes to places where your dog can run. Montgomery County has half-acre fenced dog playgrounds at Black Hill Regional Park (20030 Lake Ridge Dr., Boyds), Ridge Road Recreational Park (21155 Frederick Rd., Germantown) and Wheaton Regional Park (2000 Shorefield Rd., Wheaton). All three parks are open until sunset daily ( http://www.montgomeryparks.org/). For more information, call 301-495-2595.

The Fairfax County Park Authority system has seven dog parks, all open until dusk; four are wheelchair accessible ( http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/offleash.htm).

Other locations in Northern Virginia are listed on the Web site http://www.viennadogs.org/, and a more extensive regional list can be found online in the Metropets "yellow pages," at http://www.metropets.org/YellowPages/parks.php.

If there isn't one in your neighborhood, well, you have that extra afternoon light. Surely a little road trip isn't too much for Fido to ask of you.

Camping Under the Stars

With its milder days and still-cool nights, spring makes for great camping weather; this time of year you can also enjoy your outdoors free of mosquitoes, oppressive heat and crowds. That extra hour of afternoon sun means you can head out from work Friday to find that perfect little wooded glade in which to pitch your tent beneath the stars while still getting there in time to put the tent up in daylight.

Try Greenbelt Park in Maryland: 1,100 acres, open year-round, 174 campsites, hot showers (!) and only 12 miles from the District (6565 Greenbelt Rd., Greenbelt; 301-344-3948, http://www.nps.gov/gree; camping $16 per night). At Lake Fairfax Park in Reston (1400 Lake Fairfax Dr.; 703-471-5415), the non-summer rate is $20 per night, but you can throw in electrical service and Wi-Fi Internet access for small additional fees. After all, though a certain rugged breed of outdoors enthusiast might sing the praises of minimalist adventuring and hoofing it into the wilderness armed with little more than an energy bar and a two-ounce tarpaulin, the virtue of urban camping is that all the little niceties of civilization, such as triple grande mocha lattes and your MySpace account, are available.

Where the Wild Things Are

So when's the last time you went to the zoo? There it is, very nearly on your doorstep, and yet, like so many of the District's attractions to which tourists flock in droves, it's so easy to forget to visit yourself. If you haven't dropped by the National Zoo (3001 Connecticut Ave. NW; 202-633-4800; http://www.nationalzoo.si.edu/) in a while to hang with the bison and beavers and pythons and newts, why not make the later daylight your opportunity? "Late afternoon in the spring and summer, you miss the crowds," says Matt Olear, media relations manager for Friends of the National Zoo. The cooler weather this time of year suits those perennial favorites, the giant pandas, just fine. Also, Olear says, "the cheetahs and the maned wolves tend to be more active in those later afternoon hours."

The zoo's longer warm-season hours, when the grounds stay open until 8, won't begin until April 1. Currently the grounds close at 6. For now, a good place to check in on a lively scene toward the end of the day is the lush tropical forest of the Indoor Flight Room in the Bird House. "This time of year, the sun is still setting relatively early, and in that pre-dusk hour, the birds are more active," Olear says. They are, he says, crepuscular, which sounds like something a plastic surgeon would do steady business fixing but means, in fact, that, "as dusk starts to come, they do some last-minute foraging, and they tend to vocalize more as they are staking out their roosts for the night." There, you see? You've already learned something, and you haven't even gone yet.

Here a Bird, There a Bird

Speaking of birds, it's not quite time for the spring bird migration, but that could be a good thing if you've always wanted to be the kind of person who can hear a distant trill and aver knowledgeably, "That, of course, would be your Blackburnian warbler."

"This is a good time for people to get started on bird-watching," says Cliff Fairweather, sanctuary manager and naturalist at the Audubon Naturalist Society's Rust Nature Sanctuary in Leesburg. "There are fewer birds to deal with, and it's easier to learn some of the voices. You can start to learn the local birds and some of the winter migrants, without all the variety of the summer birds, which can be overwhelming for a beginner."

This time of year, Fairweather says, birds are active, too. At any one of the society's three sanctuaries, listen, he says, for the tufted titmouse's "peter, peter, peter" or the northern cardinal's "what-cheer." Or, on a cloudy day, you might hear the barred owl's solicitous query, "who, who, who cooks for you-all?"

Not birds, but apparently sounding like them, are the wood frogs you may hear as well, "like a flock of quietly quacking ducks," Fairweather says.

The Audubon Naturalist Society's three sanctuaries, Woodend (8940 Jones Mill Rd., Chevy Chase; 301-652-9188), Rust (802 Children's Center Rd., Leesburg; 703-669-0000) and Webb (12829 Chestnut St., Clifton; call Fairweather at 703-737-0021), are open dawn to dusk, and admission to the grounds is free ( http://www.audubonnaturalist.org/).

How Does Your Garden Grow?

About this time of year, I begin succumbing to grandiose dreams of what I'll plan to accomplish in my garden, other than beating back the English ivy yet again and growing my annual bumper crops of wild ginger and violet.

Cindy Brown, assistant director of Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria (4603 Green Spring Rd.; 703-642-5173; http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/gsgp) reminds us, however, that now, before everything starts going green on you, is "a perfect time to get out there and do the cleanup you didn't get to do -- mulching, edging, spreading compost -- to get ready for spring."

If you're in need of pointers, or inspiration, you can sign up for Green Spring's "Spring Start-Up" workshop (March 16 from 1:30 to 3; $11). Afterward, wander through the gardens; the 28 acres are open dawn to dusk (if the gates are closed, you can park outside and walk in, Brown says). Among other attractions, Green Spring features the national witch hazel collection, with 86 varieties scattered throughout the gardens. "Some are in the shade, some in the sun, some dwarf, some giant," Brown says. "We are trying to show homeowners what you can do for a garden."

You can take in blooming witch hazel as well at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton (1800 Glenallan Ave.; 301-962-1400; http://www.brooksidegardens.org/), where grounds are open until sunset daily. March is also likely to bring crocus, anemones, quince, Japanese andromeda, daffodils and other early-blooming bulbs, Brookside spokeswoman Leslie McDermott says. If you don't know your anemones from your invasive weeds, you can bring your questions to the master gardener plant clinics Saturdays from 10 to 2 and Sundays from 1 to 4 in the Brookside Gardens Library.

Welcome Bacchus

Quibblers may choose to point out that the early Roman calendar did not strictly correspond to our contemporary one, but why quibble while the sun shines? March was once the time when Romans celebrated a festival in honor of Bacchus, the god of wine, and isn't that reason enough to raise your glass in a toast to the ever-longer days ahead?

But a glass of what, exactly? You want to strike just the right oenophilic note for the season as you bask in the light. Daven DeMeyer, a regional manager with the Wine Group who was visiting Georgetown Square Wine Shop in Bethesda (10400 Old Georgetown Rd.; 301-530-4555) recently, had this to suggest: "Pinot noir is a lighter, ruby-colored wine with aromas of cranberry and cherry. Pinot noirs are very popular right now. As it gets warmer, a pinot grigio is a good choice. It's a dry white wine and has a light, distinct bouquet. It's light and fresh and invigorating."

Need more inspiration? On Saturday and Sunday, the Washington D.C. International Wine & Food Festival comes to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center (full disclosure: The Washington Post is a major sponsor), with all-day "grand tastings" courtesy of more than 280 wineries (1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW; 800-343-1174; http://www.wine-expos.com/; $80 one-day ticket, $100 two-day ticket).

Tech Help

Perhaps not the most exciting way to pass an hour, and in fact probably best done before DST actually arrives, but it seems that this latest repositioning of DST has generated some consternation in the tech industry (a faint echo of the Y2K kerfuffle) because of all the gazillion electronic gizmos we could not do without that are operating on internal clocks blissfully unaware of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Without falling prey to the doomsday scenarios that were so much the topic of lively discussion on the eve of the millennium, you might want to make sure that whatever gadget your very being depends upon (your laptop, your PDA, your programmable coffee maker) gets wised up.

Caroline Kettlewell is a freelance writer and regular contributor to Weekend who can be found online at http://www.carolinekettlewell.com/.