What time is it where you live?

       Here's a long wiki link on time zones and time:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone

            One probable major decision during hard times is how to determine the time other than solar time anyone can get from a sundial that they can make. Here's a wiki link on solar time:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_time

            One convenient way to determine noon (solar time) where you live is to drive a stick into the ground on a sunny day and watch the shadow it casts around mid-day time. When the shadow zeros out, like even changes direction then that is noon where you live. Now watching the shadow reverse direction can be a judgment call, so don't expect perfect accuracy, but this method should be good enough for most reasons. One can even average this over a few days.

            Now the time zone time where you live is more of a human consideration. For example sunrise in the Central Time Zone in the USA can vary by over an hour from the eastern portion of the time zone (where the sun comes up first) to the western portion of the time zone (where the sun comes up last), but using time zone time does makes the time the same throughout the time zone, irrespective of what the sun is doing. This sure helps transportation schedules, for example.

            Last, as a general rule, we can see about a half hour before the sun rises where you live, and can also see about a half hour after the sun goes down. Farmers, hunters, and military people probably already know this, for example.