The shortness of the days and foods having different length of times they are active. Looking at you onion soup. But mostly the days are just a bit too short for my liking. Days of about 30 minutes would be about right - but then again I might not be satisfied with that either. lol
My only thought on defenses is that there are no real defenses except for earth walls and ditches. Everything else is just a hope, an unfulfilled dream that some scrawny little line of sticks is going to do squat against anything put maybe a baby neck. And like why make stone walls that always always get damaged by Mr Troll when you can so easily make a lovely earthen wall that repels all but blobs. My opinion only, your mileage may vary.