Sunscreen or scarf? Tanktop or hoodie?

Spring is here in the Lower 48. What to wear wasn't a problem when I lived in Alaska...at least for nine months out of the year. Now that I'm in Oregon, getting dressed for the day isn't so easy.

Yesterday, the sun was shining, I had four young folks from my church coming over to do some yard work (establishing the innards of my new raised bed garden plot: weed barrier and compost/soil mix), and I made sure I had cups of ice and loads of drinks to choose from for the hard-working crew.


Maybe I should have made hot cocoa instead. One minute, we're all in tee-shirts or other short-sleeved wear (my ever-present scrubs), the next minute, all but one of us had donned hoodies. I'm sure Joseph would have, too, but he didn't come prepared.

Erratic weather is everywhere. The same northwest weather pattern that blew so hard, it doused the electricity in my neighborhood for seven hours and dropped the morning temperature to 33 degrees also brought a late dump of snow to my old place in Alaska.

Is it global warming?

Nah. It's been going on for glacial generations. Call it what you will, but I say it's like false labor pains: just getting us ready for the real deal in a few weeks.

Plant the peas, but hold off on transplanting those tomatoes that are straining at the sides of the cut-down milk carton. Real summer will come eventually. Unless you're in Alaska. But even then, the relative warmth of that welcomed growing season will arrive.

But just to be sure, make sure you have both sunscreen and a hoodie nearby.

Pictured below is the first peony of the year (April 21) to bloom at my new old house. I don't know the cultivar, but it is an herbaceous variety, grew on old six-foot tall wood, and is huge. That's my wrist pulling it down so I could snap a shot.

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Writing will have to wait until the sun goes down.