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I have been engaged in a slow striptease since April. First the heavy rain gear goes then the wool shirts, the slickers and wind breakers. The jeans get traded for chinos; the rubber boots for tennis shoes.

I spend a great deal of my time out in the elements, so I have developed an elaborate system of protecting my body from the weather. I actually have 3 different types of rain gear.  I live in the Pacific Northwest—we’re famous for our rain—you need to be prepared for all it’s guises. Sometimes, and  actually often, jeans and a Pendelton wool shirt do the trick. When weather maps across the country are showing rain in our area it is usually just so cloudy everything is damp. Of course it does rain here and one needs  a rain coat from time to time. I have a polypro Helly Hansen jacket for just such a day, sheds enough rain until the shower passes. Then there are those days, weeks, months when our maritime climate is decidedly marine and you can swear it is not only raining but that the winds are driving Pacific waves far inland. I am clad from head to toe in rubber on those days. Like a snail that retreats into it’s shell to avoid desiccation I retreat into my Herkules rain gear to avoid saturation.

As much as I love it, rubber rain gear is cumbersome, makes any job twice as hard. I dread the days I have to work in it. But I like to be mostly dry especially during the colder months. And I do after months learn to dance like a clown in my oversized suit and heavy boots. I can work with wet shoulders, wet hair, even wet legs, but wet feet drive me crazy. So in mid-October I put on my Jobbers from the Muck Boot Company and only take them off to sleep until about June 30th of the following year.

June has passed. We finally have sunshine and heat. No sign of rain in the forecast. Nothing makes me happier, though I, like every gardener I know in these parts, have to calm the panic that “ everything is drying out” with frequent watering and Campari sodas. I wouldn’t trade this mild panic for all the rain in the world, right now. Nor the ability to go about seemingly half naked, just a slathering of sunscreen between most of me and the rest of the world.

I do love my tennies though. I’ve had these cheap-Chinese-knock-offs for over 3 years. They feel like summer vacation to me, like shoes I would have worn as a kid when I spent most my days catching snakes at the railroad tracks or turtles in Jacobus Park. Or begrudgingly weeding my mother’s vegetable patch.

I have my own vegetable patch now, where weeding gets done in fits and starts. And unfortunately never as thoroughly as I’d like, but that doesn’t seem to hamper the abundance of produce Michael and I harvest each year. Weeding our vegetable patch, chore that it might be at times, is becoming one of my joys. It’s as calming as a Campari soda. It feels like summer vacation. There are snakes all over our property. I never thought I’d get over the boyish thrill of grabbing one and holding it while it tries to twist itself free. Now, I prefer to watch them slither off shyly, knowing when I’m not looking they’ll be eating slugs in the greenhouse. I never thought I’d call weeding a vegetable patch a joy, either. Now,  it’s one of the only times when I can slip out of my beloved tennies and patter about simply shod in mud.