Fall fell upon us with startling swiftness. One day we were sweating to the oldies even though we weren’t working out, and the next day we were frantically rummaging through our closets, searching for our jackets.

Whose idea was it to hide all our cold weather clothing?

Weather whiplash is nothing new in this part of the world. It’s common for us to be wearing parkas and mukluks in the morning and flipflops and a Hawaiian shirt in the afternoon. And we’ll probably be looking for that parka again by sundown.

My uncle Dale told me about a spate of quick-change weather that he had experienced during oat harvest, a time of year when it’s normally hot enough to bake cookies on the dashboard of your car.

“I was combing oats one afternoon when a black cloud approached from the west,” Dale recalled. “The cloud rolled over, but it didn’t rain. The temperature dropped and within an hour I went from blasting the cab’s air conditioner to running its heater!”

A weather whipsaw event that stands out in my memory took place one spring when I was a teenager. I was charged with plowing an alfalfa field, not an unpleasant task as far as I was concerned. Any day that was spent outdoors was a good day.

The morning had dawned sunny and warm. It was so balmy that I chose to leave behind the insulated hoodie that I normally took with me out to the field. My hope was that I would be able to use my tractor time to get a head start on my tan. Teenaged boys are often afflicted by this type of bone-headedness.

Things began cheerily enough. The tractor — a Farmall “560” — was running like a sewing machine, its engine grunting mightily as the plow sheared off prehistoric alfalfa roots that were as thick as my forearm.

A score of gulls floated along behind the plow, dropping into the furrow to feast on the smorgasbord of grubs and worms. I watched as a pair of gulls scrambled after a luckless little fieldmouse. Who knew that plowing could involve such high drama?

Gray, ragged clouds rolled in from the west and the benign southerly breeze abruptly transformed into a chilly northwesterly gale. The mercury dropped faster than a bowling ball that had slipped from your grip and was hurtling toward your big toe.

But the worst was yet to come. Snow squalls arrived with the clouds, abrupt mini blizzards that were so intense that was often difficult to see past the tractor’s hood. Fat snowflakes smacked the muffler and were instantly transformed into angry little puffs of steam. The squalls would blow over in a matter of minutes and the sun would reappear.

I soon became cold and wet and miserable. I should have quit or at least gone back to the house to fetch my insulated hoodie. But being both male and a teenager meant that I was doubly dumb. I stubbornly stayed at my post, shivering, as the dampness from melting snow marched inexorably down my back and into the crack of my heinie.

I began to envy the fieldmouse. At least he was someplace warm.

The trouble with sitting on an open platform tractor in inclement weather is that you are just sitting. You have little to do other than steer and think about how cold you are. Which just makes you feel colder.

I would dismount the tractor on the headland and check the front tires. While there, I would warm my hands in the toasty blast from the radiator fan until the feeling returned to my fingers. This made it possible to scratch my heinie, which had become intolerably itchy for some reason.

As I thawed out by the radiator, I watched sullenly as the snow whitened the field. I consoled myself with the knowledge that the plow was incorporating some much-needed moisture — however little it amounted to — into the soil.

It took several hours for my teenaged brain to comprehend that not every day outdoors is a good day.

The recent and rapid change from summer to fall brought bone-chilling rain and the kind of wind that made me think of what happened to the farmhouse in the “Wizard of Oz.” I think I even saw a broomstick rider zoom by during the height of the tempest.

As I peered out at the storm, a particular feeling washed over me and I began to rummage in the hall closet.

“What are you looking for?” asked my wife.

“Have you seen my insulated hoodie?” I replied. “For some reason I suddenly have an urge to put it on.”

— Jerry’s book, Dear County Agent Guy, is available at http://Workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.