Insane Winter Washington Weather in Summer

Pullman, Washington, June 10 -- Snow. Squishy, fluffy, sticking summer snow. It's all melted off now, but for four hours this morning, the town of Pullman, Washington suffered frozen confusion as snow fell and accumulated on green leafy trees and verdant grass. No one talked about it, at least no one I ran into. It wasn't a topic of conversation. It was a freak occurrence and a social taboo.

The snow saturated the ground, unspoken. The feeling was that to speak about it would be to encourage it. As if we all knew that the snow faeries would hear if we gawked out loud to one another in public or made ridiculous jokes. Elbow nudges accompanied by a winking question, "Cold enough for ya?" would only incur the wrath of some Insane Sasquatchian Snow Gawd, who woke up on the wrong side of the season this morning.

Weird stuff. Think of the poor birds and the trees! A flabbergasted young tree--sorry I don't know what kind--slouched under the weight of the frozen wetness earlier, even surrendering a live limb to the uncalled-for slushy onslaught. With solemn steps, I dragged the sundered tree limb through the shallow snow to the compost pile out back, then emptied a bit of my morning beer onto its corpse. It's a gesture of respect, plus the beer helps the soil somehow. Coffee works good, too.

The temperature has now climbed to a still sub-summer 43 degrees with puffy clouds and dripping eaves. The birds are out, gossiping in song and whistles about the rudeness of the Insane Sasquatchian Snow Gawd, whom, having had his extreme fun, has partially moved on, or at least decided to hide out for a while. The sun is flirting with us from behind the clouds. No, not flirting exactly, teasing--in its crueler moments, taunting. Seems all the elementals are in mischievous moods this June 10th.

A strange day here in the wheatbasket of the Pacific Northwest. Hopefully the frosting was pathetic and brief enough so as not to damage any crops. This area, the Palouse, is a major source of wheat for the United States. Had this been a more serious storm, or were it to continue, the damage to the regional crops could potentially be catastrophic, another damaging blow in a year that has many, many people thinking about and appreciating food in new, more basic ways.