After the sweltering, choking humidity of early September, sweater weather arrives to rejoicing from many.

Despite predictions by local weather forecasts, the first morning in months that our back porch outdoor thermometer dropped to 50 degrees was still a little unexpected. Even before spotting the digital readout, I’d fished a short-sleeved, fuzzy sweater out of a drawer to fend off the early-morning briskness that was drifting in through an open bedroom window.

Sweaters are one of my favorite garments, wrapping one in a soft, cozy sort of clothing-hug. Since they come in all sorts of weights, from light and somewhat silky to heavy and bulky, sweaters are adaptable to almost any cooler weather needs. They also offer a wide range of fashion uses, from dress-up occasions to standard farmstead outdoor wear, from casual visiting to sporting activities like hiking and sledding.

Headed out to do morning outdoor chores, I topped the lightweight sweater with a slightly heavier, long-sleeved one, since the sun was still just barely beginning to warm up the day. That sweater is an old friend, having spent countless hours keeping me warm during milking on breezy, cool afternoons and slightly chillier fall and spring mornings. Despite literally years of use, and occasional garment abuse by sloppy cow tails and hungry calves, after each laundering it has continued to recover and come out looking reasonably respectable.

A few days before, I’d started to gather scruffy, worn, garden-grubby denim shorts, tank tops and lightweight T-shirts for a final trip to the wash line before storing them away until spring. A handful of select garments will be kept nearby for warm afternoons and brief fall weather “heat-flashes,” but most will go into hibernation in bags and boxes in a basement storage area.

Waiting in the wings here, as they are no doubt on many farms, are favorite outdoor choring garb: sweatshirts and hoodies, heavier-weight blue jeans, warm socks and, at least among my choices, more sweaters. For farmers (and other professionals whose jobs are based outdoors), the flannel shirt is probably the comfort equivalent of a sweater, grabbed in the morning against pre-dawn chill, tossed on a tractor seat during warm afternoons then retrieved for after-sunset chores.

Many farmers will also begin switching hats, from the mesh-sided ones that permit head-cooling air flow to those constructed of heavier, tightly-woven fabrics. Lots of those hats will sport familiar names and logos of popular farm equipment, livestock breeds and farm names along with the inevitable grit, grime and grease accumulated by working farm caps.

Occasionally, I still run across a faded, manure-crusted farm cap from our dairying days, forgotten and buried under heavy winter coveralls or stashed away with rarely used seasonal clothing. The grubbiest old milking hats are bid farewell with a trip to the trash, their useful lives ended by newer, cleaner replacements.

Still-serviceable ones, which have fallen out of favor for whatever reason, are more likely to be given a thorough scrubbing and recycled to one of several local, charity-benefiting thrift centers. Perhaps they can find a recycled life helping to protect and warm someone looking for such headgear.

Most of us have certain seasonal clothing items which, for reasons of size or fit or color or convenient pockets or handy hoods, linger in our lives as favorites, despite how well “used” they may be.

On the first really chilly morning, The Grandson will likely dig out his all-time favorite, heavy pullover sweatshirt, many years old, countless miles traveled and repeatedly repaired on my sewing machine. Despite having numerous others from which to choose, that battered, beaten, outerwear-friend remains his everyday farm work garment of choice.

When sweater weather morphed later that day into “sweaty weather,” a lightweight T-shirt replaced the fuzzy, warm top I’d dug out of the drawer in the morning and denim shorts replaced the pair of jeans. Short-termed teasers of sweater weather are a bit like clips of upcoming movies to be released or previews of new-season television shows, just a hint of expectation of what’s to come.

And make no mistake. The full-length version will show up — sooner than any of us want.

Dig out the sweaters. And fish a flannel shirt out with ‘em.

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Joyce Bupp is a freelance writer in York County, Pennsylvania.

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