As has been stated before in this space, I’m a selfish fellow. In that, I mean I don’t care much for autumn weather, with all of those so-called crisp days that require the warmth and comfort of a sweater. Only because autumn begets winter which means heavy

jackets, gloves, possibly a hat and a lot of cursing why winter is necessary in the first place.

Winter is the dregs.

It’s good to get a premise out in the open right away in columns like this.

So while others are bemoaning the fact that autumn has failed to rear its ugly head (until maybe this weekend, if weather reports can be believed) I couldn’t be happier.

The temperature challenged all-time highs this week — topping 90 degrees on Tuesday — and making some folks scratch their heads wondering if there’s some cosmic evil in this season’s eerie weather plans.

Certainly, I don’t know.

All I know is that the warmth has continued very long into the calendar, and the sweaters and jackets have remained in the closest.

Now the selfish part of my argument falls into this area: I don’t really know what this sort of heat has to do with the farming interests, of those of anyone else who depends on the weather to follow trends have been been hundreds of years in the making. I was not raised on a farm and never fully understood what affects changes to farming and crop cycles. But I’m pretty sure the incredibly dry weather had as much — or more — to do with the dreadful outcome farmers faced during the 2007 growing season.

I have never operated a yard service and don’t know what happens to their business when it stays dry and hot for a much longer time than anticipated.

But, did you know, however, that it snowed in the mountains of California this week? And also in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia?

Good for them, I suppose. They chose to live there; they get what they get. In the California mountains, that means the ski season starts early. As for the snow in West Virginia, I’m not sure what that means, and I lived there for a short while.

One thing that has always frosted my butt (sorry for the weather pun) is walking into retail stores wearing shorts and seeing Christmas decorations for sale. It’s not even Halloween, but the artificial trees and lights are already on display.

As I’ve grumbled about before in this space, my dismay is not with autumn weather, it’s that the sun lays low in the sky, the days are short and about to get shorter. That’s pessimistic to me.

Selfish, to me, is wanting as many warm days as possible in one season. I don’t like when days the sun gets low, days get short and the weather turns to keeping indoors.

I guess in my selfish ways, this has been my year.