My friend Charlotte came over this morning and dragged those Adirondack chairs up from the basement, where they have been stowed since October, and we set them on the porch. I found the cushions that go on them where I’d stashed them under my desk and we sat outside for a little while until Charlotte had to go back over to her mother’s.

The wind is picking up, too. The Adirondack chairs will probably blow away across the yard if I don’t go stack them in a sheltered spot right now. That’s because they are plastic, not too Adirondacky in the sense of being twiggy or locally made, but useful and lightweight to lift. Like “Paddle-to-the-Sea” in the Caldecott Award-winning children’s book by Holling Clancy Holling, they will probably end up in the ocean someday with all of the other plastic that makes its way there, but until then they are very useful.

I left some seed catalogs outside on the porch. I’m afraid they’re going to get wet. Charlotte and I like to garden.

By the way, you know the plant identification feature on your iPhone? I wouldn’t put too much stock in it if I were you. I took a photograph of the snapdragon seedlings I’ve been growing on my windowsill, and my iPhone labeled them as “common ivy or watercress.” It looks like it’s coming down harder now.

When has it not been raining or snowing or engaging in some form of precipitation for the last year? According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this is because the North Country has been under the influence of the El Nino climate pattern, predicted to peter out by late summer, so that our August will be hot and dry. Last August it poured rain every day.

This sudden cloudburst, while typical of spring weather, is inopportune because I need to get my column written. Dashing outside and then trying to figure out where to put everything makes for an inconvenient interruption.

My challenge is to discuss several unrelated subjects without unnecessarily jarring the reader. Transitions between subjects will ideally be smooth; readers shouldn’t be made to feel as if they are skiing over moguls. Not that I have ever skied over moguls myself. I can only imagine.

It is not always easy for a writer to construct a sort of bridge over which the reader can safely tread without consciously noticing that the connection is pretty bogus. What did we call it in English class? A leap of faith? A suspension of reality? Whatever.

In everyday conversation, when I am talking at length about, oh, let’s say bugs, people are likely to say, “Not to change the subject, Martha, but what did you think of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in the Barbie movie? Did you see ‘Oppenheimer?’ What about ‘Sasquatch Sunset’ and ‘The Planet of the Apes?'” Then I would say something like, “Didn’t we already see ‘Planet of the Apes’ a long time ago? I think I saw it at the Oak Park drive-in.” In conversation, this kind of transition works just fine.

The trouble is, writing differs from casual conversation in that the writer is supposed to make it look as if there is a natural progression from one subject to the next, a series of well-placed stepping stones, to continue our Adirondack theme. Continuity, or at least the appearance or illusion of continuity, is important. Beginning a paragraph with the word “anyway,” as I admit I have done in the past, doesn’t really do the trick.

Add to this the fact that I restrict myself to 750 words per column, and you will see that producing “Martha Sez” week in and week out is quite a project, no matter how easy it may look to you.

All right, now it IS raining, not sprinkling but raining raining, and one of the Adirondack chairs has blown over. Another one is scooting across the porch. Here I go.

I’m back! Where did I leave my glasses?

Oh dear, I’m getting to the end of my 750-word limit, and I’m nowhere near done. I’ll pick it up next time. Anyway, have a good week.

(Martha Allen, of Keene Valley, has been writing for the Lake Placid News for more than 20 years.)