We always put them off as long as we can.

You all know what I am talking about, the chores we always try to avoid, but understand, in the end, we will have to do, year after year, after year. Yes, dear friends, it is time to get ready for old man winter.

The list of chores is not too long, but it is the same every year. Screens come down and are stowed in the basement next to the water heater. Scoot the furniture off the deck, drag it into the garage, and wrestle it up the stairs to the second floor, what was supposed to be converted into an office, an office that never happened. Still, it is a great place to store the deck furniture, the snow tires, the two bicycles we brought up in anticipation of getting healthy and odds and ends of stuff.

That was before we figured out that senior citizens like us probably shouldn’t be riding bikes on our twisty and narrow streets.

Next, we bring in the dozen or so large pots that once held the cheerful flowers that made us smile all summer long. Now they contain forlorn sticks and a few dead leaves. One year, I tried to bring them in and damaged one of the ample ceramic beauties. I guess the word damaged is a good substitute word for turning a ceramic container into small pieces. Now I am no longer allowed to touch them.

Bringing in the flower pots is a job that is in the purview of our chief gardener. She has a nifty little mini refrigerator dolly that allows her to move them without my interference. As the chief gardener hooks up her dolly, my charge is moving other objects around to accommodate the ones she will bring into the garage. After the pots were stowed, the gardener in chief left me to my own devices, so I moved some other stuff around. I stowed the lawnmower under the stairs, pulled out a muck bucket half-filled with sand and salt, and scooted out the snowblower to see if that snarly critter would still snarl. When it is on its A-game, Old Snarly can pitch snow 10 yards or more into the side yard. Yes, it won't be long until it is needed.

If you browse the internet, you can find hundreds of videos of smiling children galumphing through the dazzling white snow as they struggle to build snowmen, snow forts and, best of all, snow sculptures of monsters, like the 12-foot-long great white shark our son and grandsons crafted one year. The grandsons loved the shark and couldn't wait to raid the kitchen for food color, or ketchup, or some other red substance to simulate blood gurgling out of his maw. Yes, it stopped traffic.

But this year, I promise not to try my hand at snow sculpture. I will leave that to Dick Alden who is very accomplished in the sculpture department. If we get good snowman snow this winter, I wonder if we could talk Dick into presiding over a snow sculpture contest. I'll bet we can.

While some of our summer friends frolic in the warm blue waters and run their toes through pristine sands of Florida, Hilton Head and the islands, we will be back here in Maine telling our friends how much we love it here in the winter. And we do. Last week, the weather prognosticators said we had our first visit from the white stuff. Here on top of our wooded hill, we saw a few flakes, but strangely enough, it seemed to be snowing on the front of the house, and not on the backside.

Back to the chores, we cut down most of the garden plants (I don't like something called false indigo), chopped them up, and took them to the big organic pile at the dump, er, transfer station.

We still have to bring in the birdbaths, but it is not a big deal, that is, unless I drop one. The gardener in chief would not welcome news of a busted birdbath. After we finished most of the pre-winter chores, it was time for a reward, and we jumped in the little blue car and headed up the Kennebec to Manchester for a visit to Longfellow's Greenhouses.

Once inside the front door, the gardener in chief seemed to be magically transported into the Land of Oz when the sight of thousands of flowers greeted her. Longfellow's huge garden sheds were filled with poinsettias red, poinsettias green, poinsettias pale yellow, and a few poinsettias white. The effect was almost overwhelming, a symphony of scarlet and green.

Truth be told, I liked it, too.