It was a surprised chickadee that discovered a thin coating of ice on the water dish when it landed there Friday morning. I watched while he walked around the edge and finally bent down and pecked open a spot to take a drink. The seasons are changing.

I cannot control the autumn urge that arrives every year about now. I must do the same ritual each year in preparation for winter. Change the blankets from light to warm; swap summer clothes for winter wear in the closet and chest; freeze a quart of milk and an extra loaf of bread, making it unnecessary to go to the store in a snowstorm; lug home a large bag of birdseed to be stored in the big containers (does anyone else keep birdseed in the bottom of the linen closet?); bring in too many houseplants because I hate to see them get frost; buy extra stamps and coffee and shampoo and numerous other necessities. It is just habit to do these things – the store could be next door and I’d still buy extra everything!

When we had a combination wood and electric stove in the kitchen and a Ben Franklin stove in the living room, October meant getting every last stick of wood and piece of kindling into the cellar. In case of a blizzard, of course, porch furniture went to winter quarters and the two big snow shovels were at the ready.

There was always a trip to another town to buy extra potatoes if we didn’t have enough of our own. Some years I wrapped the last of the green tomatoes individually in newspaper, and stored them in the cellar. One year we had the last two for Christmas dinner – a very satisfying accomplishment.

Whatever it is that produces this absolute need to get ready for winter, must be a hand-me-down from my ancestors. My grandfather had his rituals too. One door of one of our houses was never used in winter, so it had rags tucked snugly under the door – that was in addition to a storm door! Buckets of sand were kept by each door outside, and sometimes the buckets were filled with ashes. Some of the summer curtains were replaced with heavy winter drapes, and every window in that house had a heavy shade that was more to keep out the cold than to eliminate the light.

Today there are “all purpose” winter tires, and some drivers have their tires “studded.” But years ago, a car had a set of chains. No maybe about that. Few people ventured out at all, without chains, when I was a child. I can still hear the clang and bang of the links that broke on the chains, and slammed against the fender of the car.

Most of the early day rituals have changed, and today homes have central heating systems that are efficient and don’t require much but the turn of a thermostat. Motorists wait impatiently for plows to get the roads cleared. Weather men urge listeners to stock up and stay home for a day, when a storm approaches, but it is usually only a day or so before things get slowly back to normal. Today’s world copes well with most emergencies, but I still feel more at ease and content to stay inside, when the first snowflakes arrive. I know there’s some extra food on hand, for humans and for my friends – the birds.

The words of Dorothy Parker closed the column last week.

Do you remember this poem? “Backward, turn backward, O time is your flight, make me a child again, just for tonight”?