There's a ritual summer cottage owners on Long Island go through twice a year (that's the Long Island in Casco Bay, just off Portland, not the one in New York…).

If you arrive in warm weather, as soon as you step off the boat onto the dock, someone will ask, "How long ya down for?"

But if it's in the early spring, the question is, "Down to open up?"

And if it's in the late fall, the question is, "Down to close up?"

The closing up is as sad as the opening up is joyful.

The biggest part of this little cottage, on its 60 by 90 foot lot, is the 22 by 22 foot room with a porch and a hip roof, built in 1907 as the Mariner Post Office. Its original location was on The Wicked Corner, a 90-degree turn on Island Avenue, which, if you fail to negotiate, lands you in the Atlantic Ocean. Sometime in the mid 1920s, it was closed and moved by two oxen down a dirt road about a mile and a half away to its present location. A kitchen and bathroom were added sometime thereafter, and it's stayed pretty much the same to this day.

So it's open the refrigerator and freezer, choose what goes home in the cooler, what gets given away to Connie and Dout, my aunt and uncle who live there year round, and what gets thrown in the trash. There was a nearly-full bag of dog food I didn't want to lug back, so I walked into the woods and dumped it out for the woodland critters.

Then it's take off the screens, close the shutters, lock the windows, fold up the blankets, and turn the mattresses up on their sides to make it more difficult for the mice to sleep (and poop) on them. Then hook the two latches on the old wood door in the back, take one more look around, and lock up the front door. It's sad, like saying good bye to an old friend.