Our winter landscape has been blanketed in white since early December, and each week a bit more snow has been added to the ground.  I headed out for a snowshoe walk early yesterday morning at the golf course on the University of Minnesota Saint Paul campus.  The city was quiet for a Saturday morning — no commuter traffic, no snowplows clearing the roads yet, and most people were still in their beds.  As I got into the center of the golf course I realized that it really wasn’t as quiet as I had thought.  There were birds flitting from tree to tree chirping their greetings, and tracks in the snow where the squirrels had scampered from one area to another.  And then I noticed that the landscape wasn’t really quite so white.  Although the gray sky was reflecting in the snow cover, the oak trees still had their reddish-brown leaves clinging to the branches, some of the blonde grasses were blowing lightly in the breeze, and the pine trees were green with a coating of snow.  The landscape was a study of muted contrasts and  colors.