Spring has been fickle here in Minnesota.  From cold to snow to rain to warm – we’ve had a bit of everything this week.   I’ve already heard the welcome return of the red-winged blackbirds singing, and the lake ice has started to diminish.  I was at Lake Johanna yesterday before sunrise. The winter air was crisp and cold at 19 degrees when it hit my face and hands as I got out of the car, but my ears could hear the geese and the ducks that were splashing in the open water near the shoreline, and in the distance a woodpecker’s repetitive hammering was contributing to the song.  With all this cacophony the sun was illuminating the eastern sky in pinks and orange.  It seems that everything is in anxious anticipation of the season of spring.