It’s hard to believe it’s March here.

It’s somewhat difficult to explain to outsiders that what is going on here is normal for this time of year in central Minnesota.  This is a battle fought every year between the new Spring and the Ice Maiden.  The Ice Maiden is one jealous mistress who doesn’t like to give back what she has taken from us.  The new Spring wrestles with her from now until about mid-April to force her to go north to wait out our short Spring, our Summer and our short Fall before she returns with a vengeance.

The weather goes back and forth from cold to trying to warm up to being cold once again.  It snows.  It rains.  It’s a mix of rain and snow.  And then it snows once again.  The one thing that we know that we can look forward to for living here is knowing that the temps are slowly but steadily moving north.  They may not be moving as rapidly as we would like but they are moving north.  This is the time of year for poets and for photographers to capture the eternal struggle.