My favorite things about Spring and early Summer

I love spring, and it's not just the warmer temperatures and lack of snow. I love watching the world come to life again, waking up after the long, cold Minnesota winter. Technically spring is supposed to start in March, but in Minnesota, it's still winter. April is a transitional month. One day you have to wear your big coat to work, and the next day its 70 degrees, and then a few days later you're back to the coat.

Here are the things that tell me that Summer is coming.
1. First, the birds and return and build their nests in tree outside my bedroom window. I don't see the nests, but I know they're back because they start chirping just before sunrise. By late summer, I'm a little tired of this routine, but when they first start, I love it.

2. And speaking of sunrise, I love when the rising sun wakes me up.

3. The trees bud and green things start to poke up through the ground.

4. I love the first night I sleep with the windows open. Of course, a few days later I had to turn the furnace on again, but that first night tells me that I won't be cold forever.
4a. I love switching over from the flannel sheets to the regular ones. Don't get me wrong--in the winter, I love my flannel sheets, but when I can finally switch over to the regular ones and start removing some of the 47 (OK, maybe a slight exaggeration) layers of blankets on the bed, I know that spring is coming.

5. I love the smell of spring rain (until it rains too much and switches to the smashed worm smell.)

6. The other day I saw some baby geese. It seems early in the season for that, but I don't know much about geese and their lives. But I do know the joy I felt as I saw the 2 geese at the side of the road with the little trail of goslings following one of the adults. A friend has a mother duck nesting in her yard. I can't wait for those eggs to hatch.

7. Yesterday, I saw my first tulips of the season. When I did more of my walking outside instead of at the gym, I used to see them earlier, just as they are starting to bud. But yesterday, I saw a bed of fully opened tulips and it brightened my day. I don't know what it is about tulips and daffodils, but I love them. It may be the bright colors or it may be that when I see them I know that spring is really here. Crocus peek up through the snow sometimes and I like them, but they announce that spring is coming, but it still could be aways off. Tulips and daffodils say that spring is here.

8. I eagerly awaiting the blossoming of the trees. One in my neighborhood has bright pink blossoms that have opened. I'm watching and waiting for the trees on 140th to all bloom. One is pretty, but when two large sections of the street I drive everyday are lined with pink blossoms, it just makes my day better.