If winter is here can spring be far behind?

The Cardinal, Virginia's state bird, made an appearance a few days ago. I finally caught one through a window (that has a slight tint, hence the dark shade of the photo). Since I hadn't seen one all winter, I shall take this to be a sign of the approaching spring. No matter that the Cardinal is called the Winter Redbird because that's the only red bird that you can spot in the winter.

If you refocus your eyes to the front of the pic, you can see the icicles hanging on the window frame from last week's winter storm. Each time one fell, it made a terrible racket. I wondered what would happen if it fell on someone. This thought reminded me of an Agatha Christie (?) mystery in which the murder weapon is an icicle.