Spring is Here

For years I was a self employed pet sitter in the United States.  When I wasn't cleaning litter boxes and feeding cats I was walking dogs.  I walked dogs all day long 7 days a week!  Plus I had four of my own dogs at the time.  They had to be walked, too, because I had a tiny yard and a tiny house and they were a raucous bunch.

Mr. Chew was one of my raucous bunch of four dogs

Being out on the streets every day I could notice in tiny increments the minute changes that signaled the change of seasons, like the American Red-Breasted Robins on the lawn, those famous harbingers of spring.  I was privy to the whisperings of the subtle change in light from the sun, and most of all the from the budding wildflowers, in the parks, in the fields, and squeezing thorugh the cracks in the curb.

Robin Red Breast - The American Robin, I miss you!

Likewise here in Cyprus I am outside for hours every day, and after seven years, the first wildflowers of spring have become as familiar to me as they were back home.  Not only the kinds, but their exact location.  I know where each will spring up, in which crevice, in which sidewalk, on what street.  I know where they left their seeds!

These wildflowers in Cyprus tell me spring is here

About two weeks ago I noticed the first of the tall, pale yellow wildflowers, and I exclaimed to everyone around me, "Spring is here!"  "No, they said, not yet."  And then I saw the next batch of yellow wildflowers, golder, warmer, more daisy-like.  "Yes, yes, it's true," I said, "Spring is here!"  "No, no, you are wrong they said.  Not quite yet."  I doubted myself until I saw the first red poppy at the park, and then I knew, they were wrong, Spring is here!

I am so sorry, party poopers, but Spring is indeed here!

Oh, yes, and in case you are not sure, there is always this to remind you:

OH, dear.  Spooky courts Princess at the park

We can't stop them all at once. 

How about you?  Is it Spring where you are?  How can you tell?