Spring has sprung!

Spring has Sprung!
Note how the crocus on the left has pushed its way
through the dried out maple leaf.  

One of the things I love most about island life is the early arrival of spring.  When I taught on the mainland, I used to visit the island every February midterm break just to see all the flowers in bloom in Victoria.  After all,  where else in Canada would they hold an annual flower count on the first weekend of March?

So around the first of February, I impatiently begin looking for signs of spring.  The snowdrops have been around for awhile - indeed, there were some bobbing their little white heads back in December.  And for the past week or so I've noticed  green buds swelling and catkins dropping and birds beginning their nesting and mating rituals.  But I didn't see any crocuses - the true harbingers of spring.

Until today.  Today, the sun shone and the air warmed, and and all of a sudden there were flowers popping out everywhere.  I even saw camellias in bloom on a neighbour's bush, and rhodos flowering outside my friend's apartment.  I hear rumors the pink cherry blossoms are popping out in Victoria.  And I went for a nice long hike around the Holland Creek Loop in Ladysmith, just north of here, and found snowdrops and crocuses and even the first of the violets along the wooded trails.

I'll blog about the hike itself in a couple of days and post photos of the scenery, but for all my friends who are shoveling snow, here's a few photos to put a 'spring' in your step.  Please don't hate me.

Snowdrops 

Crocus

Emerging violets
It's not quite warm enough for them to hold their heads up yet -
sort of like me before that  first cup of coffee in the morning.

Crocus and snowdrops and old maple leaves

Crocuses fully opened

Crocuses reaching for the sun