Yesterday my husband hauled all of our clay and ceramic garden pots out from under the deck where they are stored overwinter. They're large and heavy and it's difficult to move them about, but with the help of a two-wheeled dolly the work is made manageable. It isn't practical to leave them in place over the winter months since they would be susceptible to cracking loaded with snow and ice and under stress from freeze-and-thaw conditions.

So now they're in place all around the front gardens and the backyard where we're accustomed to planting annual flowers to colour our landscape above and beyond what our perennials offer, and tomato plants just for the sheer love of watching the miracle of food growing within our own property on a postage-stamp-sized (50' by 100') urban lot.

Next step is filling all the pots with a mixture of garden soil, peat moss and well-seasoned sheep manure. Before I plant the annuals there will be a liberal sprinkling and mixing-in of a combination of blood- and bone-meal. And then we can anticipate the pleasure of witnessing the annuals mature and privilege us with the spectacle of their never-ending bloom-production from late May to early October, the practical growing season in this part of the world, without danger of frost.

Of course placing the pots inevitably interferred with some of the bird-and-squirrel feeding stations we've set up around the front of the house. One little red squirrel in particular, the one we often laughingly called "the boss" for her obvious sentiment of sole ownership of the site on our front porch seems very confused over the displacement; the large tray holding seed and nuts having been transferred from its perch on one of the porch banisters to a nearby wrought-iron table sitting on a stone patio within the embrace of the garden. She either has not yet discovered the alternate site or is dreadfully upset over the change. And she is obviously pregnant, which seems late in the season.

A few nights back as we indulged in a last-minute check before going up to bed, from the glassed front door, there was the raccoon making itself comfortable on the porch floor surrounded by nuts and seeds and delicately selecting those of interest to it. It sat, plumply large and hunched over its task, its striped tail curled behind its body, looking solitary and somehow pensive, to us. We watched for awhile, too dark to successfully take photographs, admiring and yet feeling sad about its lonely presence.