Our well-being, psychologically and physically is so intertwined with the types of weather conditions we are exposed to, it's amazing what mild temperatures and clear, sunny skies will do to our temperaments, our sense of wellness. Not so surprising, after all, since we are nature's creatures. What is surprising, is that so many of us don't fully appreciate the extent to which we are dependent on such conditions.

Our meandering about the forest in yesterday's daily ravine ramble, disclosing the new appearance of Jacks-in-the-Pulpit and the flowering of baneberry, the presence of more of the pink trilliums, spiked our appetite to begin our spring planting of annuals.

For us, as with so many house-holders who take pride in their modest little gardens, these new spring conditions call out for reaction on our part, and we're only too eager to comply with those urges. So off we went yesterday afternoon to the place where we normally select the first intake of our annual flower collections meant to fill our garden pots and urns.

First, of course, since they have over-wintered emptied of last summer's soil, the various and numerous pots and urns have to be filled with the usual mixture of dirt, peat moss and bagged, aged sheep manure. After which a little bit of blood or bone meal will be added for fertilizer, and then the planting can commence.

It was an absolute delight to walk among the offerings at the greenhouse, where we are familiar to the proprietors, a hard-working local family whose seasonal stock is vigorous and superior to the annuals sold at the usual venues of the big-box and grocery stores.We selected begonias and marigolds, petunias and lobelia, canna lily, vinca and geraniums and more. They represent the start. We'll gradually acquire more as more is needed.

We have stored down in the basement, begonias, canna lilies, potato vines and dahlia roots and corms and in the next week or so they will be brought out to be dug into the gardens where they will thrive, and placed as well into the garden pots we keep in the backyard gardens.

This is an exciting, anticipated time of year for us. The beauty that results is its own exquisite reward, greeting us each time we glance outdoors from within our home, or when we wander through the garden, touching up and tidying and generally admiring the vigour and tenacious of various plants, those that overwinter in our harsh winter climate, and those we pamper by storing downstairs, along with the semi-hardy annuals meant to flourish during those months of the year that present no challenge to their existence.