Absolutely don’t apologize, that was very helpful! I’ll need to think more about the raccoon problem. They are relentless and managed to pull out the pond pump even after I weighed it down with concrete blocks. They also stripped the banana plant next to the pond of its leaves one time. I posted a photo here:
I’ll plan to keep a few growing in buckets in my greenhouse as backups, but maybe I can come up with some kind of deterrent system for the pond that will work. I want to allow birds to access the water, but keep out raccoons… probably not possible?