Japanese Anime

So when I think of Japanese Anime, I've always thought it was wierd little cartoon like shows. Not really my cup of tea.

The other day I found out that a book I quite enjoyed, "Howl's Moving Castle" had been made into one. I thought that sounded great!

...until I watched it. It was awful in my opinion. If you hadn't read the book you would probably like it. But It was so far from the book...in fact they changed the whole story. At the end they had changed so much that it was pretty much a different story altogether.

But the person who told me about "Howl's moving castle" had also recommended 2 other anime's. "Castle in the Sky" and "Spirited Away".

"Castle in the Sky" awful. I couldn't get into it.

"Spirited Away" on the other hand caught my interest. It was interesting, imaginative and fun. It starts out with a family and their child moving to a new place. They get lost on the way their and find a building with a tunnel going through it. They go through the tunnel in a spirit of exploration and find themselves spirited away to another place altogether. They are trapped and the parents are turned into pigs before they realize it. The story is how the child is able to become strong and courageous and save them all.

So I searched YouTube for more.

I found "My Friend Tortoro" Yet another one I enjoyed. The story of another family moving to a new place. This time without the mother (in the hospital) and 2 daughters with their father. The 2 daughters befriend a forest spirit named Tortoro. It is fun and light and enjoyable. The Mother in the hospital storyline for the most part is ok. The girls are just sad not having their mother with them.

Now for "Grave of the Fireflies". A very interesting storyline. When I think of anime, I think if imagination, lightness. A cartoon for goodness sake. This show is the most depressing show ever. Everyone dies. The Mother, Son, daughter. And not all at the same time. One and then the other, and finally the other one. Sad and depressing. But if you don't mind a good cry, watch it. WWII and the mother dies in a bombing leaving the son to care for the 4 year old daughter. He does all he can but she manages to die of malnutrition. HE then follows from depression, malnutrition, etc.

This show did however make me very thankful for certain things in my life. For one thing I am grateful that I have enough food on my table. My husband has a good job and we are able to save money.

Also, I'm grateful that we have not had to endure a war here at home. Can you imagine air raids in the middle of the night. Every night. Food Scarce, people scared and stressed out.

I just want to say how thankful I am that I and my family live at this time. In a place where there is peace and we are free to buy food at the corner supermarket and grow more in our back yard.

Anyway- on to less depressing subjects.

Yesterday hubby and I were able to go down to the local Lowes and buy nice bareroot fruit trees. They were selling all sorts of trees. From fruit to landscaping trees. If you need trees, buy now. Priced from $15 - $30 they are going fast.

We bought 2 Honey crisp apple trees. Sweet and delicious apples for eating. We had intended to only get one, but it needed another to pollinate it.

We also bought a nectarine and a peach tree. We are still talking about where to put them. The nice thing is that we don't have to decide for sure until it gets a bit warmer. The trees are nice and dormant and we probably have another month until they have to get into the ground.

So this makes 50 strawberry plants, 20 golden raspberry plants, 1 huckleberry, 2 Marionberry, 1 blueberry bush, 3 pie cherry bushes, 2 apple trees, 1 nectarine tree, and 1 peach tree. Do you think we have enough?

I'm actually really excited about having so much great fruit to freeze, can, and make jam out of. Oh and eat. Can't forget the eating part. In fact for all the low to the ground fruit, A will most likely find and eat it all. I think I need to educate her on poisonous berries. If only she will listen.

While Mom and Dad are gone on their mission we also get to care for 15 blackberry bushes, 10 raspberry bushes, 4 peach trees, grape vines, golden raspberry bushes, 2 apricot trees, 2 granny smith apple trees, 1 nectarine, 1 plum tree, 2 pears (?)... I'm actually uncertain of all the different types of trees in their orchard. There are around 12 though. Lets just say that I'm glad their is a lot of family close who can be called on to help out on the consuming part. And hopefully the harvest and care part also.

I guess we'll see. I'm just leaving myself open to asking for help from the ward if necessary (I'm hoping that they'll see it as service to help care for the yard of a couple serving a mission). And if there are not enough people in my family willing to eat some of this stuff, I'll ask the ward to help out too. Maybe that will provide help for a family that wants to can or something. We'll see. The nice thing is that next summer my sister will be here to help out with all of Mom and Dad's fruit.