January 19th, 2006    

Dear Diary,

        In the real world, I'm not so hot at gardening. Best I can manage is to grow weeds between the bricks of my patio. I obviously lack a green thumb--or any thumb at all, for that matter! I guess I make up for it by having several green fingered claws. Still, quality must be better than quantity; none of my claws have any particular skill for planting flowers.

Anjou grows weeds

        In Animal Crossing: Wild World, on the other hand (or claw?), I'm a real whiz at horticulture. I currently have several small gardens filled with hybrid flowers I crossed all by myself. It seems like it's very easy to get flowers to cross once you have a perfect town. I spent a long time weeding, planting, and watering before Elegans was a wonderful place for my villagers and myself to live. I guess my friends chipped in and bought me a gold watering can too! I carry it around with me during the day so I can make sure that all my flowers get water.

The House Garden

        Speaking of watering, here's a picture of me watering my hybrids with the golden watering can. I keep my plots right outside the main buildings in the town since there's less of a chance that new villagers will mistakenly dig up my gardens to construct their homes. Animals like to have big yards, you know! Oh, and see the line of the pretty blue flowers on the left? Those are Jacob's Ladders. They show up in my town every so often, but I dig them up and put them in my gardens so they don't get trampled. The orange pansy I'm watering in this picture is a brand new flower I found today!

The Museum Garden

        Anyway, the next hybrid I really want to grow is a black rose. I set up a plot next to the local tailor's shop. I planted a pair of red roses next to a pair of Jacob's Ladders. Breeding red roses will either produce a red rose or a black rose. If I get a black rose, I'm going to wait for it to wilt and water it with my golden watering can. I hear that it will magically turn my black rose to gold! Oh, and the Jacob's Ladders are there to speed the entire process up. I hear that they increase my chances of getting a successful hybrid. We'll see how THAT goes. By the way, don't you think my gardens are pretty? Those tiles keep my special flowers nicely framed, but they also warn people who are running around (eek!) that they should stop and watch out for flowers. Maybe I should put up a yield sign too?

Growing Black Roses

        Oh, last but not least... I got SO many fan letters asking to see what the rest of my house looked like that I couldn't resist showing ONE picture of my parlor. It was nice and sunny in there today, so I went there to rest after I was finished gardening. I like to keep my fishing trophy on the fireplace where Jess can see it. It reminds her what a lousy fisher she is (turtles, of course, are naturals at it). This room is very cosy, but I plan on redecorating it sometime in the future. Maybe I'll turn it into a greenhouse!

        Oh yeah. Want to write to me? Send an email to axawebsite@megadoomer.com. All mail with "Anjou" in the subject line gets forwarded to my tank.

        For now, turtle out!