So, Monday of the new week started out............ with a storm. Right after I had planted all those new crops. I was not expecting a storm THIS early in the season... ouch. It was pretty devastating on some of my fields, too X_X

Basically storms are a random event in the summer (like monsoons or something) in which you have very severe rains and winds. You walk at half the speed (even the buggy is really slow) and at the end of the day, it will destroy your crops. Crops in this game have different hardiness so some hold up to storms better. If you're just concerned with the number of crops and not variety, you can plant only sturdy/hardy crops, but if you're like me and variety is important, you'll plant some of everything... but that means you're having low numbers of each kind, and you could end up getting a lot of destruction...

I had a lot of tomatoes to harvest this day... the slow walking made it take forever.

Here's my new cows :D They are all sleeping through the storm I guess.

After taking care of the animals, cooking a bit, and harvesting the tomatoes in the storm, I figured I wouldn't have a lot of time left in the day to slowly buggy out to the cave and try to explore some more (your movement speed is only halved while outside, of course, but since the outside is pretty BIG, it would take a long time to get anywhere) I decided to go into town and see if anyone said anything special since it was a storm, since sometimes people comment on the rain.

No one said anything different -_-

Gayak said this but... what is he talking about? There are caves everywhere like... is there one I can only get to with the buggy somehow...? There hasn't been any kind of indication there are places you can only go with the buggy (rather, there's many places you have to get off the buggy because it won't fit or enter or there's crap in the way and you have to go clear it)

Here's the storm damage. Lower field was not so bad... left field (yellow jewels, second pic) got a ton of damage, though... off-screen are my roses... only 3 little roses survived :( They still haven't come in yet so I'm getting worried about them...

Right field (blue jewels, bottom pic) held up pretty well. Since the yellow jewel fields increase growth speed, I planted the less hardy stuff there hoping it would grow up before the first storm, but the blue jewel fields stay watered for quite a while after being watered once (I think they retain water for a week?). I just put the hardy stuff there since I shoved all the fragile stuff on the yellow field. So we got peas and sunflowers on the blue field. I don't even remember what all is on the yellow field other than the roses lol. Some kind of weird purple thing???

Anyway, with a rainy day and less crops to take care of in general, it was easy to find lots of time to go into the caves again. I found a new sickle! I also realized you can "charge" the better tools by holding down the button before releasing it... the Master's Hoe (lol) tills like 10 squares at once if you do that...! I only discovered because the Volcano Sickle said it could cut 3 weeds at once, but it was only cutting one at a time... so I was like "Wtf wtf" and just tried holding the button and it worked! Not sure why I never tried before considering you could do this in like every Harvey game before this... Then I tried with the other things XD I still haven't found an upgraded hammer though, but there's still huge boulders on my field I can't break, so I'm sure I'll get one eventually...

One of the paths just led to a purple door... but look! I'm on the other side of the cave on the south side of the island! (The very first one you ever go to, where you use the Grain family key) So I guess this is like... a shortcut? Both places are kinda hard to get to though from the ruins?? But maybe if you wanted to go into town and then go to this cave, that would be nice, because that other cave is right next to town...

Then I found yet another blocked purple door...

And out another exit was a thick mist that I can't go through...? It seems like this is going to be like the sandstorm... I don't even remember how I cleared that? I think ... after breaking the blue seal, the sandstorm just... subsided out of nowhere? So maybe I need to try breaking more seals...

In the end, the new sickle was the only thing I hadn't discovered in this cave so far, I guess. I'm pretty sure I was thorough with it? I should maybe make another run-through later when I don't have a lot of farmwork to do...

I mean, after all that, I only ended up with three red jewels? I feel like I should have another! There's nothing else I could possibly do to progress (since I only have one purple jewel and ZERO green jewels...)

Mom committed suicide in this week's episode of Melancholy Woods X_X She refused to escape from their burning house. It's not really clear if the loan sharks set the fire or she set the fire maybe? Probably the loan sharks? Or just random fire, I guess.

The narrator also said something like "Even though I was very young, I learned the lesson that you can't protect the people you love" or something lolol;;;

I thought maybe the hermit lady would help me out with a hint or something since she helped me get into the cave I'm exploring now...

What kind of hint is this???? Something to do with water???????????? Does she want a squirt gun LOL (I have one!) or maybe a blue jewel...??????????????????? I'm thinking maybe it's fish actually but I still haven't learned how to fish??????????? I know the fisherman is friends with Moonlight (because it says that in his description on the website LOL, I've never met him in the game) so I'm gonna try talking to Moonlight a lot and see if he drops any hints...?? Right now he's out on one of his art expeditions... he just leaves for several days at a time, and Franco says he's somewhere around the island but I've never seen him. Maybe I should try to go find him?

I also found this area near the hermit's shack that I didn't realize existed!! This area was kind of like a maze, really annoying to navigate. But I got to pick a lot random new stuff and put it in the scale pack, like bananas, cacao, and papaya. And some other thing that I don't know what it was.

I like that tower thing off in the distance! I wonder if you ever get to go there during the game? Maybe it's like a "final dungeon" cave for you to explore? Kinda exciting...! But it could just be a decoration XD

That area was pretty big, and there was an area called "Mermaid Lake," which didn't have much there but another type of fruit to pick. And then eventually it came around to this sealed purple door... looking at the map, this is the cave near the hot springs that I had just finished exploring!

If they're putting these shortcuts around like this that are clearly not meant to be used until later (since you have to break the purple seal), that must mean you're going to have to be revisiting some of these areas a lot? Or going between them? Like maybe going to the Mermaid Lake again, or visiting the hermit again (it takes a long time to get out to where the hermit is...)

Also my stats have been increasing a lot lately?! It used to be kinda rare to get stat-ups, like I'd only get them once a week or so, and often it was just cooking LOL. But I get stat ups every night almost now, and like, some of the jumps are pretty big?

Humor is still soooo low though X_X I feel like it only increases after getting cutscenes like on Sundays...

Still confused as to what I should be working on, I decided to spend a day cleaning up my fields since I need to plant more after the storm and a couple harvests... and made sure to get to bed early so I could rush into town and spend the day talking to everyone. But importantly, I wanted to get there before the morning bell to see what everyone is doing at 4AM!

Excitedly, I raced straight to Liberta's house since it's the furthest away and honestly Liberta is the only character I'm really dire to see in a bed... (Neo's lab takes the longest to get to, even though it's technically closer, but it's because you have to like... get out of the buggy and go up some stairs and run across a bridge and go up a lighthouse LOL)

............ He is............ sleeping........... sitting up???????????? POSSIBLY SLEEP-DRINKING?????????????????????????? WHAT IS THIS OMG LOL

At the Grain residence, I got to see a sleepy Dr Hope :D Even the cat was asleep! Vita sleeps sitting up, too, I guess... why do so many people sleep sitting up in this game??????

Sadly, though, most houses were locked. I was able to get into the winery, where Jean was already working and Emma was sitting at a desk and reading something, but at least not sleeping. But wow, they wake up early? Putting in the hard hours for their beloved Liberta.

I also was able to get into Nana and Max's house but... no one was there? Not even sleeping????????? O_o It's 4AM, what are they doing...?

Gayak and Marlene were having breakfast, which is the same thing they are doing after the morning bell, too, lol... And pretty much everywhere else was closed. Was hoping to find a sleepy Chuck or at least an early-rising anxious Chuck or something...

After the morning bell rang, I went back to Hope's since this is the only time you can talk to him (once the afternoon bell rings, he will be consumed with his computer for the rest of the day and not really talk to you). He said... this really strange thing...??? I don't know what to think of this???

I found this area I had never found before...!! It's outside seating above the bar???? Like you have to exit the bar out the back and like... go up these stairs that are kinda hard to see, and you get up to these three raised platforms (the third/highest just has a fountain, no seating). This is really cool but seems pointless???? Maybe people are up here during the day when it's not raining though. I often just "can't find" some people so maybe they hang out up here? I wonder if they say unique things up here?????? I'll have to start checking...

There was a lot of rain following the storm, and finally there was a calm day so I could see the cows outside XD You can choose between jersey (brown) and Holstein (b/w spotted) style. They're identical except in color.

On Sunday, I talked to Vita before the examination like always. She usually gives some stupid game hint like "Do you watch the cooking channel?" or something that seems for noobs, but today she said this thing about Hope's cat being unwell??????? There was no mention of it afterward though O_o

This week's Sunday Special was ... PUPPIES :D I haven't been getting any objectives, maybe I misremember how important Sunday objectives are? Maybe the story is more focused on the exploring and stuff I've been doing and the Sundays are not nearly as important (as in, you can miss them and not be set back too much lol). I mean, we wouldn't have gotten the bridge without the Spring Festival, but other than that... Sundays have been pretty unimportant so far? I mean getting Naoki was really helpful but doesn't seem critical to completing the game, for example.

Gayak came in and said "She finally gave birth!" followed by letting us know he meant his dog, not his wife. What a weird joke???

Anyway, of course, Life gets one of the pups! Now Naoki will finally have some poo to clean up! (I wonder if you can use the poo as fertilizer??? In Shepherd's Crossing 2, it was actually helpful to rotate your crop fields/grazing fields, because the soil would lose its quality after having crops grown on it, so if you moved your animals there, they'd poop all over it and raise the quality. You could actually just pick up all the poops and toss them on the other field, or make manure with them, but usually your manure compost heap things would get full so you'd just have "extra" poop and ... ok I'm not going to keep rambling about poop strategy, sorry, but next time I play SC2, which I definitely will again, I will try to post about it here like this so you can wait for that! Yay! I know you're all excited! All two of you who read these XD Which btw, I want to say I'm very grateful for you guys reading these because I realize you're coming on LJ pretty much SOLELY for me and that really means a lot!!!)

Anyway I changed the name of the dog, but I'm going to leave it a surprise for the next entry, since you don't actually receive your new pup until the next day (Sunday).

I bought a ton of new seeds and planted them everywhere over the weekend, too. Hundreds of seeds. I'm gonna have a crop party... Hopefully this doesn't get too cumbersome (cucumbersome? hehehe)... Naoki probably can't handle this many plants on his own? And I still have like 50 bags of rose seeds to plant. I'm gonna put them in the right field though, so Naoki won't have to work as hard for those. In the yellow field there's 50 onions, but onions grow REALLY fast, and should grow even faster in the yellow field, so I shouldn't have to maintain them for very long. But I still put a bunch of other crap over there, too...

And that's the end of the week! Stay tuned for next week when I will REVEAL MY NEW PUP'S NAME lmfaooooo. And uh... run around aimlessly because I have no idea what I should be doing now. If Moonlight is still gone and I have a rainy day without much harvest, maybe I'll try running around the island looking for him? Or if I get a chance I should comb through the hot springs cave once more to make sure I didn't miss anything. The other caves have been so simple I don't feel like I could have missed anything, but this one as a little bigger, and maybe I had not gone somewhere the second trip because I thought I went on the first trip (I tried to go everywhere though, but would ignore treasures I had already opened and stuff, so maybe I just thought one looked open when it wasn't, idk.) But since I don't have a lot of direction, it's not TOO big of a deal to ignore the story because I feel like I uncovered a lot of it REALLY fast this game, and I have a ton of farmwork to do anyway. I haven't really focused on farming much at all this play and that's like... a big part of the game? I wanna make a lot of money so I can start building a rail system thing on my farm. I've never actually built one before because it's too expensive (and confusing). I've bought some parts and started building one but never got it working, because it takes a LOT of money and time and effort lol.

Also I realized that once you have finished shipping some of every crop for completion's sake, it might be more cost effective to only plant flowers? You don't have to harvest them yourself (you hire someone to do it). They're not particularly profitable if you just look at the price, but if you consider how much time and effort you'd save it seems worth it?

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