Week Three - Happy Birthday Harriet!

Harriet got a bit of a late start on Sunday morning after being up late the night before. After bathing and eating, she went down to check the mailbox, and found that she'd gotten one of her gems back from the gem cutters.

She immediately sold it, then started going through her inventory to see what else she had to sell from her collecting the day before.

The common insects she sold right away for she knew the scientists wouldn't give her much more for them to be worth taking them to the lab. The silver was likewise sold as it wasn't worth the cost of having it smelted. The space rocks she analyzed then sold. After she'd finished sorting through her collections, she went over to tell her tomato plants about what all she'd found. They were her closest companions, and she far preferred their company to that of people.

By the time she'd finished tending her garden, the day was already gone, so she made an early night of it. She was up early the next morning and after making some pancakes to eat for breakfast, she decided to practice them some more to see if she could make them any better to take to the cooking contest that day. While the best she could manage was Nice quality ones, she did improve her cooking skills another level.

Deciding to try again later with something else, she went to tend her garden, and improved her gardening skills even more.

While tending the plants, she noticed that one of the Apple trees she'd recently planted was a Perfect quality plant. She felt she was really beginning to accomplish something with her garden.

She then checked her mailbox and found she'd gotten some more gems back from the gem cutter.

She was getting quite a stock of produce and fish, so she walked downtown to the market to sell them. As she was coming out, she glanced at the clock on the City Hall tower and was shocked to see how late it had gotten. She only had 2 hours left to bring a dish in to the contest at the bistro and she hadn't even made anything for it yet!

She hurried home, and whipped up a large plate of Autumn Salad, hoping she might do better with that than the pancakes since she'd made it more often. Unfortunately it didn't turn out any better than the pancakes had.

She didn't have any time left to try again though, so with a sigh she packaged it up, called a cab, and hurried to the bistro. When she got there, an old man in a shocking orange vest that was blocking the walkway almost made her late.

He finally moved, and she managed to make it around to the entrance and get inside, with only 2 minutes to spare.

She had hoped she'd be able to just drop off the food and get out again and be informed later how she'd done, but no such luck. They insisted that she stay while the judging was in progress, and so she complied, despite her extreme discomfort at being around so many people. She wasn't sure most of the time whether she wanted to scream or to cry.

She made it through the entire hour and a half of the judging without having a complete breakdown though, and in the end her Autumn Salad was declared the winner. They had promised her a cash reward, but instead they handed her a seed as her reward, telling her that it would grow into a special plant that would yield more cash in the long run if she planted it and tended it properly. She accepted the seed, secretly hoping it would be one of the money trees she'd seen references too, and then hurried outside away from all the people.

While standing outside taking deep breaths to calm her nerves again, she remembered a notice she'd seen in the grocery store earlier about how they were looking for partners to join the co-op. She did some calculations and realized that she had a little bit more than the required buy-in price saved up, so she headed over there to learn more about it and to fill out the paperwork to buy a partnership.

It took awhile to fill out all the papers and to discuss what would be expected of her and when her weekly payments would be available, but when she finally came back out, she was sure she'd made a good investment.

As it was getting pretty late by then, she headed home to get to bed early. She wanted to get some fishing in the next day and knew she'd need to get an early start or else the whole day would vanish on her again like the last two had. The next morning, after bathing, having some breakfast, and tending her garden, she first headed over to the science lab to sell a couple of insects she'd found that were worth a bit more than the common ones she'd sold on Sunday.

Then, instead of going down to the river to fish, she decided to check out the fish hatchery, as she'd heard they had many different types of fish stocked in the ponds there. She was hoping she'd be able to catch some new kinds to add to her catalog of catches. Once she got there, she spent the rest of the afternoon fishing, trying out different baits, and was rewarded with several new catches as well as an improvement in her fishing skill.

As evening began to fall, she noticed that the pool she'd been fishing in seemed to be getting a bit fished out, so she moved over to a different pond that looked like it had some different types of fish in it. She tried yet another type of bait and managed to add three more types of fish to her caught list.

She stayed there until late in the evening, finally heading home when she felt herself getting too tired to keep fishing. Wednesday passed rather uneventfully for her, with the day spent taking care of things around the farm, and then roaming around town looking for rocks and insects. She did make it down to the river that evening to do some more fishing, however, and managed to catch yet another new type of fish.

The next day while tending her garden, she found that her flame fruits were finally ready to harvest. And not only that, but a few of them were already putting out Perfect quality fruits.

It proved to be the only notable thing that happened for her that day, however, and the rest of Thursday passed as uneventfully as Wednesday had. Friday, however was special, for it was Harriet's birthday. While she didn't have any big party planned or anything (the thought of throwing a party made her shudder, and she didn't know anyone to invite to one anyway), she was hopeful that it would prove to be a momentous day for her. And she wasn't disappointed since, while tending her garden early that morning, she finally mastered her Gardening skills.

Then, when she went to check the mailbox, she found that a few more gems had come back from the gem cutters.

After her chores were finished and she'd had some lunch, she decided to treat herself to a bubble bath using some of the bubble bath liquid she'd fished up out of one of the ponds at the hatchery.

But then just as soon as she had drawn the bath and gotten settled in it, her cell phone rang. She sighed, and considered ignoring it, but she knew it was most likely something important, so, with another inward sigh, she climbed out of the tub, toweled off quickly and answered it. And it turned out she was right to do so, as it was the diner calling with another opportunity for her, and one that would be quite easy to fill as she already had what they were wanting in her inventory.

Smiling, she hung up, but the smile was short lived as all heck started breaking loose in the small bathroom. The faucet on the tub started spewing water everywhere, and so she had to take care of that before the floor got too muddy.

When she finished with the tub, she remembered that the toilet had clogged up again when she used it last, so she went ahead and fixed it as well, improving her Handiness skills even more in the process.

By the time she'd finished with it, she was totally out of the mood for a bubble bath, so she just drew herself a normal bath and finished cleaning herself up quickly. She then headed over to the diner to deliver the produce they wanted. She was surprised and delighted with her reward, and couldn't wait to try growing her own cheese and eggs since it would open up several more options for cooking, as well as give her some more types of bait to experiment with. Though she hadn't quite worked out yet how she'd bait the hook with an egg.

She then went downtown to the market, intending to get just a few eggs and cheese to plant since the diner people told her that's what she'd have to do. When she got there, however, she got so sidetracked in sorting through all of her produce, seeds and fish deciding what to sell that in the end she totally forgot to buy what she'd come there for. She did make a fair bit of money though.

She went down to the river to do some fishing, and after night had fallen, took a few minutes to celebrate her birthday the way she'd wanted to - fishing by herself on the bank of the river.

After spending a few minutes cheering for herself, she went back to her fishing, and was rewarded with a new catch. All in all, she considered it had been a pretty good birthday.

The next morning while fixing herself some pancakes for breakfast, she managed to improve her cooking skills even more.

After breakfast, she sorted through and analyzed all of the space rocks she'd found laying around in a field near her home when she was walking back from the river the night before.

After taking care of the garden, she went into town to run some errands. First stop was the market, where she sold some more of her fish, seeds she'd found, and produce she'd harvested. She also remembered to buy some cheese and eggs to plant this time.

Next stop was the science lab, where she sold several insects she'd caught over the last few days.

While she was there, she took some time to talk to the omni plant out back, telling it all about her week, and all the good things that had happened for her on her birthday.

When she finally made it home, she checked the mailbox before heading to bed, and discovered that the local gardeners guild had sent her a certificate to recognize her master gardening skills. She wasn't sure how they knew about it, since she hadn't talked to anyone to tell them, but she was pleased with the award nonetheless.

She then went to bed, and with dawn the next morning, another week had come to an end. Harriet felt it had been a productive one, and she was pleased with her progress, though she still felt she could have done more.

And that is where we leave our tale of Harriet for now. Below is a summary of her accomplishments at the end of week three. To see a detailed shot of the types of plants she has showing in her Gardening journal, click here. For the details of her Fishing journal, click here.

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Author's Notes: While Harriet did managed to accomplish a fair bit this week, I'm sure she could have accomplished more. Several whole days kind of got away from me while I was playing, so I didn't get in quite as much fishing or collecting time with her as I'd hoped. She did make several finds during the week, however, and there were more rocks, metals, insects and gems sold than I've ended up including in the blog entry here. And she still hasn't managed to get a money tree growing. She spun up a wish to grow one after turning in the food contest opportunity at the bistro, and there was a Special seed in her inventory afterwards that I thought would be a money tree seed given the wish, but it must have been something else, for none of the Special seeds she planted have developed into a tree so far. She also hasn't gotten a deathflower plant yet, though she has a few as-yet unidentified special plants growing, and one of them might turn into a deathflower plant. They will be either that or more lifefruit plants. She keeps looking for special seeds though, so I'm sure eventually she'll find one. She hasn't yet gotten the follow-up opportunity to Uncommonly Good, but it will come eventually, and she's only just planted her first cheeses anyway so won't have Excellent ones for awhile yet. For week four, I'll definitely have to work on her fishing some more, and also on her cooking. For gardening, it will simply take time for plants to grow and be replaced with better quality ones, and for her to find new seeds and/or unlock new types of plants to complete her goals there.