Week Five - Investing

Sunday morning of week 5 saw Harriet still up from fishing the night before and taking care of her garden early before going to bed.

When she got over to her trees, she saw that the first money tree she had planted finally had bags ready to harvest.

She managed to get four bags from it which sold for 475 simoleons. She thought it was pretty good for a first harvest, and hoped that future harvests would be even better.

When she’d finished with the garden, she went inside her house to get ready for bed finally. While using the bathroom, she found that the toilet had stopped up. Not wanting to have to get back up to a mess, she went ahead and unplugged it, and in doing so managed to finish the Plumber Skill Challenge. She was quite happy about this, as it meant that soon she shouldn’t have to fix any of her plumbing again.

After finishing with her repairs and getting a bit to eat, she finally got to bed and got some sleep, sleeping until early evening. She got up, fixed herself some dinner, then after cleaning up a bit she headed into town. She’d decided that since she had some extra money again, she would invest in the bookstore, hoping that it would yield even more money for her in the long run.

She then headed down to the river behind the graveyard to fish for some deathfish, since she had a wish to catch a perfect one. Besides hopefully fulfilling the wish and getting her closer to the Super Green Thumb reward she wanted, she knew they would help fill her bank account again as well.

She stayed until the deathfish had disappeared again in the pre-dawn hours, and then went home to get her gardening done before going to bed. The automatic sprinklers were still going when she got home, but she didn’t let that deter her from harvesting and weeding the plants.

She got soaking wet in the process of tending the garden, but it was worth it, for she discovered while working that she’d finally harvested enough produce to finish the Master Farmer Skill Challenge.

Unfortunately, one of her death flower plants died after she harvested it, so she tried to revive it. She wasn’t sure if would work or not, since it had failed when she’d tried to do it before, but she still felt it was worth trying. This time she had success.

Later that evening, Harriet decided to go to the fish hatchery instead of trying to get more deathfish. She still hadn’t managed to catch a swordfish, and it was the last one she needed to complete the Amateur Ichthyologist Skill Challenge. She chose one of the pools that she thought looked like it had some swordfish in it, then started off with just using links to fish with, figuring that even if she didn’t catch a swordfish right away she could get some more red herrings to use for fertilizer. She got lucky though, and on one cast reeled in a swordfish and thus finished the challenge.

She spent the rest of the night fishing in the various pools at the hatchery, trying out different baits, until she felt she had figured out the correct bait to use for all of the different types of fish except the robot fish, which she knew she could only catch over by the science center. At dawn, she headed home, checking her mailbox first when she arrived. She found that the yellow sapphire she’d found at the graveyard the night before had come back from the gem cutters.

She was very tired from fishing all night, so she decided to leave the garden for later and just headed into the house. The first thing she found, however, is that the faucet on the sink had broken again and was spewing water everywhere. It apparently had been like that most of the night, for the ground in front of the counters and just inside the doorway was already getting pretty muddy. With a tired sigh, she started to try to fix it.

She was just too tired to focus on the task, however, and after making a few halfhearted attempts to tighten the gaskets up again, she realized she was just going to have to let it wait until she’d gotten some rest. So she stumbled off to bed and slept most of the day away. She got back up in the late afternoon, fixed the sink finally, then went out to tend her garden, not even bothering to get changed out of her pajamas. While she was working, the other death plant died after she’d harvested it, so she attempted to revive it, encouraged by her success with the other one the day before. And once again, she was rewarded with a newly-healthy plant.

Her money tree had more bags ready to be harvested, and though she didn’t get any more off it than she had before, these were worth a bit more than the first ones had been.

She was feeling somewhat lazy that night, so decided not to go out fishing anywhere. She had gotten so used to fishing in the wee hours of the morning though, that she still had the desire to do so. Though she knew she probably wouldn’t catch much, she decided to just fish in the pond at the back of her property for a little while.

She stayed out there for a few hours, but only caught a couple fish, and eventually gave up on it and went inside. She wasn’t quite tired enough to go bed yet, so she decided to take the time to read through a few of the recipe books she’d bought but hadn’t gotten around to reading yet. She made it through two of them and learned how to fix cobbler and fruit parfait.

She tried out the fruit parfait recipe she’d just read for breakfast, then went to bed to get some sleep. That evening, after finishing with her garden, she remembered that she should have some checks waiting for her at the businesses she’d bought partnerships at. So she headed into town, stopping at the grocery store first to sell the fish and produce she had, and to collect her money.

She then walked over to the bookstore to collect her check there, and to sell off a cooking book that she’d bought awhile ago but didn’t need any longer. Her skills had progressed far enough that it was no longer useful to her.

She looked at the third volume of the cooking skill set, but it was kind of expensive, so she decided she’d see if she could just read it at the library. Hopefully there wouldn’t be too many people there this early in the morning.

She stayed until late morning when the library started to get too crowded for her liking, and managed to get another skill point in cooking.

Arriving home around noon, she noticed that her cheese plant had more cheeses ready to be harvested. She was hopeful that she would get enough excellent or better cheeses to finally have enough to turn in the opportunity at the diner, but after harvesting it she found she was still one short. Ah well, maybe tomorrow she thought.

Again one of the death flower plants died, so she once again tried to revive it. This time, though it didn’t vanish like the first time she’d tried reviving one, it didn’t come back to life, and she could tell that it was now barren and beyond being able to be revived.

She went and got some sleep once she’d finished weeding and harvesting everything, and later when she got back up, she took another good look at all of the plants. She realized that the watermelon vines she had were still fairly low quality, though she had some better quality ones she could replant them with. So, the old ones got pulled up, and seeds from the better watermelons she’d harvested got planted in their place.

A few hours later she found herself once again down at the river by the graveyard, fishing for more deathfish. She just couldn’t resist catching them when she could since they brought in so much money when she sold them. She also found herself wanting to prepare ambrosia, a dish that she didn’t yet have the recipe or the skill to make, and had heard she would need a deathfish to prepare it once she could.

She fished until the deathfish went away again for the day, then wandered back into town to do some more reading at the library.

Once again, the time spent reading paid off for her, and she gained another level of cooking skill.

She left earlier than she had the day before, as she was tired, but when she arrived home, she just couldn’t resist taking the time to harvest the money bags she could see hanging on the trees.

Once again, she was able to get four bags of money from the tree, and their value continued to go up.

She noticed there were more cheeses ready to harvest too, so she went over to pick them, and was pleased to find that she now had enough to be able to turn in the opportunity, plus a few extra that she could replant to get an even better quality cheese plant growing.

Exhausted, she left the rest of the gardening for later, and stumbled into the house to get some sleep. That night she lost the other death flower plant after harvesting it. Once again, the attempt to revive it left only a barren plant behind that she could do nothing with except dispose of it and plant a new one in its place.

She was so used to the downtown businesses being open at all hours that she didn’t even think about the fact that the diner might not be. So when she went over there around 4AM, she found it closed, with a sign on the window saying they would reopen at 7AM. Disappointed, she decided to make the best of things and went over to the river behind the science building to do a bit of fishing while she waited for the diner to open. She hoped to confirm her suspicions that piranha would be the bait that robot fish liked best.

It took a little bit, but just as the sun was beginning to rise, she finally caught one of the robot fish, and thus her thoughts about the bait to use for them was confirmed.

She got so caught up in fishing that before she realized it, it was already 9AM and the diner had been open for a few hours already. Putting her rod away, she started to walk over there, but first went into the science center to sell a butterfly that she had found a few days before.

She then continued on to the diner, where she handed over the cheeses she’d grown and collected her reward. The chef let her in on the secret of how to grow steaks and hamburger patties as well, and while as a vegetarian she was repulsed at the idea of growing meat, she made a mental note to get some to plant next time she was at the grocery store since she suspected she might need to have some growing at some point in the future.

While she was there, she decided she would invest in the diner as well, since she had the money, and they’d given her so many opportunities to expand her gardening.

She went home and took a nap for a few hours before getting up again to tend her garden. After fixing herself some dinner, she headed downtown to the grocery store to get a steak and a hamburger patty to plant, and to sell off her fish and produce.

She then went over to the library to do some more reading, hoping to get another level in cooking

She’d hoped to get another level in cooking, but she was just too tired to stay for more than a couple hours since she hadn’t had much sleep. By 11PM she had to give into the fatigue and go home to get a good night’s sleep. The first time she’d slept at night in almost two weeks. She was up early on Sunday morning, but didn’t have time for much more than breakfast and a bath before the week was over. And so we leave Harriet for now, with one final look at where she stands after week five.

Click journal images to view larger

Cooking Journal	Fishing Journal	Gardening Journal

Join us again next time when we’ll find out if Harriet can achieve her goal of mastering the cooking skill, learning all the recipes she can, and hopefully fulfilling enough wishes along the way to get the Super Green Thumb reward. With only five days to go before her birthday, will she be able to accomplish it all before she becomes an elder? Only time will tell.

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Outtake: Harriet’s gotten so good at fishing that she can cast her line to fish a spot that’s a quarter mile away from where she’s standing.

Author’s Notes: It seemed like a lot happened for Harriet this week, and at the same time, nothing much unsual happened. She was still on a very nocturnal schedule from the previous week when I had her fishing so much, though I was trying to gradually get her back on more of a daytime schedule. I’d intended to have her spend more time working on her cooking, but she kept rolling wishes related to fishing, so I let her get as many of those as I could since she still needs a lot of points yet to get the Super Green Thumb reward that’s required for the challenge. It did give me a chance to finish the fishing challenge for her, however, as well as to accomplish my personal goal of having her learn all the correct baits to use just from actually fishing and not resorting to reading books about it. In hindsight, I probably should have left her staying awake during the night to go do her library reading then when it’s deserted, since she gets unhappy there during the day when there are a lot of people around. We’ll see how it works out next week though. I’m not sure how many perfect plants she still needs for her LTW, but it should only be one or two I would think. Next time I’ll have to be sure to count them better. I think the journal is just showing the best harvest obtained of a certain type plant, and not what the highest quality plant is for that type, but I’m not positive. I guess I’ll find out soon. That’s all for now though. Thank you for reading, and I hope you’ll look Harriet up next time to see how she’s done.