#The birds are entirely silver but I haven’t bothered to photograph that side

[squirrelpaints]

The company I used to work for let me make whatever I wanted in order to showcase our printing capabilities on different substrates, so I went full shiny golden hair.

[foolsiwillshowthemall]

Farm Report:  Catching lightning

20th of Spring.  I have an excellent harvest of Potatoes and Kale.  Building up the money I'll need to buy the things I'll need for the summer season.

Yeah, this update is mostly going to be about farming.  Not much cute relationship happened in these few days.

Haley is starting to become more like her sister, taking care of injured birds she finds.  Nice to see our association has had a positive effect on her.

Sold all the spring harvest, and then spent 20K on saplings.  Pomegranates and Apples are harvested in the fall, and I'll be able to harvest them this year if I plant them before the end of spring.  I've also bought enough potato seeds to fill all the unoccupied spots on the farm, I should be able to get one more harvest in before the end of the season.

Stopping by Clint's and I'm surprised to see that Mayor Lewis is here.  You're not having a secret affair with Clint in addition to Marnie, are you, Mayor?  Because I don't need that mental image.

No, he's here to collect tax.  Wait, you make Clint pay tax?  I don't have to pay tax on my business.

I'm here to collect a steel pickaxe.  This will slightly speed up mining, and reduce energy, but the real performance bonus won't come till I upgrade it to gold quality.

I run into Lewis again at the museum, where he points out how the taxes collected from Clint are keeping the place going.  Just as the artifacts I've collected are furnishing this place with exhibits - I suppose that's the tax I pay.

With the new pickaxe, I can finally break these giant boulders.  I don't get anything but ordinary stone for this, but it will be nice to have this space cleared.

Not sure what I'll put down here yet.  Maybe some additional sprinklers for the summer blueberry crop?

I worked long into the night chopping wood and clearing stone.  I have relocated nearly all my tappers onto oak trees.  I don't need much pine tar or maple syrup now, but I do need oak resin for making kegs that I'll be using to process the summer crops.  Making a lot of kegs before summer will greatly multiply the value of the summer crops, but I need to get started harvesting oak resin now if I want to build them in time.

I've also put one tapper on a giant mushroom, just to see what kind of bizarre mushroom juice it collects.

The next morning, a terrific thunderstorm is lashing the valley, and Pierre is jonesing for some sashimi.  He's in luck, Linus showed me how to make sashimi some time back.  Now, you might be wondering, "Sashimi Recipe"?  What's the big deal, it's just raw fish, right?  Ah, but there is a real skill in knowing just how to separate out the choice bits of a fish that will make for a meal that is tasty and safe to eat.  Thanks to Linus's teachings, I now know how to take even a poisonous or unappetizing fish (such as a pufferfish or a sea cucumber) and turn it into a tasty meal.

Before I get to that, it's time for the first harvest of strawberries (and another harvest of green beans).  This is my big spring cash crop.  Nealy all of these I'll just sell, but the next harvest after this will be reserved for making strawberry wine.

Three more kegs built, for a total of 11.  I want to fill every space that I can get away with in here with these eventually.  I am turning this farmhouse into a winery.  It's for the best that I'm not marrying Penny, she really would not approve.

Then it's off to Pierre's to drop off his sashimi lunch.  PIerre, you are a strange and disturbing man, but at least sashimi is a reasonably safe addiction to have.  And true to his word, he pays me top dollar - 1000g for just this delivery job.  I buy the final four saplings while I'm here, and then head back to the farm.

Clearing out trees in the far corner of the map, cutting down pine trees.  This is pure resource-gathering at this point - I need the wood, but more importantly I'll need the sap for making fertilizer.

Earlier, Maru pointed out to me that my lightning rods were in too close of a grid for optimum grass growth.  Yesterday I re-arranged them into this more open spacing.  Today, there have been repeated lightning strikes on the farm, and nearly the entire grid is pulsing and buzzing.  I'm actually concerned seeing this.  A lightning rod takes a day to process the energy from a strike, and it can't absorb another strike while processing.  If all these rods become saturated, my farm won't be protected from further strikes.

The chickens are unconcerned by the possibility of the coop burning down from a lightning strike.  They're only bothered by the noise interrupting their sleep.

Last fruit tree saplings are in the ground.  It's late, and I am soaked and completely exhausted.

Eleven grand income from strawberries and beans.  Not bad.

I may have overdone it on this grass patch.  Sometimes it feels more like I'm hunting for pokemon in the tall grass here, trying to find my chickens in all this.  The lightning rods are still processing the energy from last night's storm, over the course of the day nearly all of them will yield charged batteries.

Doing a bit more harvesting of hardwood.  These stumps regenerate every day, somehow.  The common theory is that this part of the map is stuck in some kind of stable time loop, possibly due to magical energy leaking from the nearby wizard's tower.  Which might explain why the night I spent with Emily here seems to have simultaneously lasted a thousand years yet also flew by far too quickly.

Haley is pursuing here photography hobby in the Cindersap Woods, so I don't disturb her.  It's nice to see her pursuing creative outlet, instead of just sitting around being bored like she used to do.  She might even be able to go pro as a photographer someday.

Crab Pots have caught another lobster.  Elliott will be pleased.  I'm actually slightly sad to see that I haven't caught broken glasses or CDs, I'm going to need more refined quartz eventually.

A bit of side-by-side fishing in the evening with Willy, after he's closed up shop for the day.

I caught three fish while here, and in all that time I didn't see him even move his rod.  What kind of fisherman are you, Willy?  I'm totally out-catching you.

I bet Willy's not anywhere close to 7th level.  Master fisherman, indeed.

Tuesday the 23rd.  Harvesting apricots and cherries, and the next batch of Blue Jazz Honey is ready.  It's nowhere near as lucrative as Fairy Honey, but still better than normal wildflower honey.

In the tapper I placed on the giant mushroom, there is now a regular common mushroom.  That is not how mushrooms work, Stardew Valley.  You are being very silly.

As I search through the tall grass, Tandoori has circled around to attack me from behind. Clever girl.  Seriously, this grass patch is way out of control.  I need to get a few more chickens to keep it trimmed.

The chickens are happy, at least.  I'm starting to get silver star quality eggs.

Cutting down more trees.  I need wood and sap, and I want to clear the space.

I'm not cutting down all the trees - just most of them, enough that I can get between them easily to check on and harvest the tappers.