Raccoon Journal

Raccoon Journal

Type	Book
Location	Giant Stump; Raccoon Wife's Shop; Bookseller
Sell Price	1000g

The Raccoon Journal comes from the family living inside the Giant Stump in Cindersap Forest, handed over as thanks for the second favour they ask. Reading it makes cutting weeds a little more likely to leave Mixed Seeds or Mixed Flower Seeds behind, which turns the chore of clearing overgrowth into a source of free planting. Weeds grow back across the farm every few days, so this is a power that keeps paying as long as a scythe is being swung. The raccoon's wife will also trade a copy for a mountain of Fiber once her shop is open, and the Bookseller stocks it from the third year for anyone who went another way. Later copies hand out foraging experience.

The in-game description reads: Weeds have a greater chance to yield mixed seeds.

Overview

The Giant Stump stands west of Marnie's Ranch in Cindersap Forest, left behind when a storm brought the enormous tree down. Visiting what remains starts a short repair job, and once that is finished a raccoon moves in and begins asking for things: cooked dishes, preserved goods and foraged oddities, one request at a time. Clearing the second of those requests brings the journal, along with an expansion of the raccoon's household and the opening of the Raccoon Wife's Shop, which deals in trades that exist nowhere else in the valley.

Mixed Seeds are the point of the book. Planted in Spring they come up as Parsnips, Potatoes or Cauliflower, in Summer as Corn, Peppers, Radishes or Wheat, and in Fall as Artichokes, Corn, Eggplants or Pumpkins, with the Greenhouse able to roll any of them in Winter. They sell for nothing on their own, so their whole value is in the planting, and a farmer who scythes the weeds off a large farm every few days can keep a corner of the field going on them alone. Mixed Flower Seeds do the same for flowers, which matters to anyone keeping Bee Houses, since the flower nearest a hive decides what the honey becomes.

The improvement the book gives is a few percentage points on each cut, which sounds negligible and works out rather better than it reads. Weeds are everywhere: on the farm, through Cindersap Forest, in the Secret Woods and across the mountain paths, and a Fiber run or a general tidy-up involves hundreds of swings. The same cuts also produce the Fiber that the raccoon's wife wants in bulk, so a farmer chasing one is gathering the other at the same time.

Her shop is the second route to a copy. Once it is open, a very large quantity of Fiber buys the journal outright, which is useful on a save where the quest rewards have already been claimed and a second copy is wanted for the experience. The third route is the Bookseller, who adds it to his rotation in the third year and brings it to roughly one table in ten at a price far above what the raccoons ask.

The first reading claims the power and lists it on the Special Items and Powers tab. Every copy read afterwards gives a hundred points of foraging experience.

Notes

Penny loves the journal, Elliott likes it, and Alex dislikes it.

For dyeing it reads green twice: green in the pots at Emily and Haley's house on 2 Willow Lane, and green again through the spool of the Sewing Machine with a dyeable garment in the feed.

All Books

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Price
Animal Catalogue		2000g
Bait And Bobber		500g
Book Of Stars		2500g
Book of Mysteries		3000g
Combat Quarterly		500g
Dwarvish Safety Manual		1000g
Friendship 101		3000g
Horse: The Book		1000g
Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Thick		500g
Jewels Of The Sea		800g
Mapping Cave Systems		4000g
Mining Monthly		500g
Monster Compendium		2000g
Ol' Slitherlegs		1000g
Price Catalogue		1000g
Queen Of Sauce Cookbook		10000g
Raccoon Journal		1000g
Stardew Valley Almanac		500g
The Alleyway Buffet		3000g
The Art O' Crabbing		1000g
The Diamond Hunter		1000g
Treasure Appraisal Guide		500g
Way Of The Wind pt. 1		5000g
Way Of The Wind pt. 2		10000g
Woodcutter's Weekly		500g
Woody's Secret		500g