Robin's Project
| Robin's Project | |
|---|---|
| Type | Special Order |
| Board | Special Orders board |
| Giver | Robin |
| Time Limit | 7 days |
| Repeatable | No |
Robin has an idea for a new bed and needs eighty pieces of hardwood to build it, which she asks for on the board with a single week on the clock. There is no bin and no doorstep delivery for this one: the wood only has to be cut, and the order closes itself the moment the eightieth piece lands in the bag. A week sounds tight and is perfectly reasonable once the Secret Woods are open, since the stumps there grow back every morning. Finishing it hands over gold, a large block of friendship with Robin and the Deluxe Red Double Bed on her shop shelves, which is the smartest-looking bed she sells. The catch is the axe: a farm that cannot yet break a Large Stump cannot gather hardwood at all, and the week will run out while the tool sits in the forge.
The board reads: Hey! I have an idea for a new style of bed, but I'll need 80 hardwood to make it happen. Can anyone help? -Robin
Requirements
Only hardwood cut while the posting is live counts. A chest holding a season's worth of it does nothing for the tally, which is the single most common disappointment on this order. Hardwood saved for a building project stays saved, and the eighty have to be chopped fresh.
Hardwood comes from the heavier timber rather than ordinary trees. Large stumps give it up once the axe has been upgraded to copper, large fallen logs need the steel version, and Mahogany Trees drop it to any axe at all, which makes them the friendliest supply once a few are growing. Each Large Stump or log yields a small handful, so eighty pieces means a good many swings.
The Secret Woods are the reliable supply. The clearing is reached by cutting through the Large Log west of Cindersap Forest, which needs the steel axe, and inside it a set of large stumps regrows every single day. A visit each morning gathers around a dozen pieces, so a full week of visits comes to a little over the eighty the order asks for. That arithmetic is also the warning: a week of perfect attendance is close to the whole requirement, so a day missed has to be made up elsewhere.
The Lumberjack profession, taken at the top of the foraging skill, gives every ordinary tree on the farm a chance of dropping hardwood instead of plain wood. For a farm with a large orchard of oaks and maples that turns an ordinary day of clearing into a steady trickle, and it is the easiest way to be sure of the eighty inside the week.
With Lumberjack chosen, bombs count as well as an axe for bringing trees down, so explosives left over from a mining run can turn a stand of trees into hardwood in moments.
The order asks for every item in this table.
| Item | Image | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Hardwood | 
|
80 |
Rewards
The gold is a decent mid-game sum for a week of chopping that most farms would be doing anyway. The friendship she returns fills an entire heart on her meter, one of the quickest ways to open her later scenes without a season of gift-giving.
The scene plays at her house once the wood is in, and afterwards the Deluxe Red Double Bed joins the furniture on sale at the Carpenter's Shop. It is not cheap, and buying it is a separate expense from the order, but it is the only way the bed becomes available at all. For a farmhouse being decorated in earnest it is the piece that finishes a bedroom, and it replaces the plain Double Bed the first house upgrade installs.
The board's collection box holds a Prize Ticket afterwards, as it does for every finished posting.
Finishing the order pays out all of this.
| Reward | Image |
|---|---|
| 2,000g | - |
| 250 Friendship points with Robin | - |
| "Robin's Project" cutscene at Robin's house | - |
| Deluxe Red Double Bed can be purchased from Robin | 
|
Strategy
Check the axe before accepting. A copper axe opens large stumps, a steel axe opens large logs and the path into the Secret Woods, and the upgrade sits at the blacksmith for a couple of days. A posting taken before that upgrade is finished has already lost a third of its week.
With the Secret Woods open, the plan is simply a daily walk. Go in the morning, clear every stump, and come out with a dozen pieces. Fit the trip into the route to the Mines or the Mountain and it costs almost no time at all. A farm with Ginger Island unlocked has it easier still, since Mahogany Trees can be planted in bulk and cut with any axe.
Plant Mahogany saplings on the farm as a standing habit rather than for this order in particular. A few mature trees mean a request like this never needs a special trip again, and Robin posts it only once, so the real benefit is for everything else hardwood is wanted for.
The usual failure is the stockpile. A farmer who already owns two hundred hardwood accepts the posting confidently, walks it to Robin, and finds nothing has changed. The second failure is the axe, and the third is a clock that started on Monday and was read on Thursday, leaving four days against an eighty-piece target.
Notes
A week is promised from the posting's own first morning, which means only a Monday reader ever gets all seven days of it. Once taken, the order has to be left to expire, and it will be pinned up again in some later month.
Hardwood is wanted in quantity elsewhere, most notably for the repairs that open the boat to Ginger Island, so the eighty cut for Robin are worth cutting even on a week when the order is missed. The posting appears once per farm.
All Special Orders
Every special order from both boards, with who posts it and how long it runs.