Spring
| Spring | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Mechanic |
Spring is where every save begins, and it is the poorest and busiest season of the four. The farm starts the year under logs, stones and weeds, the first tools are weak, and the crops on Pierre's shelves are cheap because nothing better is affordable yet. What Spring really offers is groundwork: cheap seeds that turn money over quickly, a forage list that feeds a farmer for free, and three festivals that hand out the things which pay off much later. The Egg Festival on the thirteenth sells Strawberry seeds that nowhere else stocks, the Desert Festival follows in the middle of the month, and the Flower Dance on the twenty-fourth is the valley's first real social event. Rain comes often enough to skip the watering can, and the Legend, the largest fish in the game, only rises in the mountain lake on a wet Spring day.
Overview
The first job is clearing up. Every new Spring scatters fresh logs, rocks and grass across the farm, Cindersap Forest and Pelican Town, and the turn from Winter into a new year leaves the worst of it. Tilled ground that was left empty reverts to grass, so the start of Spring is always a few days of axe and pickaxe work before a seed goes in. Grass starts spreading again at the same time, which matters for anyone keeping animals, since a field left to grow in the first week feeds the barn all year.
Parsnips are the opening crop because they are cheap and quick, and a small bed of them turns over enough times to pay for something better. Potatoes are the real workhorse of the early weeks: each plant has a chance of pulling up more than one, so a field of them earns well above what the seed price suggests. Cauliflower is the big single-harvest crop, slow enough that only two plantings fit the month, and a block of nine Cauliflowers planted together can swell into a giant one. Kale sits in the middle, Blue Jazz and Tulips are grown for flowers rather than for money, and Unmilled Rice loses gold on every sale, so it is planted for Rice and for the Bundle rather than for profit. Garlic and Unmilled Rice only reach the shelves once the first year is behind, and Rhubarb comes from the Oasis in the desert, which means a bus fare and a stack of gold before anyone sees it. Rhubarb repays that trip, since it sells for more than anything else Spring can put in the ground.
Repeat crops are the ones that decide the season. Green Beans climb a trellis, take a week and a half to come in and then bear every few days, so they need no replanting and quietly earn through the month. Strawberries beat everything, and the catch is the calendar: the seeds only go on sale at the Egg Festival on the thirteenth, by which time half the season has gone. Buying a large pile that day and planting at once still gives two harvests, but the real play is to run the harvest through a Seed Maker or keep the leftover seeds for the first day of the following Spring, when the same bed yields five pickings. Coffee Beans are the expensive curiosity, sold by the Traveling Cart for a small fortune, giving four beans each time and bearing every other day straight through into Summer, which makes a single purchase into a permanent supply once the harvest is fed back through a Seed Maker. Carrots are the free option, with seeds dug out of the wriggling worm patches on tilled ground, won from the Prize Machine in the Mayor's Manor, knocked out of crates in the caves or handed over for the Raccoon's requests. They grow in three days, so they fill any gap in a bed.
The forage walk is worth doing daily. Daffodils cover Pelican Town, Dandelions fill Cindersap Forest, Leeks sit up around the Backwoods and the Mountain, and Wild Horseradish hides nearly everywhere, with the Secret Woods the thickest patch. Those four together hand in the Spring Foraging Bundle at the Community Center. The Secret Woods also grows Morels, which are worth several times any other Spring forage, and Common Mushrooms beside them. Spring Onions grow in a cluster at the south end of Cindersap Forest and come back every morning, which makes them free energy for anyone willing to walk down for them. Gifts hide in the list as well: George loves a Leek, Sandy loves a Daffodil and Krobus loves Wild Horseradish, all of which cost nothing.
Salmonberry Season runs from the fifteenth to the eighteenth and is the single most generous foraging window of the year. Every bush in town and forest fills with berries, and each bush regrows them daily for those four days. The berries sell for almost nothing, so the point is the energy: four days of shaking bushes replaces every meal a farmer would otherwise cook, and the leftovers go into Jelly or Wine, where they are worth many times the fruit.
Fishing is generous too, because rain is common. Catfish bite in the town and forest rivers whenever it rains and are worth more than any other river fish available this early. Eel comes out of the sea after four in the afternoon on a wet day, and Shad runs the rivers in the rain from mid-morning onwards. In fair weather the ocean gives Sardine, Anchovy, Herring, Halibut and Flounder, and the rivers give Sunfish and Smallmouth Bass. The prize is the Legend, which lurks by the log in the mountain lake and only appears on a rainy Spring day, and it will not bite until the rod has ten levels of Fishing behind it.
The calendar is crowded. Kent, Lewis, Vincent, Haley, Pam, Shane, Pierre and Emily all have birthdays in Spring, which makes the season a cheap way to build friendship, because a loved gift on a birthday is worth several ordinary ones. The Egg Festival fills the thirteenth with an egg hunt whose prize is a Straw Hat. The Desert Festival takes over the middle of the month with Calico Egg trading and the Chef's stacking dishes. The Flower Dance on the twenty-fourth asks for a dance partner, which needs four hearts with a candidate, and sells seeds that cannot be bought elsewhere.
Notes
Spring is short of money and rich in time, which is why most farms spend it underground. The Mines open during the first week, and the upper floors give the copper and iron that upgrade the watering can and the axe. A rainy Spring day with crops watering themselves is the ideal day for a deep run.
On the seventeenth a rainbow ends above the waterfall in the south-east corner of Cindersap Forest, and a pot of gold sits on the cliff at the end of it. Searching it hands over a Leprechaun Hat and a pile of gold, and it comes back every year with a larger pile. The Bookseller also sets up his wagon twice during the month on days that vary from save to save. Both are easy to walk past, and both are worth the detour.
The hard deadline is the twenty-eighth. Nothing growing outdoors survives the change into Summer except the crops that span both seasons, so a Cauliflower or a Rhubarb planted too late is money thrown away. Working backwards from the last day of the month is the whole skill of planting in Spring.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
