Farm Life
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The deal is this. Your grandfather has left you with the family legacy, an ancient, ramshackle farm. Now it's up to you to turn acres of dust into rows upon rows of flourishing crops, and empty stables into stalls full of sheep, cows, and chickens. How well you acheive this goal depends on how you spend your time... In each Harvest Moon day (composed of approximately 3 minutes of our time) you can clear your land of trees, smash boulders, till the fields, plant seeds, water your crops, feed and care for your animals, cut your grass, and harvest vegetables. The more work you put in, the more money you get out.. money used for buying |
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new tools, gifts for the lady-folk,
improvements on your house, and other fun surprises. But
time is short.. You have two years, each year consisting
of 120 days, until your review. The good news is you can
keep on playing afterwards, as long as you'd like! Many tools from the old series appear again in Harvest Moon 64, as well as a few new ones. All tools have in common the ability to upgrade, becoming more powerful, the more you use them. For instance, a stump takes 6 hits to break into logs with the axe, but eventually this will change to 2 hits, and if you take very good care of your tools... it will go to 1 hit. In fact, certain events, such as breaking larger boulders and discovering more secret areas in the world can only be acheived with pumped-up tools. |
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| Don't exhaust yourself, though! Everyday, you
have only a limited amount of stamina,
and your energy slowly leaks away as you use your tools.
When you're out of steam, you can't use tools anymore for
the day! To recover some enery, head to the hot springs
in the mountains.. or build your very own sauna to relax
in the comfort of your home. Managing your farm is a year-long chore. Each "year" (consisting of 120 "days") is divided into the four seasons. During spring and summer, your time is best spent growing everything you can get your hands on. During the fall and winter seasons, farming slows down a bit.. but it's a great time to explore the world, meet people, and see what secrets you can uncover. |
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Here's a list of what you can grow and when. All seeds can be purchased in Flower Bud Village:
| Spring |
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| Summer |
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| Fall |
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| Winter |
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In order to grow crops, you'll need two tools: A hoe, and a watering can. Till the soil, and plant the seeds. Afterwards, be sure to check back on the plants everyday and give them a good watering. When it's raining or storming outside, no watering is necessary! When the plants are ripe, pluck them from the earth and throw them in the shipping bin. At five o'clock sharp everyday, a shipper will be by to collect the crops.. leaving you with your money the very next morning. |  |
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But, wait!! Crops aren't everything! A good farmer always raises animals. In Harvest Moon 64, you can buy and raise cows, sheep, and chickens. From the photo, you can see that cows and sheep share a common living space. Every day, in order to stay healthy, you must brush them, speak to them, and feed them. Fully-grown cows produce milk on a daily basis. The better you take care of them, the better the quality of their milk! Sheep produce wool several times during the year.. if you take extra special care of the, you can really rake in the money!! Use the "milker" tool, which can be purchased at the tool shop, to milk your cows.. then place the milk in the livestock shipping bin. Likewise for the sheep; use the shears, which can also be found at the tool shop. |
| Cows |
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| Sheep |
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| If cows and sheep aren't enough to satisfy you, you can raise chickens also! In your chicken coop, make sure you feed your chickens each day... or else they won't lay eggs!!! Each day, one chicken lays one egg. Each egg can be sold in the bin for 50 Gold. So what are you waiting for?!? Get to it! |  |
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Cows, sheep, and chickens all eat grass. This delicious, nutrious food can be purchased by the bag at the flower shop in town at a price of 500 gold per bag. Once planted, grass takes 8 days to grow to maturity, and will coninue to grow all year 'round. You can either bring the animals out of the barn to the grass, or cut the grass with the "sickle" tool, and bring it to them! Chickens eat a special food, which can only be purchased at the Green Ranc. Make sure they get fed! |
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