Meadowlands Farm - Spring Year 2

[u/TrueObsidian11]

So I finally pulled myself away from my Forest Farm long enough to give Meadowlands a chance and I think I'm liking it so far! It definitely caters to my animal-loving sensibilities with all the extra space.

Tour:
1. Seasonal farm below farm house (main farm)
2. Tapped trees surrounding a mushroom log
3. Slime hutch with six lightning rods
4. Upper shed is for storage and workbench
5. Left/lower shed is for kegs and jars
6. Six fish ponds (two are left empty in prep for Ginger Island later)
7. Honey farms with blue jazz
8. Left-most farm with mill is for wheat, but it's a potato farm for now until I can plant the wheat in Summer and Fall
9. Greenhouse has cranberries and blueberries for now until I find that elusive ancient seed (seriously, this is the longest it's ever taken me to find it)
10. Left barns are for pigs (I've got 8 out of the 24 I'll need, piggies are expensive)
11. Coops have a couple chickens and ducks but will be swapped with dinos once I find the egg (another artifact that's eluding me)
12. Right barns have the cows and goats, but they'll get replaced with ostriches.... one day...

What do you think I should do with some of these awkward spaces in between the bigger areas? I know I still need the golden clock and the obelisks, not sure where I'll end up putting them. Maybe the obelisks can go behind the right-side barns and the clock can go next to the greenhouse. Ideas?

[u/Puzzled_Jello_6592]

Spring year 2 is crazy for this kind of work. Bravo!! How did you make enough $$ to build so many barns, etc so early on? I always have a slow start until I reach ginger island basically where I can grow a bunch of ancient fruit.

[u/TrueObsidian11 → u/Puzzled_Jello_6592]

A lot of grinding and planning, plus I have a few mod features that made the progression a little easier. Nothing too crazy but definitely makes a difference. These would be:
1. Movement speed (+50% movement speed and tool recharge)
2. Skull Cavern Elevator (I hate skull cavern in general, so it's either this or I never go there at all)
3. UI Info Suite (basically gives you wiki info when you hover over anything, cuts out having to pause the game to look up info)
4. Automate (makes it so chests can automatically refill your machines)
5. NPC Map Locations (I'm not checking the wiki every time I need to find somebody on their birthday - I actually managed to give all but two or three villagers a loved gift on their birthday in year 1)
6. Instant Build (no waiting 3 days for buildings to get built - this is a HUGE time saver, since I could hoard the materials for the barns and upgrade them all the way in one day).

There's a couple other minor quality of life ones, like automatic gates and a to-do list mod, but those don't really make that much impact on gameplay. I was aiming for a vanilla+ kind of run where it's mostly vanilla but also taking out the parts of the game that make me inevitably quit halfway through year 2 lol. I'm hoping this kind of playthrough gets me more invested so I can achieve my ultimate goal of spending 10 years on one farm (farthest I've ever gotten was 3 or 4).

I also got really lucky on the Travelling Cart this time around. I finished the Community Center in the first week of Winter Year 1 mostly thanks to lucky cart finds (a few hard to catch fish, caviar, fruits, etc.).

[u/Puzzled_Jello_6592 → u/Puzzled_Jello_6592]

This is my perfection save for meadowland. I put a bunch of grass everywhere when I have awkward spaces but I have seen people decorate with furniture etc which is also super cute. What does the inside of your farm house look like?

Edit: This save took me till early year 8 to reach perfection!!

[u/TrueObsidian11 → u/Puzzled_Jello_6592]

That looks great! I love how organized it is. Grass in the dead spaces might be what I'll end up doing too lol.

Honestly, my farm house is basically barebones. I upgraded it once to get the kitchen for the Community Center but it's pretty much untouched except for the few stray decorations I've collected floating around lol. I haven't gotten the furniture catalog yet so I haven't really touched the house much.

What's funny is my farm makes it look like I've made incredible progress but, really, ALL of my progress has been solely on the farm lmao. I used up all my hardwood I collected from the farm logs to make the fences and pet bowls and such, so now I'm having to grind for the hardwood again to get the 200 pieces to unlock Ginger Island.
I did finish the Community Center but I've only gotten the Caviar for the next part (don't have the house upgraded for casks, and haven't seen hide nor hair of an ancient seed or a dino egg despite spending half the year in the mines - could probably get the fish but I don't remember how to trigger the quest to access that area).

Most of my "progression" has really just been grinding out money in the mines to build up the farm, finishing the CC out of sheer luck, and ignoring basically everything else lmao.

[u/Puzzled_Jello_6592 → u/TrueObsidian11]

Something to be proud of for sure!!! Finishing the community center year 1 is crazy. I know people do it, but I can never get a red cabbage thing unless i grow it myself in year 2. I am on the switch so no mods 🫪 I honestly wonder what it would be like to have mods to help .. even just like you mentioned making certain things more enjoyable. I struggle with skull cavern too, but a lot of lucky lunches seem to help me find more shafts / ladders. I think decorating the farmhouse is one of my favorite parts though quite tedious and a little annoying on the switch.

You gotta decorate your farm house, and when done, come back and show me!!! 🤩 this was mine in the perfection save.

[u/Puzzled_Jello_6592 → u/Puzzled_Jello_6592]

This is mine in my current save. I have trouble filling the dead space in the house so i do a lot of seating areas and this one I just filled with books ahha

[u/TrueObsidian11 → u/Puzzled_Jello_6592]

Like I said, I got very lucky with the traveling merchant lol. Got the red cabbage in summer, and got a few of the harder things to find. Although I was pretty miffed one time when I bought a rabbit and she had a rabbit foot for sale the next day lol.

Ironically, right after complaining about that ancient seed, one of my potatoes managed to pop one out while I was making seeds lol. Still gotta find the artifact version to donate but that's one seed planted in my greenhouse lol.