Disclaimer: I do not own anything Harvest Moon

When Sunday arrived my only concern was, oddly enough, the fact that the eggplants were supposed to be harvested today. That concern was alleviated, however, when my best man—Cliff—came over for breakfast. He assured me that he would take care of the shipping that afternoon so I shouldn't worry about it.

It took some time, but eventually the two of us were dressed up and headed for the church. I was glad that Gotz had confronted me on Saturday so that it wouldn't be a problem at my wedding. He had grouched about not being told before I asked her, but then he started whining about how he was going to lose his little girl. He finished angrily, letting me know that if I hurt her I would answer to him.

That guy is actually pretty funny. To look at him, you would think he was a hard, cold, angry man. The reality of the situation is that Gotz is stressed and afraid; less stressed now but still afraid because his little girl, someone he has always loved more than himself (even if he didn't show it) was now being taken out of his life.

Our wedding was a short, simple ceremony with a plethora of drinks afterwards. Everyone in the village was there, and all of the men were "paired up" with the girls they liked for the post-ceremony dance and drinking. Not surprisingly, my workaholic father was nowhere to be seen, but right then I didn't care. When we finished, Ann came up holding the reins to Adonis. I helped Karen up onto my—now our—horse and got on behind her; Adonis leapt into a canter almost immediately, carrying us up to the little bed and breakfast slash restaurant at the top of Moon Mountain.

Cliff and Ann had promised to take care of the farm, so we had nothing to worry about for the two days we were up there. We took some criticism from the elderly couple running the bed and breakfast for taking such a short honeymoon, but it made sense to us. I'm a farmer and can't leave the farm for a long period of time, and there wasn't really anything for us to do on our honeymoon that we hadn't done before.

Coming back down from the mountain, we made it to town just in time for the harvest festival. Everybody congratulated us as we all waited for Elli to come out with the slices of cake, and we all sampled the foods that everyone had made. Including Popuri's odd tasting salad.

When Elli handed out the slices of cake it was Cliff who ended up with the coin, becoming the new Harvest King. I could see a little smile on the faces of all of the young women when he was forced to dance with Ann. Karen and I danced in a little private corner of the town square.

When we got back to the farm, we found out that Karen wasn't the only pregnant thing there. Two of my cows were now pregnant; I felt a little sad that I would only be able to keep one of the calves because of the size of my barn, but we would turn a tidy little profit from it. Not only would we eventually have another milk producing cow, but the cows that give birth immediately start producing more milk themselves. I found myself deciding to build a larger shipping bin in the barn to accommodate the increase in milk that my cows would soon be producing.

True to his word, Cliff had shipped the last batch of eggplants along with the one that followed. There was a sack full of gold coins waiting for us on the living room table, a cool twelve thousand and eighty gold. I dipped a little into my savings, and set the money aside to pay a visit to the carpenters the next day.

Early in the morning on the 13th of Fall, when I got back from visiting the carpenters, I started doing some hardcore planting. I figured that between the three of us, Karen, Cliff, and I could easily handle all of the chores we had. After digging out the tomato seeds that I had bought before the greenhouse was built, I started planting. Several hours later I stood back, looking at my handiwork with an impressed Cliff and Karen standing with me.

The eggplants, I figured, we would continue to harvest until the end of fall. After that, all of the growing crops would happen inside the greenhouse where I had planted all of my tomato seeds. I did some quick math, and almost fainted when I had the answer.

I had planted 90 plants. At a value of ninety gold per harvest per plant, that meant that in thirteen days (with some help from my wife and best friend), we would rake in a profit of eight thousand one hundred gold. Followed by an equally profitable harvest every three days. Add to that the Gold quality milk that my six cows were putting out and the eggs from the chickens, and we would be making one hundred and sixty-two thousand, six hundred gold per month.

Karen and Cliff looked faint when I told them, and I could hardly believe it myself. That evening after doing all that work, Cliff let us know that he was going to propose to Ann that night when they went to the beach. He knew that he wouldn't be able to spend a lot of time with her now before their wedding would happen, but shrugged and said that that's life and a job's a job. For the good attitude and the inordinate amount of help he had been to me and the farm, I upped his wages for the fourth or fifth time and threw him a little bonus.

After a little discussion, Karen and I decided to allow Cliff a week off of work for his honeymoon. The brown haired man almost couldn't believe it when we broke the news; he returned the favor, though, by announcing that Ann decided that she wanted to work on the farm with us. They would be willing to live in the little shack that Cliff was already in, he told me.

The wedding ceremony seemed to go by quickly, and Ann and Cliff disappeared up the mountain immediately afterwards. Karen and I were getting ready to head home and prepare for the huge amount of work we had ahead of us when we got intercepted by the Potion Shop owner. It turned out that he wanted his grandsons to start taking on chores; both of them wanted to work on a farm, though, so he wanted to know if we had some stuff that could keep Kent and Stu occupied. Karen and I agreed, and said that we would pay their "allowance" to the Potion Shop owner.

It surprised us, but the boys were an exceptional help. They were able to take care of the chickens, brush the cows, and help water the crops. While they couldn't do near as much as Cliff could, they were still able to take the edge off of the work.

When Cliff and Ann rode back onto the farm, there was a surprise waiting for them. Before when I had gone to the carpenters, I had asked them to do a renovation of Cliff's shack for me. Now instead of a little one room building, a full sized house with a bedroom, living room, kitchen, dining room, and bathroom was standing in its place.

The other newlyweds were shocked speechless. After touring their house for several hours and making it habitable, the four of us walked up to the mountain to have dinner next to the stream.

The farm was doing well, and I had gotten married. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was in a place where I truly belonged.