Friday, 12th of Fall

"Another day on the farm," Alma said to herself as she stretched on the front porch. When she rubbed her eyes open, she did a quick lookover: there was mail in the mailbox, the preserves jar was finished pickling the bok choy, no new crops were ready to harvest, but the maple and pine taps were both full. So there wasn't so much to do - not like yesterday, anyway. She started at the mailbox:

"Alma,

This recipe of mine won 1st place in a cooking competition! I hope you like it. Thanks for being a friend!

Jodi"

Attached to the letter was a recipe for Fried Calamari, which Alma thought sounded delicious. She folded it up and put it in her pocket, then she turned her attention to the preserves jar. She poured the pickled bok choy into a glass jar and thought it would make a good gift for Harvey. He would probably be at Pierre's getting groceries today, so she planned on giving it to him then. She put it in her bag with a smile before getting her watering can.

Alma took care of the crops, Bisclavret, and the mushrooms before heading to the trees to empty their taps. She bottled both the maple syrup and the pine tar and put them in her bag too. When she went into the coop to collect eggs and mayonnaise, she gasped when she saw a tiny little duckling waddling around the coop. "Aw, look at you! Our first baby!" She picked up the little yellow duckling and cuddled it next to her chest. "Hm … first baby …." She held her up and said, "Our little Prima Donna! Or, er," she turned the duckling over on its back and tried to find any sign of sex. "Maybe Primo Donnie?" she laughed. "I guess we'll find out eventually." She placed Prima Donna/Primo Donnie on the ground and said, "Go ahead outside with your momma and enjoy some grass. Welcome to Paradise Farm!" The duckling quacked and waddled outside into the sun.

After gathering the rest of her supplies, Alma went to her chests to organize then went into town. On her way into town, she came across a lost book buried in the dirt! She already had the vertebrae in her bag to take to Gunther, so she could take this too. She put it in her bag and continued down the road.

When she went inside Pierre's, sure enough, Harvey was there doing his shopping. "Well, hi," he said with a smile when he saw her.

Alma came and gave him a hug, and he kissed her on the cheek. She looked in his basket and saw a lot of fresh fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, and animal produce - all of which she knew came from her farm. "Are you sure this stuff can be incorporated into a healthy diet?" she asked.

Harvey chuckled and rolled his eyes. "This stuff can definitely be incorporated into a healthy diet."

"Then how about this?" she asked, whipping out the jar of pickles.

He gasped. "It's for me?" She smiled and nodded, handing it to him. "This is my favorite stuff!"

"I know it is."

He held it up to examine it. "What is it? What vegetable, I mean?"

"Bok choy!"

He looked down at her and smiled with his lips pursed together. "It's like you read my mind!" He kissed her cheek, gave her a squeeze, and said, "This will be a great addition to some of these more earthy flavors, I think. Thank you."

"You're very welcome." She turned to look at Pierre, who was wrapping things up with Elliott at the counter. "Excuse me a minute," she said with a pat on his arm. She approached the counter and waited behind Elliott, when he turned around to exit.

"Oh, hello, Alma," he greeted with a little bow. "Make sure you take breaks from your work every now and then."

"I will, thank you," she said, putting her bag on Pierre's counter. "The same goes for you! Those long hours of sitting and writing in your cabin I'm sure are hard."

"You're quite right. Thank you for the reminder." He bowed again then turned on his heels to leave. "Dr. Harvey," he acknowledged as he passed and made his way for the door.

"Have a good day, Mr. Elliott."

"So, Alma," Pierre said, "what have you got for me today?"

"Nothing special," she said, unloading her bag.

"But still worth some money," he said with a smile, looking through her produce. "I'm happy to buy whatever you produce on the farm. Yes, I do resell it for a profit … but that's the benefit of being an established shop owner." He quickly lifted up his finger to her. "Don't get any ideas …. You remember what I told you about my dream yesterday."

"Relax, Pierre, I am not coming for your empire of general stores," she chuckled, accepting the money he gave her.

"Good, because I will always need suppliers." Alma turned and saw Harvey waiting in line behind her, so she stepped aside and let him put his basket on the counter. "Find everything you're looking for, Doctor?"

"I believe so, yes."

Pierre looked in the basket and laughed. "Though if Dr. Harvey here opened up a store, I know I would lose my supply to him!"

Harvey smiled and blushed a little. "Just, uh, doing my part to support the local economy. But, yes, I may be a, uh … a little biased," he said, giving a side eye to Alma. He paid Pierre, who then bagged up his groceries for him, and then left the store. "Thank you, Pierre! See you next week!"

"Bye, you two!" he cooed as they walked out.

When they were outside, Alma asked, "You need help carrying your bags?"

"I'm all right," he said, hoisting one bag back on his hip. "But if you wanted to come join me anyway, I'd, uh, appreciate your company."

She smiled and answered, "I'd love to, but I'm afraid if I came up, I'd get distracted and lose track of time. I still have some errands to run."

"Such as?"

"I've got something to take to Gunther, and I'm hoping to do some fishing and maybe some exploring in the mines."

He nodded, and Alma knew he was a bit concerned. "You said the other day that you've made it to, uh, to l-level forty now?"

"That's right. The third section, I think. Though maybe still just the second. I'm not sure."

"How much farther do you think you'll go?"

"Uh … until I hit the bottom, I guess."

He took a deep breath and leaned in for a kiss. "Please be careful," he said before touching her lips with his.

"The offer still stands for you to join me someday," she said. "You conquered the sky - maybe next you could conquer the underground!"

"I've had enough adventure lately, thank you," he said, fumbling for his keys. "And I don't want to have any more in the way of an emergency, okay?" He dropped the keys, and she picked them up and unlocked the door for him.

"I'll be careful," she said, giving him the keys. "And I'll drop by on my way home."

He stepped inside the clinic and used his body to prop open the door. "You sure you don't want to dr-drop by now?" Alma smiled and shook her head. "All right." He gave her a kiss and stayed close to her face. "I love you."

Alma kept her eyes closed a moment and smiled. "Say it again?"

He kissed her again, a little longer this time, and said quietly, "I love you, Alma. Now go get some good work done, if you're not coming with me."

"All right, yes, okay, bye!" He closed the door behind him, and Alma made her way to the museum. "Gunther!" she called as she came in. "You remember that rib I brought in for you?"

"I do!" he said. "It's been cleaned and is already sitting on the shelf. Why? You have something that connects to it?" She pulled out the vertebrae with a grin. "Well, lookee here." He examined it and made a lot of impressed sounds. "Wait here - I've got something for you." He went to the back room and, after a few moments, appeared with part of a mounted skeleton.

"Oh! What, uh … What animal is that from?"

"It's a sloth!" he said, placing the mount down with a bang that echoed through the building. "This is the middle section. Bring me some more bones, and maybe I can get the front and back ends done for you too."

"Well, thank you," she said, "but … don't you think this best belongs here? It'd be nice to have a skeleton on display as people are entering the museum area, don't you think?"

"Not a bad idea," he said. "Now that it's yours, you can place it wherever you want! No one says it has to stay in your house."

"Well then," she said, picking it up and carrying it farther in to the building. She placed it down between the book stacks and the museum collection and said, "He's going to live here now." She went back to Gunther's desk. "But wait - that's not all!" she joked, opening her bag again. She pulled out the lost book.

"Another one! Excellent!" He took the book from her and placed it behind the desk. "I was beginning to wonder if we were coming up on the end of the collection. Thank you, as always, Alma."

"Of course! Have a great day!" As Alma left the museum, she thought about where she should fish. All she had left for falltime fish were catfish - which were hard - and tiger trout - which could be found in the rivers on sunny days. So she went to the bridge, put down her bag, and cast out a line. After a few smallmouth bass and a couple of hours, she was happy to pull out a tiger trout! She rushed to go ahead and take it to the community center.

By the time she came out of the community center, it was after seven o'clock. Alma wondered if she should still try to mines. "Maybe I'll just go see how they are," she told herself, going that way. She was curious to see the frozen levels, if nothing else. She had a few snacks she had picked up along the way, her energy was pretty good - good enough for a few hours, anyway - and she had plenty of time before she needed to be home. She went inside the cave, switched out some of her tools in the chest, got on the elevator to the fortieth level, then dropped down to the next one.

There were a lot of rocks, so she guessed that the spirits were not too happy today; that did not bode well for her. As she mined, a bat came flying, and she was surprised at how many hits from her sword it took her to kill it. After it dropped to the ground, she kept mining and soon found a ladder leading to level forty-two.

Here, there were a lot of wooden chests, so she used her sword to break them open. In one of them, there were two frozen geodes; she could see the sparkling stone from inside the icy covering. "Oh wow," she said, holding it up to her glow ring for light. She wondered what might be inside, but she also remembered that a frozen geode was part of one of the bundles at the community center. She put them in her bag and continued mining. As she mined, she felt, like her sword, her pickaxe was taking more work than normal to break down the stones. She thought maybe now would be a good time to upgrade her pickaxe and maybe buy a new sword too. On that thought, though, another ladder appeared.

When she dropped down to this level, she checked the time. It was ten o'clock now. Maybe she could still make it two more levels by two o'clock - especially if she used one of those farm totems she had stored in her chest. If worse came to worse, she told herself, that would be the plan. Harvey would understand. She kept chipping away, and she came across more bats and a slime too. It was time consuming to kill them, but when she did, she found the next ladder. She was getting pretty tired and beaten up, but she wanted to keep going.

It took a quick look at level forty-four to know that she wasn't going to make it in time. It was twelve-thirty, and this cavern was huge. She turned around and climbed up the ladder back to level forty then took the elevator to the surface, where she took out the farm totem from the chest. A bright light shone around her, and within the blink of an eye, she was at the small statue by Bisclavret's water bowl on her farm. It was one o'clock now; if she hurried, she could still toss a rock up to Harvey's window and make it back by two. She ran with all the energy she had left out of the farm, down the dirt path, and into town, then used her slingshot to hit his still-lit window and didn't even wait for a response; she just ran back down the path, hoping that she could make it in time. She ran all the way home to the farm, went inside the cabin, dropped her bag by the door, and collapsed in the bed at 1:50.