Week 12 Day 7: Beach party

It's the last day of the week, and on Maccaroni Island there is already a tradition of arranging a weekly community event on the 7th day. It's referred to as Family Day, and some households do make a good day out of it at home, instead of joining everyone, but today there will be a beach party, and I think most households will be represented.

At 4 Greench Farm, Carie G. Peel had something to discuss with her partner Albert Blumington. They just had their 3rd kid, Gerda, actually named after Greta Greench. So, they have now a total of 3 daughters.

Albert never was a dedicated Sculptor, but he still thought of his attempts as their speciality. There are currently no other Sculptors on the island, and he even sold a sculptor to decorate the Village Hall entrance. (a clay gnome which seems to have walked away, but that's another story...)

They do have nearly §10.000 at the moment, from the time Carie's parents Greta and Gabriel lived here and helped with the garden. In addition they can get a bank loan of additional §10.000. There's still a long run for §50.000 though.

Seems like the Peel family has a new plan. But will the Maccaroni Bank approve on Carie buying the bakery?

Down at the bakery, 2 Yvonne Drive, little Eileen was bored. She is the daughter of Bridgette and Archie on the Greench farm. When she noticed that her aunt, Bella Black, left the bakery with a hotdog, Eileen got curious and decided to play detective. What was going on? She followed her aunt Bella up the road.

Aunt Bella walked on with the dish in her hand, up to the Village Hall. Eileen noticed lots of locals standing there, shouting and waving protest signs. But aunt Bella did not stop there...

On a distance, Eileen followed her aunt through the front door, and saw her walk into the meeting room with the hotdog. Why? Wouldn't it be much easier just to eat it in the café where she bought it? Or was it for some secret prisoner? Eileen had to find out!

In the room there was an old woman, also waving a sign, and shouting. It was old granny Bianca Blumington, she rarely got to this central part of the island, and Eileen hardly saw her. Aunt Bella placed the hotdog on the table.

Old Bianca was quite angry, and she had been protesting for the full day already, and outside the building several locals had joined the protest. Bella worried for her mom's health, but the old woman was too stubborn to take anyone's advice.

Then Bianca noticed Eileen was in the room.

Eileen didn't know if this was good. It sounded fun to learn about a secret, but if the secret involved her, she hesitated visiting granny Bianca alone. But I think she will!

Over at 3 Greench Farm, days go by with regular farm duties. Now that both Bridgette and Archie turned elderly, and the two oldest kids are adults, it's time to decide on who will take over the Greench Farm.

Archie knows that to secure the farm and the coming generations, it's needed to prepare early. The one taking over will need to focus on gardening, register as a farmer at the Villaga Hall, and put some efforts into building skills and knowledge. Neither of the kids have shown this interest, yet.

Archie and Bridgette don't plan to move out, and there are still 4 kids residing on the farm. Godrian and Boletta will reach adulthood in about 5 simdays and until then, there won't be much room to build a new family.

Pepper is the old horse that Archie and his late dad Gabriel Greench, once bought from Randal Redward. Bertil loves the horse, and has also paid interest in finding the Unicorn that some locals have observed on rare occasions!

A little later most of the crops were harvested, and Bertil saddled up Pepper for an evening ride.

Finally, the sun set, and locals from all over the island flocked to the Maccaroni Beach, which is located on the border between the western and southern regions. It was a warm night, no wind and it all looked to be a nice community event.

Amadeus is the Hawk boy that so many locals had debated lately. Nobody can remember ever seeing him, but Evita Hedgewall keeps referring to him.

Carie was of course whispering. She prepared food for all, she didn't mind doing this, but it was also part of the new plan, building some community goodwill, might better the chance of becoming the new owner of the café.

Rebecka Black and Graica Greench are cousins. Some days ago they made a deal to have a boyfriend before this event was over. Rebecka had already visited the much older LaShawn G. Gladiston, while Graica had no clue who to mate up with.

Evita Hedgewall doesn't quite come across as a nice girl...

Graica heard a new voice debating taxes...

The guy was Reynar Yea-Low. He is the oldest child of Dorothy and Alex Yea-Low, and now had grown up!

If he is that focused on money, would the idealistic Graica find him worthwhile?

It's not just that LaShawn is older than Rebecka, but in fact he is pushing elderhood. It annoys him that Rebecka wasn't born much earlier, because they have such a good time whenever they meet. If he can only stay adult until she grows up, then the community might accept their relation after all? For the record, they are not a couple yet, but both are aware that they might soon be...

So Rebecka and LaShawn danced. And Graica danced with Reynar, they hardly knew each other from earlier, but there was a certain buzz, wasn't there? And Cody and Rosanne danced, they feel so close after they moved together.

Cody and Rosanne were also the reason Corinne Redward chose not to attend the event. she couldn't take seeing Cody with her daughter, and she figured it was better to stay home. In fact she grew elderly tonight, sealing all hope, making everything worse.

Then, Alex Yea-Low had brought a surprise for everybody...

The event came to an end. It was a fantastic night, bringing new relations and new hopes to so many of them.

In a short week, there will be more :-)

Week 12 Day 6: Goodbye Redward Ranch

This morning was just as bright and sunny as most mornings are on Maccaroni Island. But it's not just another day, because today's events will affect several locals in negative ways... there will be drama as well as jealousy.

At Sunrise Valley there are 5 lots, but only two houses yet. When the oldest Yea-Low son, Reynar, takes over the main property, Alex and Dorothy Yea-Low might move back into their vacant house here in the valley (center of the photo). At the time just the Hedgewall house at 5 Sunrise Valley is the only one resided.

This morning Beatrice G. Hedgewall was busy in the garden, like she usually is. Their horse Moose had just been running around, and Evita and Gaspar were about to leave for school. It's Gaspar's first day at school, and he wasn't thrilled about it.

Gaspar has no doubt inherited the eyes of his mom and granny Greta. He seems to be a rather emotional person. Beatrice heard the kids arguing, but not what they argued about. She had worried just a little about Evita lately, was she taking on some bad manners?

Evita left, and Beatrice went on with her work. Yoseph was out fishing, and soon their youngest, Jamiel, would need some food.

In the central region, someone was busy at the Village Hall main office...

Randal Redward was trying to put together a tax system that would somehow benefit himself. He is now an elder, which actually suited him fine. An older regent might gain even more respect! His portrait was already up on the wall. He wasn't satisfied with the result, but it would do. Now, there was no doubt who this office belonged to!

It was harder to create a good tax system than Randal expected. He didn't intend to pay taxes himself, so he would need to come up with a reason why he should be excluded. He would of course not suggest the taxes to be paid to him, but to the community, or perhaps to Maccaroni Bank (where he owned a majority). Then he could claim most of it as wages for doing the job as a regent. It was hard work, after all.

At the same time the entrance door flew open, and in rushed Reynar Yea-Low. He just became an adult, and he had rushed to the Village Hall to register as an Inventor, by leaving a note on the huge cork board. Reynar was always quite serious, he already worked for a long time as an Inventor, and being his parents' oldest child, he was already focusing on taking over the family house and build his own family.

Reynar had to hurry with the registering, because he and his dad, Alex Yea-Low, had planned to walk up to Maccaroni Mine to collect scrap. Reynar had been up there a couple times as a teenager, but after the recent volcanic activities, most locals had stayed away from the old mine. It could be dangerous climbing into the mine, and besides - whatever values it contained, were removed long ago.

Some time ago, Reynar had initiated a sunlight reflector that his late granddad Yespar Yea-Low had built up there, on top of Maccaroni Mountain. This way they hoped to make contact with ships passing by in the distance, but the problem was that the ray of light was showing only during sunset.

Scrap like metals was indeed needed for wires and other electrical supplies.

While Reynar and Alex moved closer to the old mine, the Redwards celebrated their oldest daughter, Rosanne. She had her young adult birthday today, and now she was at the local Bistro eating with her parents. Randal had walked over from the office. Corinne had been thinking all day, she had decided to leave Randal for Cody Major. It was today or never! She had not seen Cody in some time, but she figured she had to leave Randal first, then turn to Cody. She strongly felt that this was the right thing to do. But first, Rosanne's birthday celebration. She could talk to Randal tonight.

Rosanne knew all about their standards. After all her latest trait is Snob. Her other traits are  Brave, Virtuoso, Workaholic and Hopeless romantic.

Up at Maccaroni mine, Reynar and Alex had reached the old stairs that leads down to the deep of the mountain.

They found some piles of old scrap, and started to work their way through it.

On the island most resources are very restricted. Some minerals were dug up from the mine in the past, and over the years some values were collected along the shoreline. When something broke down it was repaired, or used to build something else. Only stuff that could not really be used for anything, had been trashed back into the mine. So, they could not expect to find much of interest.

Then Alex looked up, and walked closer... he couldn't believe what he saw!

Yes it was! Old Joe Hawk was on the ground, his face was wounded, and he certainly looked more dead than alive!

Joe Hawk dead? Here in the mine? Wasn't he released from jail only yesterday?

The early night was completely silent. Not even the wildlife's uuu-huu could be heard. The dead trees, the black smoke pumping from the volcano in the distance, and all those long paths winding along the side of the mountain. Why would anyone ever establish paths in this totally dead landscape?

Over at Redward Ranch at 6 Redward Heights, Corinne was actually waiting for Randal to return back home from a second stop at his office. Also Yamir was out, probably working late hours at the Fort Base. Then Rosanne and her younger sister Yvilla joined Corinne, and they naturally started to discuss Rosanne's new life.

Corinne suspected that Rosanne was about to marry the worst candidate of them all, the very poor fisherman, Alfonso Blumington. It would be a disgrace, but there really weren't that many candidates, and Corinne had to accept that at least one of her 3 children would marry someone less... qualified. At least the fisherman had a house.

Corinne had decided to keep her mouth shut, seeing that Rosanne made her own choice this rapidly made it seem like there could be feelings involved anyway, which made it easier to accept a bad partner.

Then Rosanne walked back into the livingroom, with her boyfriend, and Corinne was up for a shocking surprise!

Rosanne had been fascinated by Cody since she visited him once with her mom, and met his dogs for the first time. Then she had stopped by regularly mainly to see the dogs, but as a teenager she had realized that she also visited to see Cody. As soon as she turned young adult, they both were ready for a relation.

Corinne was speechless. It could have been even worse though if she had told Randal about her plans to leave him for Cody! Thanks Similius she had not had a chance to break up! She certaily needed several glasses of nectar now, but it would be wiser to wait till after the couple had left Redward Ranch.

Time was come for Rosanne to move in with Cody. Corinne made sure the dog Charlie followed, too. She did not want any household member reminding her of Cody Major!

To be continued in a short week!