Stardew Valley’s updates make it too easy to lose your watering can

Like many people excited for the newest Stardew Valley update, I rebooted my old save file that I hadn’t touched in a couple of years to get ready for new content.

Stardew is one of those games I pick up, spend a few weeks in a haze constantly playing, and then put down again in favor of all the other games out there. This time, I was away a little longer than other times (what can I say? Baldur’s Gate 3 came out). So when I loaded my game it took me a second to even remember what season it was.

Most of it came back to me, but I played a full day without realizing that my watering can was missing. And holy cow, was it a bitch to figure out where it went. After all, on my Year 4 farm, I have a ton of sprinklers to handle watering my crops, so I barely even use my watering can. I would wake up, kiss my husband, and go about my life. I harvested crops, checked on my animals, fished, and puttered into town.

It was only during the next day, when I thought about making some progress on Ginger Island, that I realized my watering can had mysteriously disappeared from my inventory. One of the gimmicks of Ginger Island’s volcano is using the watering can to get across the hot lava, so after paying for boat passage, I realized my entire trip was useless.

But this turned into a whole conundrum outside of my wasted gold: Where the hell was my watering can?

I checked the blacksmith, in case I had dropped it off for an upgrade. Nothing. I looked online and learned that if I accidentally sold or deleted it, I could find it in either the mayor’s lost-and-found or my refrigerator the next day (that’s a very funny little gameplay detail, kudos to ConcernedApe). It wasn’t there. That left checking every single crate in my game, and since this was Year 4, I had a lot, all full of various knickknacks that I had accumulated across in-game years that I didn’t want to display in my house or keep in my inventory. I swore I checked all of them, but still couldn’t find my watering can…

…until I finally checked the one second closest to my home’s door and found it among an assortment of seeds, hats, and other random Stardew Valley Things™.

Stardew Valley is a beautifully dense game with so many little details that help color out the farming sim mechanics. There are hidden areas, interesting characters, and everything else you could want from a farming sim, taken to the next level. And the game only continues to grow, with developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone adding more and more updates over time, with new dialogue, areas, goals, and beyond.

But because it is so dense, with so many new additions over the years, that means picking it back up after some time away is kind of like being tossed overboard. I’m a strong swimmer, but I still need to flail a bit and gasp for air before I find a comfortable paddle to enjoy my swim. It is, after all, one of my favorite games, even if searching for my watering can turned into a whole separate side quest.

Stardew Valley is full of little surprises, and some of those surprises are unintentional, like my great watering can quest, or kissing my in-game husband and having him tell me I’m pregnant. Guess I also forgot I did that before putting my game down.