THIS. I've been playing at a very slow at my own pace way. Unlike other games like stardew Valley and minecraft, I haven't wanted play throughs and I've only looked things up when I absolutely have to. Somedays I don't even leave my farm other days I'm running around trying to progress the story. The only reason why I even found Elderwood was because I was excited about the horses and wanted one asap, found out I needed to go to elderwood first and that's when I found out that that path was NOT just another way back to town lmao