Time has come to my aid, and the fences have mostly all rotted away, while GF has either been too busy with other things or just hasn't cared enough to replace them, which is nice. Also I have a horse now, so it's even harder (but faster) to get around.
Y'know, funny thing... The forest farm has remarkably few actual trees on it. I remember on my solo playthrough that half of the farm just turned into this overgrown jungle that I'd have to spend several days clearing out, with mass quantities of wood resulting from the endeavor. Here, you've just got the respawning hardwood stumps and then a bunch of wall-trees, which of course don't provide any actual wood.
Fishing is getting less and less profitable, and now we've both taken the rancher profession. She doesn't even know about the brokenness of artisan, I just didn't really want to have to cart all the goods to Pierre by hand by taking it. The idea now, which she probably isn't aware of, is that each of us will take one end of the rancher line and assume care of all the coop/barn animals respectively.
Partway through winter of year 1 now, and hoo boy, time does fly when it doesn't autopause... Not a whole heck of a lot of progress has been made. I've got a steel pickaxe, which is my sole upgraded tool aside from the iridium fishing rodn(I upgraded my watering can to copper, but then traded it for GF's un-upgraded one because she was doing most of the watering). GF has steel axe, (my) copper watering can, and is working on a steel pickaxe. No idea on whether or not the hoe has been upgraded yet, but the ho said she was working on it. There are a few preserve jars set up (about 6-7 or so), but no kegs, and we've juuust finished the barn off and gotten a couple moos.
Despite fish in and of themselves not being very lucrative (the pricier cave fish are sullied by the hideous amount of algae growing in those lakes), the treasures have been a great boon in providing rare materials and gifting opportunities. I've finally gotten the Pirate profession now, so they're popping up a lot more often. I just need to be able to actually snag the chests, heh (damn lingcod)...
Neither mining or combat seem like they'd really be able to do much of anything to compete with even just the small scale farming we've been doing, so not sure what I'm gonna get up to next. I'd take over farming duties on something or other, but my GF fiercely defends sole harvesting/milking/egg-plucking/petting rights, so I'm not sure I'd really be able to muscle in on that. Also really don't know what I'll end up upgrading next. Pickaxe seems a little superfluous, but I'm not using anything else. Possibly hoe, if only just to dig up more turf in the mines and around town or such. Bizarrely low on copper, of all things... But making trips to the early levels of the mines is all well and good anyways, despite how infrequently I remember to actually do so, as bug meat is always in high demand what with my fishing addiction.
EDIT: Halfway through winter, we're still just barely making ends meet. I had a bit of a mid-game crisis and decided to hook the glacierfish and mutant carp rather than do anything particularly useful (aside from clearing things out down to level 120 in the mines), and my girlfriend has apparently forgotten that she took rancher, but at least we can reroll nowadays.
I think she might also have gotten to fishing 5 (she gets moments where she'll put off doing useful things in order to "practice and train it up a bit", despite my having that field well under control specifically so she can focus on other things... Ah well) and took the angler perk, alongside my own angler perk... Which, while not helping diversity at all and not allowing us to really branch out into crab pots (which she's much better suited for, as it does not involve any actual fishing), does at least mean that I don't have to walk all the way down to Willy's in order to sell my fishy wares for top price.
Trying to upgrade tools in preparation for spring, but we don't reeeaaally have the cash to burn on gold upgrades, and of course there's no coordination in getting a full set ready. So, spring year 2 will probably be met with, at best, a silver hoe and two silver watering cans.
Also I missed Caroline's birthday, despite having a fishing diamond set aside for her. Poor thing, she's barely gotten any attention all year.