Trigger the winter mystery quest during winter between 6am-4pm at the bus stop to get started with note collecting. Once you spot mysterious footprints, shake the bush near the playground to receive your magnifying glass from krobus which permanently enables note discovery. Notes appear randomly while doing activities - fishing gives you an 8% chance replacing trash items, monster kills are about 3% and chopping trees roughly 0.5% per swing.

For reliable collection try hitting up giant crops since they always drop a note, and dig spots give you decent 11% odds. The skull cavern challenge unlocks note 10 after reaching floor 25, and you'll want to push to floor 100 for that sweet iridium snake milk health boost. There's a stone junimo hiding behind the community center that needs a pickaxe, and during winter night market hit the shells in order 1-5-4-2-3 for a pearl reward.

Maybe interesting are notes 7-9 showing villager gift preferences, while treasure maps 16-18 point to strange dolls. Follow the exact path from jodi's house left-up-right-up-right-down-left-down-left-down for a hidden crystalarium, and remember to bring maple syrup to secret woods between 6am-7pm for tripled berry prices. The junimo plush needs precise timing - bush above playground at noon on day 28 of any season.

Everything gets logged in your menu's secret notes tab automatically after first read with the latest update bringing the total to 27 notes. Some puzzles need specific requirements like completing qi's stuff first, so don't worry if you can't find them all right away just keep at your daily activities and they'll show up.