I want to make a harvestable plant at ground height that doesn't have to be planted like the cucumbers, more like the trees, and I've looked at Echo's animation choices for their lettuce specifically. I've gotten that to work (albeit rather clunkily), but I'd much rather use the beach combing animations from BV--specifically a2o-combforseashells-beachcollectableportal-start, a2o-combforseashells-beachcollectableportal-dig-loop, and a2o-combforseashells-beachcollectableportal-find-stop as I feel like this would represent the process better. Unfortunately, I can't get the BHAVs to respond correctly, resulting in my sims crouching and then the tree is completely harvested. I've changed the names of what's called for in the text list, I've made sure the BHAV points to the correct names, but since this is my first time messing around with animations at all, I've hit a dead end.

(Ignore berry placement or the fact it's Aysarth's cherries as I haven't worked on that part yet)

I didn't test this, but I think you need to check your operands for the animations. In BHAV 1007, you have lines 0x13 and 0x14

Animate Sim (animation: "a2o-combforseashells-beachcollectableportal-dig-loop" [AdultAnims:0x00 (Private)],
Event tree: 0x1007: "Inter - Harvest - Anim & Logic".

So your animation will be attempting to run 0x1007 all over again, and again and again etc. I would try removing the event tree by zeroing out operand boxes 4 and 5 (remember, the first box is box 0) and seeing what happens. Or if you actually need an event, put in the correct BHAV for it.

I do believe I did it right--my sim walked over to the bush and it was insta-harvested, no animations whatsoever.

Not every animation can be recycled, and that could be the case with these. The best way to check for sure is to make an animation painting (clone a painting, add an interaction to it that has the Sim do your animation) - a simple object to test the animation itself without having to worry about any complicated code issues getting in the way. https://modthesims.info/member/showthread.php?t=142907 - tutorial, if necessary.

The information about the event boxes mentioned in the previous post is still applicable, too. Don't fill out those boxes unless you want another BHAV to run at the same time as the animation. Usually, events are used for things like snapping an object into a Sim's hand at the same time they're animating.