Some of the mechanics aren't the most friendly, but once you learn where to aim, and how they work, it isn't so bad...

While building, and placing a piece, you need to aim your cursor at the surface you want the piece to attach to, as the game doesn't assume to know where you would like to place something. Yes, this can often be a bit of a pain, when it comes to surfaces you can't see, (such as the roof caps). If you are building something on top of your house, then get on top of your house so you can see what you are doing... Make temporary scaffolding to get up there and aim your mouse at the edges you want to apply pieces to. Any temp scaffolding parts can be broken down afterwards for full refund of materials... no big deal.

The Hoe isn't so mysterious, but also not super intuitive either... The Hoe will raise or lower the ground you click on, to match the height of the ground you are standing on, SO, it's best to stand in one spot and click many places all around you so all those spots are flattened, and match each other.

DON'T run around clicking wildly because each click will match whatever height your feet are currently at, and if you are running around, you are likely getting many different elevations and getting frustrated.

Stand in place and click spots in front of you (overlapping the circles) until the tool won't reach anymore, then move forward, making sure you are standing on ground of the same height, and continue flattening until you have the ground flattened, in the size you wanted... The circle indicates the size of the area flattened per click.

Arrow on mini-map is current wind direction... also if you look at the particles floating in the air, you can also see the direction the particles are traveling and therefore the direction of the wind.