//------------------------------//
// 4. Buck Your Own Apples 
// Story: Renaming Starlight's Village 
// by Brass Polish 
//------------------------------//

Applejack heard screaming and ran across Sweet Apple Acres towards the sound.
“It ain’t even been an hour!” she grumbled pessimistically.
She soon found the spot where she’d shown Coco Pommel what to do. It seemed the inexperienced Manehattanite had already come a cropper. Applejack was expecting to find Coco lying on the ground next to an apple tree clutching a bruised leg. She was surprised and concerned to see one of Coco’s hind hooves wedged in the trunk of a Macintosh tree.
“I bucked this tree, and it bit me!” wailed Coco. “And it won’t let go!”
Applejack zipped towards the tree to examine the trunk.
“Granny!” she called. “How did your false teeth end up in this here tree?!”

*****

Granny Smith had no excuse. And after she assisted Applejack in dislodging Coco’s leg and bandaging the injury, she had no helpful suggestions for a substitute applebucking assistant.
“We still have Apple Bloom.”
“No, we don’t,” sighed Applejack. “She’s with her Crusader friends in Starlight’s Village. And I really don’t wanna call her back. It just don’t feel right. She made a good point about them villagers.”
“How about Big Mac, then?”
Applejack finally lost patience, and didn’t bother telling Granny Smith (for the umpteenth time) that Big Mac got married and moved away a year ago.
“Everypony’s so busy these days,” she grumbled. “Twilight and Spike are interviewing prospects for castle guards to back up the Pillars, Starlight’s gone on tour with Trixie, Rarity’s running four shops…”
“With a fifth one the way,” put in Coco, reclining in her seat with her injured leg propped up on a stool.
“Yeah. Then there’s Dash at the Wonderbolts compound,” Applejack went on. “And Fluttershy’s got something going on with Discord.”
She caught Coco’s curious expression.
“I didn’t ask,” she said hastily. “I don’t wanna know.”
Coco nodded. “And Pinkie Pie?”
“Her alligator’s like fifteen feet long by now. And when ya throw in Ponytones concerts and Buckball tournaments, there ain’t no way I’m gonna get any back-up any time soon. Heck, even Grand Pear’s still got family in Vanhoover to visit.”

*****

For the rest of her stay in Ponyville, Coco Pommel would be assisting Granny Smith with inspection and culinary use of apples… ostensibly, anyway.
“Keep her outta trouble, will ya?” pleaded Applejack privately.
Coco promised to do her best. And so, yet again, Applejack was left with most of the applebucking work to do alone. She was already exhausted well before it was time for her midday break. When at last that time came, Applejack dropped where she was and fell asleep. She ended up oversleeping. It was a pity Queen Luna wasn’t often around during the day, as the nightmare fueled by stress and exhaustion would have considered her a welcome visitor. In her nightmare, the Flim Flam brothers had come to take advantage of Applejack's exhaustion and Granny Smith’s senility, and take over Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack could only watch the regime change helplessly, squirming to stand up from a pile of autumn leaves, while Flim and Flam bucked apple trees around her. Applejack woke with a start, sweating, panting, and alarmed to see that Flim and Flam really were in the orchard and bucking apple trees.

*****

“You two ain’t welcome here!”
Unlike in her bad dream, Applejack was able to stand up; albeit not very spryly.
“No need for alarm,” smiled Flim. “We have every intention of paying for these.”
Applejack growled at the sight of the loaded basket of apples Flam was levitating.
“Get off my property!” she snarled. “You two are the last thing I need right now!”
“So you don’t need assistance?” Flam sneered. “You insist on doing all the hard work on this farm in your own?”
Out came the rope.
“I don’t know about you, brother of mine,” Flim said as he and Flam were dragged away from the orchard, “but I had a grand old time bucking apples.”
“Agreement. Makes a nice change,” said Flam, trying to rearrange the noose so it wasn’t squeezing his ribs too tightly. “And I’ll guarantee we wouldn’t be the only ponies who think so.”
“Makes sense to me,” Flim grinned. “City folk would deem it quite a novelty to come up here and make believe they’re farmers.”
“Not to mention how fulfilling they’ll find gathering their own food straight from the source,” went on Flam, who was still levitating the basket of apples they’d procured.
Applejack summoned a burst of energy and tossed the brothers over the fence. She then sat by the front gate to catch her breath. A bag of money was thrown over the fence. Applejack looked back. Flim and Flam were nowhere in sight.

*****

“You want to try an idea the Flim Flam Brothers gave you?” asked Coco Pommel that evening. “I thought they were your mortal enemies.”
“I can’t keep up doing all the work on my own,” admitted Applejack. “And they weren’t wrong about city-slickers wanting to have a crack at farm life. I told y’all about Trender Hoof, right?”
Coco nodded.
“So there’s gotta be others,” said Applejack. “So can y’all help me advertise Buck Your Own Apples?”
“Of course,” smiled Coco. “It’s probably the best I can do on this farm with an injured leg.”

*****

Barely an hour after the first sign advertising Buck Your Own Apples went up, Sweet Apple Acres got its first customer, in the form of Cranky Doodle Donkey.
“I never knew any donkeys who were farmers,” he said as he paid Applejack. “Thought I’d see if I’m any good at it.”
Cranky was the only one who took advantage of Buck Your Own Apples that day, and he did reasonably well, walking away with three baskets of galas. But the next day, there was no question that the idea was catching on. More and more Equestrian citizens paid to venture into the orchard and gather their own produce. Applejack was still going around bucking apple trees, but not nearly as much at this point. Coco Pommel was managing the punters, who were having a fun time experiencing farm pony life. It was a tremendous weight off of Applejack’s shoulders.

*****

But it wasn’t long before the novelty started to wear off. A lot of ponies who’d never even seen apple trees did find it a nice change of pace, but soon came to the conclusion that farm life was only enjoyable to them in short bursts. Others simply wanted to get their food directly from the source and leave. Applejack wouldn’t have minded that the Buck Your Own Apples activity was tapering off, as she’d intended to do her own chores regardless of how many customers she had. But Coco Pommel was due back in Manehattan soon, and without somepony to manage the punters…
“I could do it,” offered Granny Smith.
Without somepony to manage the punters, Applejack knew Buck Your Own Apples couldn’t carry on. And so she stopped advertising the venture on the day Coco left Ponyville.

*****

Days passed, and Applejack was back to doing all the hard work herself. Countless times, she found herself tempted to write to Starlight’s Village calling Apple Bloom back to assist her.
“It just don’t feel right,” she repeatedly told herself. “She’s a Cutie Mark Crusader. That Village is full of ponies who still don’t understand their cutie marks. Heck, she’s probably working just as hard as I am… but she’s got Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle with her. I ain’t got nopony.”
Applejack trudged back to the barn one evening wishing for the end of the busy early summer bucking season so she could catch a break.
“Come on in, Applejack!” Granny called from the window. “We’re having tea in the living room, if you wanna join us.”
Applejack blinked; was it the senility, or were the Flim Flam Brothers back?

*****

Flim and Flam weren’t in the living room, but Granny Smith certainly did have company.
“Big Daddy McColt?” Applejack blinked. “What are y’all doing here?”
“Can I ask a favour?” Big Daddy McColt set his cup of tea down and got up off his seat. “See, me and my family kinda wanna try our hooves at farming. But the HOOFFIELDS are a bit too territorial.”
“I thought y’all weren’t feuding with the Hooffields anymore,” said Applejack.
“We ain’t, but my family’s property’s hardly got fertile soil anymore, so most of the planting’s going on on the HOOFFIELDS’ side of the river. We help em out, course. But any time a McColt tries, or says they want to try, doing a bit of gardening or yardwork on their own, one of them HOOFFIELDS is always like ‘Hey, you’re in my house now! Stick you what you’re good at. We got this.’ Blah, blah, blah.”
“So ya want to help me buck apples?” asked Applejack.
“And, uh, keep it under your hat, will ya?” pleaded Big Daddy McColt. “Them HOOFFIELDS, especially Ma, would bust a blood vessel if they found out my family were secretly picking fruit.”
“Is… your whole family here?” Applejack looked around the room.
“Nah, there’s no way we could all sneak away from the Smokey Mountains without them HOOFFIELDS noticing. We was thinking,” Big Daddy McColt explained, “that we take turns. One of us slips away every other day. And we ain’t gonna want any of the apples we buck, so you’ll get free labour outta us. What do ya say?”

*****

Applejack really couldn’t refuse. The next day, she took Big Daddy McColt out into the orchard, showed him what to do, and they spent the rest of the day bucking apples. There was no question that Big Daddy McColt was an amatuer, but like the ponies who’d taken advantage of Buck Your Own Apples, he seemed to be enjoying simply trying it. He’d collected a satisfying amount of apples by the end of the day, and Applejack had energy to spare that evening.
“I’ll be going home now,” Big Daddy McColt said.
“Thanks for your help,” said Applejack.
“Thanks for letting me try my hoof at apple farming,” smiled Big Daddy McColt.
“So who’s coming next?” asked Applejack.
“Don’t know yet. We’ll have to coordinate who slips away every other day.”
After Big Daddy McColt left, Applejack spent the next day doing all the work herself again. Then along came another member of the McColt family, who did about as well as the head of the McColt household had. And when he left, another arrived two days later. And so it went. Some McColts, it turned out, were better at Applebucking than others, so Applejack found she didn’t have to work all that hard on days when she was on her own in the orchard. Every McColt who popped in to do some farm work, whether or not they turned out to be good at it, enjoyed the experience of applebucking. McColts came and went, and within two weeks, Applejack found her own workload getting lighter. So much so, that when the final member of the McColt family was due to turn up, there wasn’t much work to do at Sweet Apple Acres.

*****

Hacksaw McColt was somewhat disappointed.
“I wish I coulda come sooner,” she sighed at the end of the day. “I coulda gathered so many more apples for ya.”
Applejack smiled. “Y’all did a great job. I guess it was just the luck of the draw.”
“Actually, I had to go last,” said Hacksaw. “That way, none of the Hooffields would get suspicious.”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. “How’s that?”
“Well I’d already left the Smokey Mountains for a day,” Hacksaw told her, “and was visiting Neighagra Falls. I met these two stallions there, and we got talking, and I told them how me and my family wanted to give fruit and veggie farming a try, but our neighbours were all territorial and stuff. And they suggested we try coming here and asking you. So I told Daddy about the idea when I got back. He liked it, and started to secretly set up a schedule. So yeah, I had to be the last one. Otherwise one or two of the Hooffields mighta started asking me why I was taking another day trip so soon after my last one.”
Applejack had barely heard most of what Hacksaw had said. Only one thing really registered; two stallions had set the wheels in motion to lift more weight off of her shoulders.

*****

Applejack hadn’t had time off in a long time, and was delighted to reconnect with Rarity at the Spa for the first time in ages.
“Care to tell me how Miss Pommel got that limp?” Rarity asked as she and Applejack sat comfortably in the Steam Room.
“Uh… so did y’all get yourself a fifth store in the Crystal Empire?” asked Applejack.
“No, I failed,” sighed Rarity.
“Oh. What happened?”
“There was only one suitable building available, and the Flim Flam Brothers were bidding for it as well,” said Rarity bitterly. “I knew it would be fruitless, maybe even dangerous, to cross paths with those two. So I didn’t even bother scheduling an interview with the building’s owner.”
Applejack scratched her head.
“Oh well,” Rarity sighed. “There’s no rush, and I already have four shops to manage. I dare say if I did open a fifth, I’d never have time to enjoy a nice relaxing spa day like this.”
“I wanna go to the Crystal Empire,” said Applejack abruptly.

*****

On the northbound train ride, Applejack explained to Rarity why she opted to cut their spa day short.
“You mean to tell me that thanks to the Flim Flam Brothers, you got lots of help on the farm?” Rarity’s eyes widened.
“And I wanna find out why they wanted to help me,” said Applejack resolutely.
When they arrived at the Crystal Empire, Rarity led Applejack to the building she’d had her eye on.
“Ah. Rarity,” said the owner brightly. “Changed your mind and want an interview to buy the building off me?”
Rarity blinked. “Didn’t Flim and Flam…?”
“Nope,” said Flim, who seemed to appear out of nowhere. “We opted out right after you did. It just didn’t seem sporting when there was no competition.”
“Never thought a business-savvy pony like Rarity would be one to quit so easily,” said Flam, also popping out of thin air. “A clothing shop in the Crystal Empire is just genius.”
“Still, we’ve got too many good ideas floating around,” said Phlegm, seemingly just materializing as well. “It’s no big loss, really.”
Applejack gave her head a shake. “There’s three of y’all?! Who in the hay is this?!”