Dazed and Confused
March 1: If I was to somehow cross over into your universe without getting scrambled, I'd probably be very disoriented at first. I'm adapted to living in Equestria, where travel between two points rarely takes the same path, but my perception of distance, taking advantage of the two dimensions of time, gives me a steady illusion of reality. Crossing over from my rocking ship to your immutable steady-state would probably put me halfway between blind and seasick. I'd get over that, but every time I'd take a step it would be a shock. I would not be able to find the most convenient path and with every step the world would wobble and spin. It would take considerable effort to move toward an objective.
I have found it very unpleasant to watch moving pictures from Earth. Translating that many regimented and sequential matrices of tiny dots into the Equestrian non-Euclydean equivalent was exhausting, and watching it was like getting spun in a cloud so hard that you can't figure out which way is up. I don't even remember what it was I tried to watch. I won't be doing that again. Text is easy and it translates well; it's abstract.
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Going to Make You Sweat
March 2: I had a strange dream last night. The Royal Lipizzaner Ballet was performing in the study right below my bedroom loft in the Golden Oak Library. I don't remember the music, but they kept leaping higher and higher, hovering and sweating at eye level from my bed. They were so muscular with their flared nostrils and glistening arched necks, and they smelled wonderful! Then something happened and I was arguing with Spike about whether pearls are gem stones or just really smooth calcareous rocks.
Silly distracting dream. I'm going to go see if Spike wants to come join us at the spa today.
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Tending the Bridge of Friendship
March 3: Dear Earth Journal,
Since I started writing here I've learned that, despite the interlinked mega-colony aspect of this giant book of all the things, making quill friends isn't easy. At least not as easy as it was to make my Ponyville Friends on that Summer Sun Celebration's Eve right before Nightmare Moon's return. Part of that is probably because I'm not Applejack or Pinkie Pie. I'm slow on the 'How-do-you-do's and 'getting to know you's. There are books to read! Things to learn! Puzzles to puzzle over! So many distractions.
When I first came to Ponyville, it was at Princess Celestia's behest. My task was to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration and to "make some friends". I met my friends while doing my Canterlot duty, but I didn't make my friends. They made me.
I've learned that friendship is a delicate thing. It's a bridge that needs attention and care. I must learn to do that in this, my bridge from my universe to yours.
Your quill pal,
Princess Twilight Sparkle
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Stabling
March 4: It was a nice day to stay indoors, grey and windy, even if it wasn't as cold as it has been. I have my hay and my books and all the worlds within the pages. I don't care if I ever go out again. I shall be queen of the cushions, my blanket is my sky. My home is the printed page.
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Picnic in the Snow
March 5: My friends came over and pulled me out of my book fort. The sun is shining! So we went for a picnic.
We chose a sunny spot just outside of town and sheltered from the wind. As I helped Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity to spread out a big blanket, Dash and Applejack built fortifications a little further away and launched a snowball fight. We sat down to watch Applejack and Rainbow Dash pummel each other with snowballs. Spike investigated the contents of our picnic baskets and distributed the turnip sticks that Fluttershy had prepared. So we settled in, calling out encouragement and strategy while snacking on turnip sticks. The battle ended in a draw and a cease fire.
Rarity negotiated the peace treaty and reparations were paid in firewood (Rainbow Dash) and starting a campfire (Applejack). To ensure the peace held, we observers melted down the ammunition in a pot over the campfire. Spike stirred in dried sugar beet pulp from Dash's saddle bag and made a hot soup. It was delicious and went so well with the dried daisies on alfalfa crackers that Applejack had prepared. For dessert Pinkie produced a big bowl of rock sugar bits.
After lunch we lounged in the sun on the picnic blanket and sipped chocolate peppermint tea. Rainbow Dash got antsy and she challenged Applejack to a game of horseshoes.
Most of Fluttershy's wards are hibernating or have migrated. She has Angel and a few mice to keep her company but not enough food to keep all the critters active all winter. She's looking forward to spring. Only two more weeks until Winter Wrap Up! She told us that Land Management has approved recruitment in the bunny population to five live births to compensate for projected loses due to spring thaw mishaps and other mortality factors. The approved recruitment is lower than in previous years due to a projected lower carrying capacity of actual rabbit habitat. Discord's vines and the perpetual near-twilight while the Princesses had been abducted put a real dent into the primary productivity last growing season. There are still no limits on Jackalope breeding. It's just so hard to juggle the antler casting, to get them into season and then to time the delayed implantation just right, even for Fluttershy.
Eventually Applejack and Dash had enough of horseshoes (and digging around in the snow to find the throws that missed). It was a tie. They rejoined us, tramping snow all over the blanket. To Rarity's relief, the conversation soon segued to supply, finance, advertising, commerce and the whims of pony fashion and showhorseship.
Time raced on, the sun got low, and even wedged between Fluttershy and Rarity I could feel the creep of the cold.
We shook the snow off Rarity's picnic blanket, gathered up the dishes Spike hadn't already put away, and headed home. Time flies fast when you're with your best friends.
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The Matrimares (action thriller book)
March 6: This book was a slow poison. It looked really good from the first line on the inside of the cover -- a young mare with a Hades-may-care attitude gets recruited by a smartly trimmed older mare into a secret world of espionage and daring rescues! So I got comfortable and began to read it.
The action starts right away. Four Matrimare chargers burst into a mule fortress and corner the boss mule. The boss mule triggers a rock slide to get away but gets crushed under a boulder along with one of the chargers. The chapter ends with the elder of the three Matrimare chargers giving a medallion to the family of their fallen comrade, a medal with an inscription. The sire is bereft with grief and will have nothing to do with the medallion; so the fallen spy's foal, Aggy, gets the medallion instead.
Next chapter, Aggy is all grown up and her sire is a lout. She still has that medallion and wears it all the time. She hangs out in a rough neighborhood, gets in trouble with Princess Celestia's guard and ends up about to be tossed into the dungeon. She reads out the inscription on the medallion, finds herself released from custody, no questions asked. Soon after she's enrolled in a series of tests to become a Matrimare.
This book has Rubecka A. Hinnylane flaws written all over it. (Hinnylane wrote Luna is a Harsh Mistress, Strange Mare in a Strange Land, and my old favorite, The Star Beast. Hinnylane's stallion characters, while showing some muster and smarts, are nearly all written as playthings and lesser herdmates for the mares. Hinnylane was from another time and oh how times have changed.)
The elite group of seven vying with the young mare (Aggy) to join the Matrimare herd includes both mares and stallions. The stallions are sympathetic characters and side with the small Aggy when the other mares give her a hard time. That's not too surprising as mares do tend to jostle for dominance in a new herd. So far so good.
The first test has the candidate's cottage dropped into a river in the middle of the night. Aggy breaks a window and all escape except one stallion who drowns. This is a rough course. I wonder how nopony got cut escaping through the broken window.
Meanwhile a charismatic mare named Reneigh Veilteller is giving away fabulous scarves to everypony in Equestria, for free. The scarves are booby-trapped with a want-it-need-it spell that she can trigger simultaneously all across Equestria by using the Alicorn Amulet and drinking an activating potion. She wants to destroy pony civilization and rebuild a pluralistic multi-species society on its ashes.
The story swirls towards the drain as Aggy's favorite stallion keeps needing guidance to get over his greatest weakness -- a fear of falling. This is not noticeably Hinnylane-esque at first, but it starts to get annoying through repetition. Aggy fails the final test, but gets recruited to save the day anyway when her mentor is killed by Reneigh and she discovers that the matriarch of the Matrimares is under Reneigh's control.
In Reneigh's fortress, Aggy meets an imprisoned prince who had refused to join Reneigh, but on the outside chance of getting freed, immediately offers to scandalously debase himself for Aggy's favor. That was shocking.
Aggy defeats Reneigh's stallion henchpony, breaks the amulet (I'm still not sure how) and takes up the prince on his offer to be her plaything. She returns home a new charger, all the mare of the world, to free her sire from the criminal mares that were pushing him around.
Bad book. Do not read.
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The Round Bark Tree Time of the Foals
March 7: Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were over this afternoon for tutoring again. This "Twilight Time" I thought I'd start with teaching them focus using Zecora's breathing exercises. I got the idea in my head that I'd demonstrate breath release by humming. That had mixed results.
Sweetie Belle turned it into music. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were bored. We moved on.
Scootaloo brought a bag of odds and ends which she dumped out on the floor and began trying to fit together. I asked her what she was trying to repair. She wasn't fixing anything, she was "building a contraption". What kind of contraption? Scootaloo: "I don't know yet."
I was distracted by Sweetie Belle up-ending Apple Bloom's saddlebags and dumping all the glassware out. I barely caught it in time, some of those vials smelled really vile. While I tried to again teach Sweetie Belle to focus, only to get rewarded with chromatic scale humming and not much telekinetic control, Apple Bloom stuffed an acorn into a pot and set up a series of glass tubes, burners, flasks and condensers.
Scootaloo's contraption was beginning to look like abstract art, like one of Alexander Coltdeer's Stabeels, with spiral horn amplifiers sticking out of two hoops. "Neat huh? Granny Smith gave me some of her ear horns! She has a whole closet full of them! The loopdehoops were Apple Bloom's idea!" Scootaloo opened up another small bag and dumped several dozen metal wafers out on the floor and began screwing those to random spots on her contraption.
Several of Apple Bloom's flasks were bubbling merrily, I caught a vial Sweetie Belle had sent hurtling just before it would have smashed against the wall. I convinced her to carefully lift six of Scootaloo's extra metal wafers at once. Scootaloo's hooped construction was now as tall as she was. She was fitting rings containing little metal balls to the pivot points.
Sweetie Belle squinted in concentration and I could see the six wafers starting to vibrate. I told her to focus on her breathing. Scootaloo gave her abstract hooped thing a satisfied swat and it started to spin. Apple Bloom's condenser was dripping on the acorn. I forgot to ask her what compounds she had combined, at that moment Sweetie Belle's six wafers rose off the floor and she started to hum. And everything happened at once.
The acorn sprouted. The wafers on Scootaloo's device started to glow and hum in tune with Sweetie Belle. It spun faster. Sweetie Belle was focused on her six wafers, coaxing them to fly in a figure "8". Apple Bloom's acorn was now a tiny tree, but it wasn't growing straight. The tiny trunk had divided itself into six branches, and the branches were weaving through each other and leaving a big space in the middle, like they were cradling an invisible orb. Sweetie paused for breath, Scootaloo's gyrating hoops slowed down, the tiny tree branched out sideways. Sweetie dropped the wafers and beamed. "How was that?" she squeaked. The tree unfurled tiny leaves on six horizontal branches and stopped. Scootaloo's contraption wobbled to a stop.
All three looked at the tree, then Scootaloo's round metal thing then at Sweetie Belle's wafers. Did you get one? Did you get one? Did you get one? They looked at their flanks. Still blank. Oh well.
That was enough for today. The three dismantled the apparatuses, picked up their things and ran off show the tree to Fluttershy. It could make a nice bird house. Or mouse house.
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Potluck Supper
March 8: We're having a potluck supper at Sweet Apple Acres tonight. Well, I expect Pinkie to have dessert covered, so I decided to go with a Canterlot dish -- Buckwheat and alfalfa sprout pancake rolls with hot and sour orange sauce. To make sure I didn't ruin the cooking, I read out the recipe and Spike did the cooking. He's an ace in the kitchen. He made me repeat that four times, the attention sponge. And I nixed the tourmaline sprinkles, except for his plate.
Time to trot! It's all cooked and packed and we're heading out the door. Potluck suppers are fun!
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Buckwheat and Alfalfa Sprout Pancake Rolls With Hot and Sour Orange Sauce (serves seven to ten):
Prepare Alfalfa Sprout Pancake Rolls.
Prepare Hot and Sour Orange Sauce.
Serve cool.
Served cool on a plate with a splash or artful dribble of spicy orange sauce, these delightful soft aromatic rolls with their watery, delicately crisp interiors are sure to please your dinner guests.
Buckwheat Pancakes (makes eight to ten pancakes):
Ingredients.
3 tea cups of wheat flour, finely milled.
3 tea cups of buckwheat flour.
2 heaping tea spoons of baking powder
3 soup spoons of sugar
1 tea spoon of salt
1 egg
3 soup spoons of melted butter
7 tea cups of milk
Put the butter into a frying pan and start heating it. This will melt the butter and also coat the frying pan and prepare it for cooking the pancakes.
Sift all the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, sugar and salt) into a large bowl and stir.
In another bowl, beat the egg lightly, throw away the egg shell (or feed it to Spike!), then stir in the melted butter. Next, stir in the milk.
Pour the liquid mixture into dry mixture and stir. Stop when the mix is runny and lumpy throughout. Have more milk on the ready if this batter is not runny enough.
When the pan is just sizzling hot, pour in one ladle of pancake batter and wait for bubbles to appear and start to burst. Use a spatula to flip the pancakes, even if you are an ace chef (that one on the ceiling is yours, Spike).
When done, the pancake should be a mottled golden brown on both sides. Adjust the temperature of the frying pan to cook fast without burning the pancakes.
For pancake rolls, you can get a thinner pancake by adding more milk to the batter. This also makes two to three more pancakes.
Alfalfa Sprout Pancake Rolls
Ingredients.
10 hoof and a half sized warm thin pancakes
5 tea cups of fresh washed alfalfa sprouts
10 toothpicks
Prepare: Pancakes. (May be substituted: other pancakes, such as Buckwheat, Jennycakes and Oatmeal.)
While the pancakes are warm and flexible, on each pancake add a half tea cup of alfalfa sprouts, roll the pancake into a tight cylinder with the alfalfa on the inside, and secure the roll by piercing it through and through with a toothpick.
Serve with: Hot and Sour Orange sauce, Peanut sauce, Peppermint sauce or Flambé.
Hot and Sour Orange Sauce
Ingredients.
1 tea cup water
1 tea spoon sugar
2 soup spoons fine ground orange peel
1 half tea spoon salt
1 half tea cup lemon juice
1 tea spoon hot sauce
1 soup spoon cilantro
1 tea spoon arrowroot powder
In a small pot, combine the water with the sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Heat to a low simmer, then add the orange peel and salt, stirring to dissolve the salt.
Simmer and stir 5 minutes.
Remove from heat, add lemon juice, hot sauce and stir while cooling until warm to the touch.
Stir in the cilantro and arrowroot while warm and serve at room temperature.
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Just Desserts
March 9: There's always too much to eat at a pot luck supper. Last night, I was afraid that my ten small alfalfa sprout buckwheat pancake rolls wouldn't be enough, but of course when you add five more small courses to the meal, everypony ends up fit to burst.
Pinkie had us fooled. She did bring the dessert, but it looked like beet sticks and hay burgers! Rainbow Dash nearly choked laughing. They were small cakes and cherry ice cream. The winter weather kept it from melting on the way to Applejack's place. It was delicious.
Over dinner we got to speaking about restaurants and dessert. Pinkie told us that everypony likes dessert but it doesn't help the restaurant, especially not busy restaurants. Desserts often require a specialty pastry chef, thus more cooks to pay and less kitchen space for preparing the mane meals. That increases the cost overhead for a restaurant.
There is only so much a pony is willing to pay for dessert, so a plate of cake is never going to be priced as much as a plate of greens and hay. That means less profit for the restaurant. Dessert keeps ponies at a table longer, increasing time spent by customer at a table by 50% or more. That slows down turnover which cuts into the profits of busy restaurants.
The problem is that everypony likes dessert and if a restaurant doesn't serve dessert, they'll go eat somewhere else. So restaurants have to have desserts on the menu to keep ponies happy, even though they'd wish you'd skip dessert and didn't linger.
Now drinks, that's where the money is. Fancy teas, cider, fruit juices, these go with the mane course, increasing how much a pony spends without increasing how long they occupy a table.
And Sugarcube corner? It only serves dessert and tea. It makes money because most of the customers don't eat their cakes at Sugarcube, they take them home. So the Cakes have more customers and fewer tables to serve.
As for catering, that's a whole different horse race.
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Tea With Rarity
March 10: After meeting up with Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie at the spa, Rarity invited us over for tea. Fluttershy had a pet-grooming appointment and Pinkie had Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake to go sit, so it was just me and Rarity in her Boutique.
Rarity prepared a pot of jasmine tea, put on Beethooven's Pasture Symphony and we chatted about the tapestries and library in the Carerfilly Castle ruins. We really should fix the damage. The rift between the royal sisters is no more and the gaping wounds in that old structure should be repaired as well.
I couldn't stay long and I left Rarity's boutique shortly after drinking my tea. Tomorrow I have to go on royal business to Canterlot and I will be gone all day. I'm all freshly groomed thanks to the spa ponies, but I have some chapters I need to read and a checklist to make before bed. A chariot will arrive to pick me up right at dawn.
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March 11: (Busy all day in Canterlot.)
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Royal Duty
March 12: With the crown comes the duty. I got up early yesterday morning, did everything on my checklist (it's so satisfying to tick off those little boxes) and stepped out my door just as the twilight met the dawn. The chariot that Princess Celestia had sent to collect me was ready and waiting. I got in and gave the two white royal guard pegasi the go ahead. As the sun climbed, pink, orange and yellow into the sky, so did we, flying fast and true to the mountain city of Canterlot.
It was a cold trip through the crisp winter air and hunkered down in the chariot, I was glad for my scarf and my red cowled horse blanket. We set down at the entrance of the castle where a livery pony took my garments and led me to the hall where I had breakfast with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They filled me in on protocol and what to expect. Breakfast over, we went to the Grand Hall where the mayors and officials from across Equestria were assembled.
This was the Annual Assembly of Equestrian Municipal Affairs where a representative of each municipality reported on their affairs and economic contribution Equestrian society. They all addressed us, but apart from Princess Luna's speech from the throne, we did not speak. Chairpony Flax Bit and the Royal Committee on Equestrian Finance and Civic Affairs received the speakers one by one, asked all the questions and noted all the grievances. We just made the whole proceedings official. It was a long day.
I could have kicked for a book to read. Trying hard not to fidget. Some of those ponies just seemed to drone on and on. Princess Celestia must have been meditating, I don't know how she managed to look so serene through the whole proceedings. Lunch break was a relief, and then it was back to the thrones on the high platform and trying to look regal. I bet Princess Cadence was happy for me to be sitting in for her.
Mid afternoon Mayor Mare gave her report, projecting an increase in crop production to make up for last year's shortfall. Each municipality also submitted a written report. I could have just read those in half the time.
Early supper break, and back to the assembly. Only a few more towns to go.
The last municipality gave their report and we retired while the committee deliberated and the princesses set the sun and raised the moon. Then we sat down one last time for the committee's closing remarks and to sign and seal the register.
Luna's personal guard and chariot were waiting for me in the castle courtyard. Luna's moon was rising large and luminous among the dazzling stars. I could hear the chatter of ponies and the sound of a string quartet in the garden. I drew my cloak about me, straightened my crown and stepped into the chariot. The two black pegasi spread their wings and whisked me off through the brisk night air. Home, to the quiet and comfort, to my books. Away from the turbulent crowds.
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Pony Spatial Cognition in Relation to Displacement of Objects in the Equestrian Environment
March 13: Ponies choose appropriate routes in the Equestrian environments to optimize their own displacements, but they also use this predictive ability to move objects, from thrown apples to rain showers.
Ponies have a feel for taking a route that gets them to their destination despite living in a landscape where the shortest distance between two points is rarely a straight line. As I explained before, the slightest shake changes how long a train trip lasts and just hoofing it can get you there faster.
Ponies start to develop these skills from the day that they're born, developing a cognitive map of their immediate surroundings and recognizing landmarks. They inventory objects, remember outcomes and sense the passage of time. The critical part of the brain responsible for navigation is the hippocampus, a pair of 'c' shaped structures in the temporal lobes. As young ponies grow, they choose preferred paths to navigate a wiggly environment where distance is a function of approach. Of course, each pony makes slightly different choices when building a cognitive map of their Equestria, but the outcome is generally the same.
The hippocampus is where memory, time sense and the cognitive map of a pony's private Equestria resides, but it's in the prefrontal cortex part of the brain where a pony makes sense of it all and acts accordingly. The prefrontal cortex also connects to a unicorn's horn. By capitalizing on the wiggle of Equestrian topography and the fact that nothing is ever perfectly still, a unicorn moves objects. What moves and how subtly is a function of the mental origami performed in the unicorn mind. Timing, movement and form. Grab, throw, grab, throw, pull through and there you go, tying that winter scarf, just like your mother taught you. That's magic.
A unicorn may be adept at guiding an object through space, but all ponies get a sense of where objects that they've let go will land. Earth ponies and pegasi use position and timing to ensure objects to which they've imparted kinetic energy and momentum land where they want them to. Rain clouds generally stay where weather ponies put them, but it takes extra skill to get the rain to fall where you want it to. Just like it takes skill to get apples to fall from the trees and into your baskets, and not land three fields over.
Pinkie takes navigation in a non-Euclydean landscape to the next level. She not only predicts the best path for her movements and for things she's moved, she feels out the possible paths of objects around her that could intersect with her projected positions.
Like traveling from point A to B, it's largely subconscious. Pinkie has connected her enhanced map to her motor cortex and translated her feelings of dread into coded body spasms to better know what it is she's expecting and act accordingly. She calls this her Pinkie Sense.
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All Team Organizer Coat
March 14: Only five more days until Winter Wrap Up! I went with Spike to drop off my all-team-organizer coat at Rarity's place so she could adjust it for my wings and my bigger body1. There were a few other ponies already there with their Winter Wrap Up jackets and about a dozen in a pile by Rarity's sewing machine. Oops. I could have not waited to the last moment, but what if I grew some more and had to get my coat adjusted twice?
I got my turn with Rarity and she'll be letting a bit out at the seams. She's not worried about getting all the jackets repaired and altered in time, as long as not too many more ponies show up at the last minute. Maybe I should include that in my Winter Wrap Up itinerary next year. A pre-Winter Wrap Up check list of supplies and a jacket maintenance schedule, alphabetically by name.
I'd better get Spike and go talk to the team leaders about supplies now, and start that check list. Or rather, tomorrow, when the sun's up.
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1 My growth has not been smooth but has followed the growth in power and connection between my friends and to our identities. Magical power is something a pony grows into as they tame it and make it theirs. As I tame alicorn magic, build the connections, the neural pathways that make that power mine, I grow larger and stronger. There is much to learn.
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Winter Pet Date
March 15: Winter Wrap Up is only four days away now. The weather ponies must be scraping out the bottom of their snow flake bins. There's fresh snow on the ground today, but it's all bits and pieces. I guess I won't see the sparkle of fresh snowflakes until next year.
I dropped in on Amethyst Star, Team Leader for the Animal Team. Her supplies are gathered and ready to go. She knows who to assign to what and where, we just have to plan out the timing a bit and it will be perfect.
Next I took Owlowiscious to our pet date, and Spike and my checklist too. While Winona chased snowballs and Angel dug tunnels in the snowbanks, I consulted Rainbow Dash and Applejack, the Team Leaders for the Weather and Plant Teams.
The carts, shovels, plows and bells are dusted, tuned, repaired and ready (check!). Seeds are properly identified and ready to plant, sticks, ribbons and straw all set to go (check check!). Ponyville ponies are old pros at WWU.
The plows, nest making and planting material and half the carts are to be stored at Applejack's, the rest of the material at the morning rendezvous location, Town Hall. Sounds good to me. I'll double check the inventory1 with the team leaders on site the day before Winter Wrap Up, to be sure. Maybe we should number the shovels. And put the seeds in alphabetical order; and sort the straw and sticks by size!
Annnd, maybe not. A good friend knows when not to go overboard. I rolled up the checklist and Spike took a nap.
Owlowiscious had a great time hooting directions to Winona who was trying to find the snowballs she hadn't caught. Most of the time, all I could see of Angel was his ears poking out of a burrow. Opal watched from her pet carrier. She had declined to step out into the cold, wet snow. Tank and Gummy were absent. Tank was hibernating and Gummy was feeling sluggish, basking by the oven at Sugarcube Corner. Snow's not his thing either.
It was a grey day and we didn't stay long. I woke Spike, called Owlowiscious and we all went home.
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1 With some things, like ice skates, ponies provide their own. But it's risky to wait until Winter Wrap Up Day to find out if all the kinds of seeds we need are where we thought they had been stored.
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Game Night
March 16: We got together for an impromptu supper and game night in our Friendship Treecastle. Spike and I threw together a big mixed hay salad and some hot sugar beet pulp soup, a big bowl of alfalfa cubes, a smaller bowl of peppermint sticks and sugar cubes, and a whole lot of mint tea, just in time for our friends to arrive.
I had the food and dishes displayed on one table and the games on another. We were going to have fun, fun, fun! By the book! I had Bookchase, Ring Fling, Bundle of Sticks, Tangle, Piaffle, Rope Rings and lots of quills, ink and scrolls for score keeping and for more games like Tic Tac Toe and Bulls and Cows.
The long smooth surface of the mane hallway is perfect for Ring Fling, and after wiping the tracked snow off the hard rock floor, Applejack and Rainbow Dash were already at it, with Spike waiting to challenge the winner. In Ring Fling, the object is to make flat wooden rings slide and stop as close as possible to a target 10 pony lengths away. Applejack had suggested horseshoes, but sand and dings from flying shoes in the hall, not a good idea. The wooden rings are propelled with a hoof-tip in the ring and a swing of the leg. A felt cushion makes them slide easily and they give a satisfying tok! sound when they knock other rings off the target. Rarity bought this set last time we were in Canterlot with just this in mind.
Everypony helped themselves to the food and we got down to gaming. Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and I settled on the Bundle of Sticks1 game which we set up on a low table to one side. I'm useless at these skill games but Rarity and Fluttershy were really good at pulling out the colored sticks without letting the structure collapse. Mouths only, no wings or horns allowed! It was tough holding my head sideways to try and reach the white sticks without brushing against them with my mane.
Later Rarity and Spike were battling it out at the Ring Fling, I was dueling with Applejack over Bulls and Cows and the others had started a game of Rope Rings, with a bird bath as the target.
Everypony has gone home now but we had lots of fun. Game night was a success!
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1 Bundle of Sticks -- shake 100 (elbow) length sticks into one ring of yarn and get the structure to stand on the table, carefully remove the sticks one by one so the sticks remain standing, each pony removes a stick until it collapses, ending the game. (or for points: yellow / gold-1, blue / sapphire-2, green / emerald-3, red / ruby-4, white / diamond-5 points)
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The Wild Woods
March 17: Warmer air from longer days is making fog rise off the snow in and around Ponyville. It's very pretty, but ponies do like to see into the distance, just in case something nasty might be creeping up on them. So the streets of Ponyville were mostly empty. Rainbow Dash will be out clearing the fog soon.
The Everfree Forest has a mind of its own and was mostly fog-free. Sure, there are many dangerous creatures there and the gloom and untamed plant growth makes me feel trapped, but I wanted to visit Zecora, and between the fog and the Everfree, the Everfree Forest was almost more inviting.
Spring isn't for another three days in snowbound Ponyville, but in the Everfree, a lot of the snow is gone and there are spring flowers! I saw snowdrops, coltsfoot, skunk cabbage and crocuses pushing up from the ground, the skunk cabbage was even melting the snow! Weird, wonderful, worrying... I hurried on.
Zecora welcomed me inside and over tea we chatted about spring, the Equestrian Municipal Affairs reports, magic and the magical resonance that occurred last "Twilight Time". Zecora thinks I should see if the foals can repeat the tree canister feat. A hollow tree can make a nice house, fit for a pony if coaxed to grow larger than that for a mouse.
If we try that, we'll do it outside in the spring. I don't need a full sized tree in my hall. Especially not if it catches fire or explodes.
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All Set For Winter Wrap Up
March 18: Today I went with the three Team Leaders to double check the inventory for tomorrow's Winter Wrap Up. Everything is present and accounted for at Sweet Apple Acres and at Town Hall. I got my All-Team-Organizer vest back from Rarity, all nicely adjusted again. Quills, ink, checklists! And Spike, of course. Ready to give 110%, which doesn't make sense, unless he's counting assistance from Owlowiscious.
Time for one last evening stroll in the snow.
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Winter Wrap Up: Up Before the Dawn
March 19: Winter Wrap Up starts at first light! It's still dark out. I can't wait! Got my All-Team-Organizer vest on and a projected optimal work flow that should respect the deadlines of all three teams. Should I go wake Spike already? We could get a front row view of Mayor Mare's speech!
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Winter All Wrapped Up
March 20: Spike dragged his feet a bit yesterday morning so we weren't in the front row for Mayor Mare's speech, but close enough. She got us all raring to go, then the Team Leaders got to work splitting up their crews according the Winter Wrap Up itinerary that I'd made.
The first priority is clearing the snow off houses, trees and the higher elevations to avoid flooding the animal burrows. That required all of the weather crew, except for two flight crews who were pointed south to fetch the birds, and half the Animal Team.
The other half of the Animal Team got to the task of with stringing up the bells while Rarity started building nests.
The plant crew delivered Rarity's supplies and got down to clearing, plowing and planting the fields in a regimented formation. Snow plows are not as bereft of magic as they may first appear. The motor pushing a snow plow is an earth pony, and earth pony power and skill is magic. That's how they clear the snow so well. Yoke a manticore to the driver's bar and the best it would be able to do is push the snow. A manticore-powered winter wrap up would take weeks.
Once the higher snow had been cleared, the Animal Team reformed, picked up their animal care material and went to wake up the sleeping critters and help Rarity make and install nests. As the critters awoke to baskets of food, the weather team donned skates and went to score the ice by crisscrossing the lakes and ponds.
Fluttershy and her animal waking crew reported success. All the critters were awake, fed and their homes dusted clean. I tried to break up some clouds. It's harder than it looks.
Finally Rainbow Dash's Weather Team formed a controlled tornado and swept the skies clear, and what was left of the snow with it. The afternoon sun beamed down, breaking the ice and the free members of the Weather and Animal Teams joined the Plant Team in finishing up the planting and watering of the fields. The southern flocks arrived this morning to green fields and open water.
Applejack's Plant Team ponies are looking a lot perkier now that they have fresh dirt clinging to their hooves. I feel more awake now than I have in the past month. There must be something in the soil.
The sky is clear, the birds are singing and the air smells like spring. Winter wrapped up on time in Ponyville, check!
Spring is here.
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Pinkie's Spring has Sprung Party
March 21: It's the first full day of spring, so naturally, Pinkie, Ponyville's permanent party pony, threw a party for the whole town.
There were banners, balloons and streamers and cake, pinatas and games like kick the can and pin the tail on the pony, and Pinkie's special punch. Which hopefully was not Gummy's favorite.
The Ponytones sang, the foals ran a six-legged race, many mares were sporting lovely spring hats and everypony had confetti and streamers on their coats and in their manes.
Spring flowers are coming up everywhere and the southern birds were singing their hearts out. The smell of warm earth and fresh growth was in the air. The spring sun in the blue sky felt wonderful on my face and I spread my wings to cradle that warmth.
Evening came and as night fell my friends and I gathered close to watch Pinkie's fireworks burst like giant flowers in the sky. It was magical.
And as another sure sign of spring, I've also started to shed.
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Ocean of Storms, Sea of Serenity
March 22: As much as we ponies put on airs and congratulate ourselves for keeping Equestria habitable and pleasant, we are animals and living things, just as much as any other animal or living thing in Equestria. As such, we make mistakes based on looking out for ourselves first and foremost. We plant our crops to suit us. We coddle the animals that appeal to us. We claim land and resources for ourselves. Like every other plant and animal, we push all obstacles out of our way to claim what we want. We are just better at that than just about any other species in Equestria.
I am not perfect. Sometimes I crave attention. Sometimes I want to run and hide. Am I worthy? Did I brag too much? Why does this bother me? I have books, shelter and food, I should be content. What is this urge to go out and talk to ponies? I am a pony, ponies are herd animals. I am an animal and my nature betrays me. My herd, my nature, my books.
We have made Equestria our pasture and we have to tend it carefully. If we fail, there will be no more ponies. This realm will go on without us, something may even survive and flourish. It would be sad for ponies, but indifferent for what was once Equestria. The rocks bear the scars of all that passes but the rocks know not what they remember. Time moves on.
I must live in the moment. I must not overreach. My closest friends are my herd. My creature comforts are the silences that bookend the turning of a page.
My thoughts are my own.
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Spring Molt
March 23: Spring molt is definitely underway. I dropped a few primaries this morning, a secondary is loose and my wings are looking ratty. Every time I get up, my reading cushion has a lilac coating of hair.
Spike is grumbling about hair clogging the drains. On the bright side, I now have new quills that match my coat!
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Whicker Quasiprobable Topography
March 24: On further thought, for non-natives, moving about in Equestria wouldn't be quite as wobbly as I'd first imagined it. I had thought that should a human appear in Equestria, they would find that moving would be like walking on violently shaking jelly. The thing is, most of the paths between points in Equestria are roughly the same distance, so it wouldn't be quite that bad.
The overall effect of the non-Euclydean geometry is to give objects a quasiprobable location and thus a fuzzy appearance to unadjusted eyes. The outlier paths between points are what you could consider the equivalent of quantum tunneling and they're easy enough to find and exploit.
So sure, careless walking will cause you to suddenly bang into objects that had appeared to be far away, but if you keep perfectly still, your surroundings will look a lot sharper! Maybe your best bet would be to sit in a cart and let a pony do the walking. Of course, there's the risk that every jostle of the moving cart could cause you to accidentally drag it every which way, and the hapless pony pulling you, along with it. Well, how about a full-body cast hooked to balloons? That might work!
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I Shed She Shed
March 25: I dropped four more secondary feathers and two new primaries are growing in. The blood feathers are very sensitive and distracting.
We got together for brunch in the 'throne room' and we're all molting like crazy. There was hair in the tea, hair in the salad (fresh dandelion greens!), hair on the frosting on the cupcakes... White hair, yellow hair, lilac hair, blue hair, orange hair, pink hair... Hair everywhere. I heard Spike mutter something about stuffing a mattress with it.
Rarity says that March is the cruelest month. She's threatening to "give this whole ghastly affair the heave-ho" and have the spa ponies shave and wax her entire body! Pinkie was laughing so hard she turned blue. While leaving a fuzzy pink halo on the floor.
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Focus
March 26: I counted two more primaries dropped and I have two secondaries growing in fast. It's not just my flight feathers, some of my contour feathers are dropping too.
When will this end? I feel disorganized and distracted. I need blinkers so I can focus. My winter coat slowly drifts to the floor.
I can feel little lilac hair-bunny eyes watching me from crawl spaces under the furniture. Every passing breeze sends them scurrying about. They grow larger.
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Out For a Brush of Fresh Hair
March 27: I had to get out into the fresh spring air and find a sunny spot to read, away from the musty smell of dust bunnies grown fat on my shed coat.
Many ponies were out too, and it lifted my spirits to note that everypony's coats were just as ratty as mine.
Quills and Sofas in town is having an inventory clearance sale on quills. With feathers raining down from the sky, I can see why. I circled back and headed to the eastern meadow.
I had brought a couple of brushes with me. I chose a dry, sandy bit of ground and before settling down to read, I brushed out all the loose hair I could and set it free.
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Heart Felt Figures
March 28: I had tea with Rarity and Fluttershy this afternoon in the Carousel Boutique's sitting room.
With the worst of the spring molt in full swing, Rarity has taken to wearing a shawl, hat and sunglasses, even indoors, to keep the molt from getting everywhere.
On a little end table by our cushions was Rarity's latest triumph. Ever inventive, she has been making little dolls out of her shed hair, the fine insulating hair lends itself well to needle felting. They have bead and sequin eyes and she's even tied mane strands together and sewn them in to give her pony dolls proper tails and coiffures.
They were so adorable that we got out the brushes and harvested fresh yellow and lilac hair to provide Rarity with more raw material. We went outside to do that, to avoid coating everything in the Carousel Boutique with hair. We also shook out a bunch of contour feathers and once back inside with our spoils, snipped a few judicious clips from our manes as well.
Of the finished dolls, I brought home one that I thought looked the most like Rarity to give to Spike. He found a place for it on a shelf with his comic book collection. I think I'll ask Rarity if she could make a Spike-shaped felt "figure" to go with it.
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Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
March 29: Half my feathers have been replaced now. I gave myself another good brushing and my coat is starting to look a lot less ratty. Another week of this and I'll look spring fresh. Ha!
Meanwhile Rarity has been busy. She's brushed and trimmed Applejack and Pinkie Pie and made a few dolls that look just like them. She has them posed in a cabinet in her room. Rainbow Dash was a bit trickier and Rarity had to let her brush herself and snip her own hair. Rarity can be persistent and she usually gets what she sets out to get.
I asked Rarity if she could make a felted doll that looks like Spike. Rarity looked appraisingly at my fur for a moment, and got to harvesting more lilac colored shed off me as it about matches Spike's lilac scales. My molt is winding down so it took a while, but eventually she gathered enough fine hair with which she could needle felt a small figure. As for the green scales, she will probably dye some white felt green and work it in. Spike is going to be pleased.
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Green Felt and Long Black Beads
March 30: Rarity came over and gave Spike the felt doll she'd made to look like him. She had dyed some white felt made from her own fine winter fur to make the green scales and crest, and she used long black beads for the pupils in the doll's green sequin eyes. Spike held it preciously then rushed off to place it on his shelf, right next to his Rarity figure. I find it funny that with all his grumbling about hair all over everything, he's over the moon with this gift made from hair. What's worse, made for the most part with my hair.
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Spring Fresh
March 31st: The Spa ponies have had the worst of the spring molt. They've had a surge of customers come in, ponies looking to at least look and feel fresh for a short while, even if their coats aren't quite there yet. For Aloe and Lotus, getting the hair out of the mud bath is a lost cause, and keeping up with the filter in the hot tub is a constant struggle. Each customer is subject to a full brush down on admission, before they get even close to benefiting from any of the spa's other services. Everypony still sheds anyway.
We are no exceptions. We succeeded in reserving six places at the Spa this morning for an hour for the six of us. Rainbow Dash skipped the seaweed wrap and the hooficure but joined us in the sauna and the hot tub. They are still using Zecora's herbs and salts in the water. I feel so sleek! My coat is starting to get a summer shine and my new flight feathers look pretty good too.
As we left, Aloe tucked a red trillium into our manes and we stepped out into the bright sunshine, in high spirits and feeling as good as we smelled. We descended on a café, pulled two tables together and chatted about this that and the other thing over lunch and several pots of tea.
I finally feel as fresh as the spring.
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