Walking The Edge
June 1: This morning I went into the Everfree Forest to visit Zecora, It's very hot and steamy in the Everfree, I felt like I'd somehow returned to the Ponyville Spa, except this sauna didn't smell like hot rocks. The air was laden with the musty smells of leaves, growing things and strange animals. All around there were queer noises. As I walked down the trail toward Zecora's sanctum, I counted humming, buzzing, creaks, hoots, whistles, rustling and knocking. I was acutely aware that the Everfree Forest is very alive. Everything in it probably has spring fever, and broods to feed. That was not a comforting thought. I slunk along the path a little faster.
Zecora let me in and she apologized for the clutter. There were rockets in various stages of completion at one end of her cottage and everywhere jars and bags of colored powders. The hearth was cold and none of her candles were lit. Mayor Mare had asked that she take charge of Ponyville's entry in the Crystal Empire's Pan-Equestria Fireworks Festival, which is scheduled for ten days from now. She's been very busy grinding up pyrotechnic powders and making little balls which she had out drying in trays. She's been grinding and building and rolling all this stuff for days. She was happy to take a break and share gossip and a few cups of iced wintergreen tea with me.
On my way back to Ponyville I found that the forest had quieted down quite a bit. At first I relaxed, imagining the unseen denizens of this riot of vegetation had settled in for a midday nap. But a snapping branch some distance behind me got me to consider another possibility. Maybe the quiet meant that hungry predators were prowling. I rocketed out of the Everfree and galloped home.
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Skies Of Blue And Seas Of Green
June 2: It wasn't quite as hot today as it was yesterday. I went for a stroll through the rolling fields and I ended up walking through the new pastures. Everything is green and the sea of grass in the new pastures tastes as good as it looks. Spike thinks that the Crystal Empire ponies are balancing out the riotous growth of their crops with the superabundance of all the creatures that are 'helping' them eat it. In short, he thinks they will be able to store enough of their own hay and produce to last the winter. Still, between the Crystal Empire uncertainty and the yak appreciation of our second and third cut hays, it's good that we have this extra capacity.
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To Market To Market To Buy A Fat Bale
June 3: I bought five bales of second cut hay from Applejack today. It's to tide us over until the first harvest. With two ponies and a dragon in residence, we have been burning through the pantry faster than I had anticipated last year. Five bales should be enough. I've been dipping more often into my stores of second and third cut hays. A little too often. It's making me feel bloated and gassy.
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It's Quiet Here
June 4: It's just me and Starlight Glimmer in the castle tonight. Spike left bright and early for the Crystal Empire, it's Dodge City's turn to set the night sky aglow there. In a week's time, it will be Ponyville's turn and I'm going. I have a Hay Board meeting the day before, but I might catch the evening train and stay two nights. I haven't seen my niece since her crystalling.
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Surprise Promotion
June 5: This morning Dash found out that she's been selected to join the ranks of the Wonderbolts! This has been a long time in coming for Dash. Ever since I've known her, her dream has been to join the Wonderbolts. Our very first conversation in Ponyville was in part about the Wonderbolts. So this is big. Very big. When we found out, we all rushed over to her house to congratulate her while she packed. (I used a cloud-walking spell to keep Spike, Pinkie, Applejack and Rarity from falling through the floor in the softer areas of Rainbow Dash's house.)
Dash will be replacing Firestreak who has switched to teaching flight school in Cloudsdale. Dash's first flight with the aeronautics team will be over Ponyville in two days. While she packed her luggage she told us that she is expected this afternoon at the Wonderbolts' headquarters, probably to get her up to speed on the routines and to get some training before the tour starts. And then she was off! No time for a party.
Meanwhile, Zecora has almost finished building all the rockets for the Pan-Equestria Fireworks Festival. They're being kept in an empty hay loft in Ponyville for the time being. Pinkie will be in charge of moving them by train to the Crystal Empire and she and Amethyst Star will be assisting Zecora at the festival.
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Rainbow Dashed
June 6: Pinkie somehow knew that Rainbow Dash would be coming home this evening and she organized a surprise "Best Day Ever" party. She even got Scootaloo and her friends in on it, putting up balloons, festive flags, streamers, banners and the like. Then we all camped out in Dash's living room to wait. It was well after sunset before she appeared. Fortunately, Pinkie brought snacks. Including bundles of spring grass, fresh picked and juicy. My one weakness! I couldn't just eat a few. I just kept popping them in my mouth, one after the other... until we ran out. I'm not going to get any sleep tonight, am I?
So Rainbow Dash arrived, Pinkie blasted her with confetti, and we all shouted "surprise!". But Dash was not in a party mood. At all. She tried to insist she was too tired to describe her great day. Usually Rainbow Dash is boastful and more than happy to talk about her feats. This was very unlike her, so we asked her if something was wrong, and something definitely was. Apparently, her first full day of training started with a bump and went downhill from there. She fell into a trash can and got pegged with the nickname "Rainbow Crash". Since she had been mercilessly teased with that nickname as a filly, Dash was less than thrilled to get branded once again as Crash, and worse yet, by her Wonderbolt colleagues.
Pinkie pointed out that it could be worse, they could have called her 'Rainbow Trash". Pinkie Pie, great with testy Yaks and Griffins, not so great with the unhelpful quips.
So the party turned into an ego salving session for Rainbow Dash. A good friend helps their friend vanquish turmoil and clear away the gloom. I pointed out that like the six of us, every member of a team is different and has different talents to contribute to the team effort. Rarity suggested to Dash that she demonstrate her strengths and unique skills to the Wonderbolts, thereby getting them to forget this unfortunate mishap she had had. Rainbow Dash really liked that suggestion. So much so that she immediately sped off, probably back to the Wonderbolt compound.
And that was it for the party and the details of Rainbow Dash's best day ever. So we went home. Pinkie left up the festive decorations. Dash will be back soon, and maybe we'll pick up the party where we left off.
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Whispers In The Grass
June 7: No sign of Dash. I hope practice went better for her today. Tomorrow we will get to see her in action, flying with the Wonderbolts over Ponyville!
I went for a walk in the fields, strolling haphazardly and grabbing a few mouthfuls of that fresh, green grass. The sky was full of white, fluffy clouds, left over from a shower Cloudsdale sent us a few days ago. Nopony has cleared them out yet. It was quite pretty, both in the sky, and in the shadows they cast on the rolling hills of waving green. I zigzagged through the fields, going from cloud shadow to sunlight pasture, the taller grasses tickling my belly. I'd brought a few books to read, so I stopped in a shady spot and lay down to read. But when I lay down, the grass was just higher than my head and all I could see around me was grass waving in the breeze, crowding in on me. With each rustling movement of the tall green stems, I imagined some pony-eating creature sneaking up on me, just out of sight, preparing to pounce. I felt very vulnerable. I had to get up, I just couldn't concentrate. I flew home and up to my balcony. Up there I felt better, I could see anything approach long before it would be close enough to pounce.
I wouldn't mind some more grass.
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Rainbow Splash
June 8: The Wonderbolts, now with Rainbow Dash, came to town and wowed us with precision stunt flying this afternoon. All of Ponyville was there to watch. Ponies like a good show.
Unfortunately, Dash tried to insert something extra into the finale and she ended up crashing. Pinkie Pie's giant ball of cotton candy broke her fall, but she managed to get pretty scratched up. On the way down she fell into a tree, got pecked by birds and got a little fried by a storm cloud. It was a long and varied crash. If she was trying to avoid getting called Rainbow Crash, this certainly didn't help.
She looked pretty down while she was getting patched up in the first aid tent, but she didn't want to talk about it. We kind of got kicked out of the tent by the nurse pony, there were ten of us there, crowding Dash and getting in the way. But when we caught up with Dash later, around sundown on the fair ground arena, she was sweeping up the place and her mood was considerably brighter.
It took some doing, but she finally told us the detail that made sense of this whole hairpin turn on her mood. All the Wonderbolts have awful, embarrassing nicknames, and when they named her Rainbow Crash, it was part of welcoming her to the club. Dash wouldn't give us any examples, but she did say they usually commemorated some rookie mistake they'd made in their first days on the team. Applejack pointed out that the nicknames probably helped keep the Wonderbolt fame from going to their heads. I think the nicknames also bring everypony to the same level, so that they work better together as a team.
That was the good news. The bad news is that because of her surprise showboating and out-of-control crash landing, Rainbow Dash has to clean the Wonderbolt compound every day for the next month. She still looked like she was in a state of bliss, despite that. And then we all went and hid in Rainbow Dash's house (with fresh snacks!) to wait for her to finish sweeping up the fairgrounds so she could have that surprise party we'd aborted a few days ago.
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Handled With Care
June 9: Zecora has finished assembling her rockets and Pinkie helped her cart the last of them into Ponyville. They then spent a few hours carefully packing them into crates, getting all the fireworks material ready to ship from Ponyville to the Crystal Empire. There's a freight train coming through Ponyville tomorrow morning and headed to the Crystal Empire and the Ponyville entry into the Pan-Equestria festival will be going there on that train.
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Planning The Cut
June 10: Hay Board Meeting today. There was a lot of discussion on harvest dates this time. With our increased hay field acreage, we decided to harvest earlier than last year as we're trying to push all three cuts to an earlier date so our fields will have longer to recover in the fall between the third cut and winter. We also agreed to reserve 20% of our first cut for the Crystal Empire, in case their crop or stores fall prey to the wild growth phenomena they've had this year.
So, our first cut yield will be lower and 20% of that set aside in case of need. That takes care of the surplus worries we had last Hay Board meeting, we can shelve the plan to use first cut hay as building material for now. Assuming nothing goes wrong, like weed contamination due to harvesting too early, we're still on track for increasing our second and third cut harvests to meet Yakyakistan demand.
Got to run and catch a train! I'm spending the next two nights in the Crystal Empire. Spike and Starlight Glimmer will be joining me tomorrow and Pinkie and Zecora are already there fussing over their pyrotechnic engines and details.
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(Big empty castle here. Leave a note by the door and the caretaker owl will take care of it.)
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Explosive Times In The Crystal Empire
June 12: I'm back from the Crystal Empire. I spent time yesterday with my niece. Sunburst's Fledgling's Forbearance spell is holding, she hasn't teleported or punched holes through the castle since her crystalling. I read several pages of I Met A Mare with her before she got bored and wobbled off to knock over some blocks that Shining Armor has stacked for her. She can say a few words, but mostly she still drools. A lot.
I got to see how the Crystal Empire is faring with the wild proliferation of every living thing that they're experiencing this year. Princess Cadence tells me that they get plagues of butterflies that wash through the town and get into everything, and if it's not butterflies, it's moss key toads, crystal hares, nosy-ems, crossbills, lemnings or pollen. The crystal ponies have taken to keeping their doors and windows tightly shut.
The nosy-ems are the worst. No pony ventures out unless they absolutely have to when the plagues of nosy-ems wash through the streets. The Crystal Heart appears to be keeping most of the riotous surge out of town, but since so much still gets into the streets, Shining Armor and a team of unicorns create an exclusion bubble around the fairgrounds to keep the critters away during the fireworks display.
They can't really bubble the whole Crystal Empire. It would be just too exhausting to bubble everything for the entire growing season, so they just put up with it. I walked past the farmer's fields and over to the edge to take a look. It was amazing! Out on the rolling hills and moss bogs, I could see patches of delicate green vegetation growing, only to attract hordes of plant eaters. The herbivores would vacate one area to attack the new growth, and where they had been, the plants would spring back. Throughout the area I could hear the buzzing of wings, the munching of thousands of busy mouths, the short screams of captured creatures and the rustle of leaves. It was an alarming spectacle.
That evening, on the Crystal Empire Fairgrounds, it was Ponyville's turn to light up the skies. The stands were packed with ponies from Ponyville as well ponies from all over Equestria. The swarm of blue butterflies lighting on every surface in the streets was not enough to keep them away. The fairgrounds was butterfly free for the evening, Shining Armor and his team saw to that.
Starlight Glimmer, Applejack and Rarity had arrived that afternoon by train with Spike but without Fluttershy. I wasn't really expecting her since fireworks are startling and she has critters in need of care. Starlight Glimmer went off to meet up with Sunburst, so it was just the three of us; Spike was already in the judging booth, munching on gems and looking pleased as punch. I had just found a good spot in the stands when Rainbow Dash flew in to join us. We got comfortable and looked up into the darkness to watch Zecora, Pinkie and Amethyst Star's show.
Spike left the booth, went up to a podium, and with a magically amplified voice, announced that Ponyville would be providing the fireworks. Then Zecora went up to the podium. She too had something to say. The crowd went quiet and with a magically amplified voice, she began the tale of When Winter Came To Equestria.
With Pinkie and Amethyst carefully launching her pyrotechnic chemical concoctions, Zecora literally and figuratively burned a moving picture into the night sky, building green fields under dazzling stars, blinding snows, the giants Winter and Summer galloping through the air and rivers of sparkling colors flowing through the fairground amphitheater and stands. Zecora reserved the biggest, brightest and loudest pyrotechnics for the finale, celebrating the harmony of the seasons and the balance between winter and summer. Green for spring, gold, purple and blue for summer, orange, red and yellow for fall, and ending in searing whites for winter.
We all stood up to pound the ground and the stands in thunderous applause. I think the ground shook from all the pounding, but fortunately the stands are very sturdy. They just bounced around a bit.
After the show, everypony left the fairgrounds. Many went to the train station, mostly ponies from Ponyville and Canterlot, to catch the night train back home, but Rarity, Applejack, Starlight Glimmer, Rainbow Dash and I stayed overnight at the castle. Spike, Pinkie, Amethyst Star and Zecora were provided for by the Festival organizers.
So this morning we were still in the Crystal Empire, getting swarmed by yellow swallowtail butterflies and doing a little shopping before heading back to Ponyville. I bought a few books.
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This Is My Jam
June 13: We have two unopened jars of zap apple jam left! With Spike, food like this usually gets eaten sooner rather than later. I suspect that the reason we still have zap apple jam left is because Spike has been getting spoiled every weekend in the Crystal Empire. He's been getting big portions of gems and other goodies to eat so often that he has been less inclined to go looking for forgotten treats in our pantry.
It's been a while since we've had a game night in the castle. I'm going to go around to see if everypony is available for one. I know Rainbow Dash gets home late every evening now, so a midday picnic is out. If we have a game night, I think some fresh bread and one of those jars of zap apple jam would make a nice surprise.
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Bohemian Waxed Wings
June 14: No game night tonight, but we're on for tomorrow! Today, it was spa day for Rarity, Pinkie and Fluttershy, so I joined them. I think I'm going to the spa a lot more often than I used to. It must be Rarity's influence. Starlight Glimmer didn't come with me, she's decided that going to the spa is a frivolous activity. She prefers to take her own baths and occasionally, to walk in the rain. I bet if Trixie was in town and proposed going to the spa, Starlight Glimmer wouldn't turn her down. There's a friendship lesson in there somewhere.
Fluttershy has a cottage full of very demanding baby birds, eyes closed squirrels and baby bunnies that have her running sun up to sun down. Then at night there are the baby bats and flying squirrels. Amethyst Star is giving her a break so she could get out of the cottage for a few hours and it looks like she needed it. She fell asleep while getting a massage.
We all started with a scrub down, then Rarity had a seaweed wrap with Pinkie Pie while I had my feathers waxed and Fluttershy got her massage. The waxing was Rarity's suggestion. They put tiny flecks of glitter in the wax to give your glistening flight feathers some extra oomph when you spread your wings in the sunshine. I tried it when we got outside. Every pony on the street turned and stared. OK, it's impressive. Fluttershy called me a bohemian waxed wings and ducked for cover. I shot back that I have a home, so I couldn't be called bohemian! Pinkie said that at home, I'd be a seated waxed wings. Rarity said she could "see der waxed wings now". There was no winning this battle.
One thing that I like about this feather waxing is that it improves the waterproofing of my feathers. That's practical! We had ended our spa trip with the four of us in the whirlpool together and I'd floated like a cork.
After the spa we trotted daintily through the sunlit streets, my wings tightly folded so I wouldn't blind myself with the shine and sparkle, and we made a bee-line to Sugarcube Corner for ice cream treats. I remembered that last year I'd once had some spicy orange chocolate ice cream there but they didn't have any this time. Instead, they had salty dark chocolate ice cream, with big crunchy grains of sea salt! I had that. It was Celestia tier!
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Making This Castle A Home
June 15: This afternoon, Spike, Starlight Glimmer and I were busy preparing for game night in the castle. We baked a few loaves of lemon poppy seed bread, tossed a big salad of spring greens, got out tables and cushions and set them up in the castle foyer, and brought out the games. By the time our guests began to arrive, the bread was just coming out of the oven, Starlight had set out plates, bowls and utensils, and I'd selected a flake of third cut hay from our dwindling supply.
I wasn't planning a pot-luck game night, but my friends brought snacks anyway. Pinkie brought hay crackers and peppermint frosting dip (surprisingly good), Applejack brought a fresh carrot and apple pie, Rarity was in the mood for chocolate ice cream, so she brought a tub of that, Rainbow Dash brought carrot sticks and Fluttershy brought birdseed, by mistake. We sprinkled the birdseed on the other snacks, to add a bit of crunch. Poor Fluttershy. It's rough being a wild animal specialist in the spring.
Spike brought down two loaves of lemon poppy seed bread, still hot, with butter and zap apple jam. That was a real hit, especially with Rainbow Dash, who suddenly realized that she was famished. We chatted while we polished off the bread and washed it down with iced tea. Applejack told me that she has been trying to grow crystal corn without success. It probably has something to do with the Crystal Heart. Dash was in another Wonderbolt flight show, this time over Fillydelphia. Rarity's winter clothes line is selling quite well and she needs to make a trip to Yakyakistan for more of their specialty cloth.
Dash admired my freshly waxed, glittery wings. She said they really give me pzazz. It turns out that that is neither cool nor awesome in of itself. I asked. This cool and/or awesome appellation is complex and I let it drop.
We moved on to the mane event, the games! Ring Fling in the mane hallway, of course. Rope Rings near the staircase, Bundle of Sticks on one of the low tables, and I got a taker for a game of Bookchase! I played against Starlight Glimmer. Mare does she know her books! We played best out of three.
Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash called it an early night, they are both tired from the extra duty they've been doing. Rarity and Applejack were next, leaving me, Spike, Starlight Glimmer and Pinkie. We had one last game of Bundle of Sticks (Spike had to use his mouth, just like everypony else) then we packed up the games, leftovers and furniture and called it a night too.
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Hay Anything (And Everything) Feast
June 16: It's just about time for the first cut harvest. Cloudsdale gave us one last shower this morning, leaving dozens of drained, white fluffy clouds behind. Then Pinkie threw us her 'Surprise Hay Harvest Make Way For The New Harvest Feast And Party Party' at Sugarcube Corner. It was after sundown so Dash could make it and so Applejack could join us after tending her acreage. We had Sugarcube Corner to ourselves. Pinkie planned this party earlier than last year because this year the first cut will overlap with the Summer Sun Celebration holiday, and not even Pinkie can be two places at once.
Since it was a surprise party, Pinkie only told us about it when she handed out invitations an hour before. Or in Rainbow Dash's case, as soon she got home. Balloons were involved.
This year I suspect she got extra help from Applejack in decorating Sugarcube Corner. Not only were the tables replaced with straw bales draped in red checkered tablecloths, but along with the paper lanterns, drying fresh cut hay hung in bunches from baling twine crisscrossing the ceiling, and more hay filled apple baskets along the walls.
Of course, Pinkie and the Cakes prepared and served hay in every way imaginable. Hay soup, hay crackers, hay bread, sweet and sour hay silage, hay tourtière, crispy fried hay, hay casserole, fresh cut hay salad, hay smoothies, hay ice cream, hay cake, hay cookies, hay tea... With the fresh green hay in the baskets, Pinkie and Rarity braided hay tiaras and necklaces for all of us to wear. I still have mine. I'm still deciding whether to eat them tomorrow or keep them, like Maud Pie does with her rock candy necklaces. I couldn't eat them now, I'm so full I feel like I'm going to pop.
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Fields Of Hay
June 17: The first cut hay harvest has begun! All around the castle there is a heady smell of fresh cut hay drying in the sun. I still feel stuffed with hay from last night's surprise feast so mostly I'm just enjoying the lovely smell. I don't have the urge to run out into the nearest field and make hay alicorns, yet. Unlike a few mischievous foals. Every year some foals have fun plowing through the hay, making hay forts and generally rolling in the fresh cut hay. And every year the hay farmer ponies grumble.
Not all of this cut is to be processed into dry bales. We expanded our productivity in order to meet Yakyakistan demand for our second and third cut hay, and that means that our first cut productivity has increased as well. We will of course be producing hay to give to the Crystal Empire should their hay stores fail, but that still leaves us with a surplus. Last year we had demand for more silage than we could supply, so our excess is getting made into silage. From my balcony I can see a few mowed fields dotted with big white marshmallows. Those are fermented bales in air-tight starch polymer bags. It's something new this year that the Hay Board wanted to try. The Hay Board expects them to sell well since they're transportable and keep well (so long as you don't break the seal).
The harvest is earlier this year than it was last year. We're trying to push all three cuts to an earlier date so our fields will have longer to recover in the fall between the third cut and winter. As a result, I think our first cut may be a bit greener than we're used to. But letting our fields recover longer in the fall should give us faster growth next spring, and next year our first cut will be as starchy as always. Unless we push the first cut even earlier. It is overlapping with the Summer Sun Celebration this year, so I suspect that if all goes well, we'll try to harvest a few days earlier.
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Here Comes The Sun Fling
June 18: Summer Sun Celebration is just two days away. This time around it's Los Pegasus that will be hosting Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Here, I've been helping Pinkie organize Ponyville's traditional Summer Sun Celebration event. Rarity is on the task of decorating town hall, the Apple family and the Cakes are cooking up mountains of treats, Pinkie has DJ Pon3 slated for music, and Rainbow Dash will gather up the clouds when she gets back from Wonderbolt compound duties tomorrow evening. Pinkie suggested that we hold the all night party in the castle, but I quashed that idea. We're not celebrating me and the town hall is the heart of Ponyville. It's traditional.
We're bringing back some of the fun things from last year, such as princess-shaped cloud sculptures, a lantern procession and fireflies. Fluttershy's feathered friends have been pestering her to conduct a dawn chorus again, so it looks like we'll be doing that again too. One good thing about the early first cut harvest is that the hay in the western pasture will have been baled by tomorrow evening, so it will be easier for that field to spring back after all of Ponyville tramples it. Pinkie put up posters everywhere, so everypony knows where to go and what to expect this Summer Sun Celebration. She has several ponies making new paper lanterns so we'll have enough to go around.
Spike left this morning for the Crystal Empire, but he'll be back in plenty of time to party all night with Ponyville tomorrow. It's Baltimare's turn in the Pan-Equestria Fireworks Festival.
Hay is still drying in the fields. The odor is intoxicating. The castle just sucks in that delicious aroma at ground level and wafts it down every corridor. This stone tree is trying to get me fat.
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Dusk To Dawn
June 19: A lot of hay was made into bales today. From my balcony, it was fun to watch the progress of tiny ponies in the fields, making bales and changing the color of the fields as they revealed the short grass stems under the dried hay. The activity stopped just before sundown, not just so everypony could attend Summer Sun Celebration parties, but because the evening dew raises the water content of the dried hay and a wet bale gets moldy. A stack of moldy bales of hay can catch fire. So no baling wet hay.
The party is well underway in Town Hall. My job helping organize it is done. I stepped out to watch Fluttershy's thousands of fireflies fly about the building and I slipped back to the castle get a breather from all the loud music and ponies. I'm heading back soon. I don't want to miss the lantern procession! I'm going to see if I can drag Starlight Glimmer along. She's still in the library studying.
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Frisking The Night Away
June 20: I went back to the Summer Sun Celebration party in Town Hall where I arrived just in time to watch Spike take his turn at Pin The Tail on the Pony. He was pretty close, he pinned the tail on the pony's ear. Most of my friends were watching from next to Applejack's treat table, still piled high with treats, so I went over and joined them.
While we chatted, Pinkie dropped a thousand balloons of every color from the rafters, and the music took on a dance beat. We ambled out into the balloons and my friends teased me by singing sweep, sweep, sweep while plowing through the balloons. When we had been setting up Rarity's Manehattan boutique, I'd suggested we could sweep to the beat pounding through the ceiling from the dance club upstairs. It seems I'm never going to live it down. In just a minute, every pony wading through the balloons in Town Hall was singing 'sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep', and they had no idea why.
Just before the morning twilight, everypony left Town Hall, some picked up a lantern or a streamer on the way out, and we followed Mayor Mare through the streets of Ponyville. The procession weaved its way through the streets, picking up ponies and more lanterns on the way, and followed by a gently whirring parade of lightning bugs. The fireflies landed on the gossamer streamers we were carrying, making them even more sparkly. Rarity approved. As we passed the castle, Starlight Glimmer joined us too.
We trotted, we stomped, we marched and we tap danced. All through the streets of Ponyville and out into the fields. Mayor Mare was having a great time putting us through the paces, and so were we. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flew up ahead in the early twilight, Dash to put the last touches on her well behaved clouds, and Fluttershy to warm up her dawn chorus.
As the sky grew lighter, Mayor Mare led us through the Western pasture, up down and around small hills and gullies. We were a river of light; bobbing, glittering and flashing through the fields and getting close to the hill marked by two tall pony-shaped clouds framing the setting moon. Then, from the north, the Crystal Empire bathed the night sky and all of Equestria in peace and joy. We arrived at the vantage hill where we all found a place to stand, draped in flashing streamers, our lanterns at our feet, waiting for the dawn.
A hush fell over the hill. Luna's moon set, Fluttershy's birds began warbling in harmony, and Celestia's sun rose to bathe Dash's cloud sculptures in pastel shades of pink. Every pony pounded the ground in applause, sending the lightning bugs airborne and flying back to their homes in the bushes around Ponyville.
While ponies in high spirits galloped, pronked and played steeplechase over the hay bales, Applejack, Pinkie and I trotted back to Town Hall to set up the Summer Sun Celebration breakfast for everypony. Even after snacking most of the night, I still ate a lot.
After that, not much was moving in the fields. It's hot and dry today and ponies have been taking it easy in the wake of the Summer Sun Celebration all-nighter. There's no rush to get the hay into the lofts right away. I can see one field from my balcony that has been cleared, the rest are dotted with bales.
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Fields Of Gold
June 21: My west balcony is one of my favorite reading places. It's quiet, I don't have to carry my reading cushions far, it's a quick trot to get more books or another pitcher of mint tea, I can sunbathe and read at the same time, and the view is wonderful. All around the fields are rapidly turning yellow. The hay cultivation and transformation specialist ponies have collected most of the bales for storage and we should get another shower in a day or two to spur the fields into fresh growth. I should order 45 bales of first cut hay from Applejack.
Spike tells me that if I want to see the Cloudsdale fireworks display at the Pan-Equestria festival, I'd better get there early. The festival heads told him that every bed in the Empire has been reserved and most will be occupied by visiting ponies two days in advance of the fireworks. It's going to be huge. Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack and Rainbow Dash want to see this event too, so I wrote this morning to Princess Cadence to see if she has room for five ponies on an overnight stay. With the wildlife being so lively in the Crystal Empire this year, I don't think any of us would get any sleep if we camped outside.
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Scholarship Is Magic
June 22: It's been a while since I've heard from Moondancer. Today I got a notebook, two scrolls and a letter. The notebook was mostly full of descriptions of items recovered or found in the tomb she and Professor Clarity Quest are studying, and the scrolls contained transcriptions of sentence fragments from two of the scrolls Moondancer has been trying to read.
In her letter, Moondancer filled me in on their progress. They have two papers that are in the review process and pending publication. One is a description of the tomb and why it's probably the final resting place of Epona. The other focuses on the transcription and analysis of the gold scrolls. But they are also working on other papers, such as a report on the restoration, analysis and overview of the subject matter contained in paper scrolls. Moondancer will also be submitting a paper on the Haycartes method as an hippologists' tool in restoration and gentle handling of fragile documents. She tells me in the letter that she is learning to detect, map and transcribe metal based inks from burnt scroll fragments! Now that can't be easy.
There's a museum exposition of Professor Quest's find in the works. Moondancer wrote that the Cultural Hippology Museum in Canterlot has space available and the lead curator is champing at the bit to put Professor Quest's artifacts on display. This is going to be huge.
Now the next bit Moondancer wrote was really exciting: it seems that Haycartes also restores a document as it's read! The more a Haycartes spell is used to read a document, the more clear a previously faded text becomes, and the more the stains and discoloration gets wiped away. With the surge in popularity for Haycartes reading in Canterlot, Professor Quest wants to encourage ponies visiting the exposition to read the scrolls, and thus clean them!
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Gone With The Wind
June 23: Starlight Glimmer was in a sour mood this morning. She forgot to close the door at the top of the stairs, so when Spike went out on an errand this morning, air got sucked in at the ground floor, rushed up the grand staircase and blew out like a gale through the open balcony door, carrying the stack of papers Glimmer was carrying out and away. Right in time for a rainstorm. She spent most of what was left of the morning collecting errant papers from the field below and drying them flat. I think she got them all, but she was not a happy camper.
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How To Train Your Dragon (Step One, Buy A Ticket)
June 24: Spike left this evening for the Crystal Empire. It's a day early but he had been told to expect a rush of ponies to head to this week's event at the Pan-Equestria Fireworks Festival. I went with him to the train station and sure enough, when the train pulled in I was amazed at the number of ponies packed on board. At the ticket booth we were told that there have been extra trains going north all day, all of them packed. So now I'm worried about tomorrow. Spike managed to get one of the last seats on this train. He squeezed in through the door just before the train started to lurch forward and I lost sight of him. I went round and alerted all my friends. Princess Cadence wrote back that she has a room for us at the castle and we're catching the first train to the Crystal Empire tomorrow morning. I hope.
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Off To The Places
June 25: We are off to the Crystal Empire Pan-Equestria Fireworks Festival! I have to trot down to the station, we're taking the morning express. Hopefully at this hour the train won't be packed full. Rainbow Dash will be flying in this evening, like she did for the Ponyville fireworks. Starlight Glimmer will be minding the castle while we're gone.
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Brontotechnic Fireworks Spectacular
June 26: I'm back from our trip to see the Cloudsdale contribution to the Pan-Equestria Fireworks Festival and it was spectacular. Getting there was harder than I had planned.
We got to the train station in plenty of time yesterday morning, but when the train arrived and it was our turn to get aboard, we found out that there was only room for three more ponies! So I had to fly in. Applejack took on my saddle bags and I had to wing it all the way to the Crystal Empire. And the crowds! I haven't seen this many ponies in one place since the Equestria Games! I arrived before the train, which was fortunate. I rejoined my friends just as they stepped onto the platform at the Empire station and we waded as best we could through the throngs to the castle. There we stopped to find our rooms, to leave our bags, to have brunch, to chat with Shining Armor and Princess Cadence and to see my niece.
We learned that the Crystal Empire has expanded the stands this week at the fairgrounds. Even so, they were enough to accommodate most of the ponies in the crowd but not all. So Cloudsdale sent in extra clouds to make stands for pegasi. Thus the unicorn and earth pony spectators occupied the ground stands and the winged pony spectators had the overflow cloud stands. As a result, a good part of the fairgrounds was now looking like a stadium.
That afternoon the four of us strolled through town and around the fairgrounds, buying local treats and enjoying the festive atmosphere and activities. After supper (finding a table at a restaurant took forever, there were queues everywhere!) we went back to find a seat at the fairgrounds. There were so many ponies everywhere. Many had given up on sitting in the stands and had spread picnic blankets on the ground. Pinkie liked that idea (and she probably could have found a picnic blanket for us) but I had another idea.
There was room and a good view from the clouds, so I cast the cloudwalking spell on Pinkie, Rarity and Applejack and we walked up the cloud staircase to a spot where we could all sit together. That's where Rainbow Dash found us. Applejack had her lariat, so on Dash's recommendation we used that as a safety line, tethering ourselves together like mountain climbing ponies, in case one of us should fall into a cloud crevasse.
Away in Canterlot, Princess Celestia set the sun, and as Princess Luna's Moon rose into the evening twilight, Spike presented Cloudsdale, the city responsible for that evening's fireworks spectacle. Then, as the darkness rolled in and the stars began to twinkle, Cloudsdale's Brontotechnic Percussion Orchestra, the Blue Mare Group, drove their black thunderclouds high above the center of the field and started spinning them.
The black clouds started to come to life, flickering with lightning flashes. More blue-clad pegasi arrived with fluffy white clouds that they arranged in a regular pattern around and above the black clouds. The spinning thunderclouds began shooting lightning back and forth between them, like giant Catherine wheels, cracking and rumbling to a beat. In time with a series of particularly loud booms, the pegasi minding the white clouds set off colored sparklers, causing the white clouds to glow from within and to pulse in time with the music. From the ground, more ponies launched more fireworks that burst into gigantic burning flowers of flowing color, always in time with the music.
There were three movements, the lively first movement that set the tone for this fireworks concert, a quiet second movement with roving washes of abstract fires circling the pulsing, crackling clouds, and a roaring final movement of blinding flashes, giant sparkling flowers and deafening explosions that made every hair on my body vibrate. And then it was over. The Blue Mare Group and their crew took their bows while ponies pounded the ground, rocked the stands and beat their wings in applause. That was almost as loud as Blue Mare Group performance.
After the festival, the cloud stands were lifted, flattened and shaped into accommodations for pegasus ponies! Pretty neat idea, although it was mostly used by families with foals. Many of the pegasi flew home. The clouds were pushed up high into the sky to get above swarms of glowing luna moths that had slipped into the Crystal Empire after dark. They're very pretty but they're really big. It would be hard to sleep with hundreds of those fluttering about in the dark.
The earth ponies and unicorns without reserved accommodations but also staying the night didn't have to sleep with the moths on the fairgrounds (although many did). The Crystal Empire opened their Games stadium so ponies could pitch tents there, in a mostly moth free area.
We headed back to the castle, still half deaf from the fireworks and thunderclaps. I fell asleep just about as soon as my head touched my pillow.
The next day Dash flew off early to take care of her Wonderbolt duties, but as for the rest of us, it wasn't until the afternoon that we got seats on a train back to Ponyville. I was beginning to think we'd have to stay another night. But we took turns waiting in line and eventually we got our tickets. It's good to be back home.
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Wild For Strawberries
June 27: And suddenly, it's strawberry season. I went to the Ponyville market with Spike today, and along with the fresh silage, fresh baled hay, fresh cut bedstraw and many other early summer treats, there were ponies everywhere selling strawberries. We bought two big baskets full, which were a lot less full by the time we got home. We were eating them on the way back to the castle, and on the way to the kitchen, and for lunch, and for snacks. There are none left. I think I'll be going back to the bazaar again tomorrow.
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Tapping On My Roof And Walls
June 28: Cloudsdale sent us a fresh load of rain clouds and the weather ponies bucked them into action today. They got Ponyville good and drenched, washing the dust off everything and soaking our green fields. It was also a hot day, outdoors. Inside the castle it's always a bit cold, but outside it was like a steam bath in comparison. I went out, walked in the rain and got soaked. Water was running down my sides, slicking my mane to my neck and dragging my tail down until it trailed behind me in the mud. It felt great! I craned my head up and just let the drops patter and splash on my face. Eventually I went back inside, found a towel and dried off. But it's cold and silent in the castle. I picked up some of my reading material, a large cushion, a pot of tea and set myself up in the doorway to one of the smaller balconies. There I could read while enjoying the warm breeze, the smell of fresh rain, and the soothing drumming of the steady rain falling on the balcony.
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Hay It Ain't So
June 29: I stretched it as much as I could, but we are all out of last year's first cut hay. We're lucky that the Hay Board decided to push the harvest earlier, it means that I will be restocking with fresh hay. It's going to be quite the contrast in our plates, going from that really yellow and old stuff to fresh, fragrant and still green forage!
Last year I bought 30 bales and this year, with an extra pony in the castle, I was thinking 45 bales, but now I've decided 50 bales would be better. Applejack will be delivering 50 choice bales of bone dry first cut timothy hay to my door tomorrow. I kidded with her by telling her that they better be good because that's the hay she'll be eating next time she comes over. That's not really true, I usually serve third cut hay to guests.
Spike and I spent an hour or so today cleaning out the dust and shooing the star spiders out the balcony door of our impromptu first cut pantry. The planks are in place, it has been mopped down ceiling to floor and it is ready for that sweet, fresh timothy hay. Mmmmm!
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Dost Thou Even Loft?
June 30: My fifty bales of hay arrived in two carts late this morning. Like last year, Applejack and Big Mac left them on the castle grounds below the balcony of the room I use as a first cut hay pantry. While Starlight Glimmer and I fussed over lifting the hay in through the balcony door and placing them 'just so' on raised planks in the room, for maximum air circulation and free movement of ponies between the stacks, Spike went to the market to get strawberries. He came back with two baskets full of big strawberries that looked and tasted sweeter than the batch we ate two days ago, and he picked up some fresh alfalfa, about as much as he could carry. Fresh first cut hay, juicy strawberries and leafy green alfalfa, not even wilted! Now this is living.
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