“Spike! Will you stop jumping around?!” Twilight exclaimed. “Those chairs are for sitting, not springing!”
“Sorry, Twilight.” I hopped off one of the chairs. “Just practicing my parkour skills.”
“I understand, Spike, but you need to be careful. Some ponies and non-ponies can get hurt jumping around, even more so without any wings. Anyway, have you seen any more pie tins? We need to pick up some of Applejack’s pies today.”
“I think there’s still some in the kitchen. Let me help you look.”
It was then I realized this was when “Applejack’s ‘Day’ Off” occurred. In the show, Applejack’s chores had been eating up more and more of her time, so Twilight and Spike would help out on the farm while AJ and Rarity take a spa day. However, the first two would discover that Applejack overcomplicates her chores, and they would help the farm pony simplify them. I couldn’t find anything major to change, but I wanted to know why AJ would make such unnecessary impediments to her tasks.
You would think somepony like Applejack would know how to optimize her work.
After we got a dozen pie tins, Twilight and I headed to Sweet Apple Acres. Along the way, we met Rarity.
“Hi, Rarity,” Twilight greeted.
“Morning, Twilight, Spike,” Rarity responded. “Good heavens, that's a lot of empty pie plates.”
“We’re getting a lot of pies from Applejack,” I answered. “What about you?”
“I’m going to get Applejack. Although, I'm quite sure she'll be too busy once again.”
“How so? Has she been late to your spa days again?”
“Precisely, and it’s become more and more obvious. Last time, we only had ten seconds together in the steam room. Ten seconds!”
“You two really should set aside some time,” Twilight said.
“Darling, I have been trying for moons!” Rarity retorted. “But Applejack is so busy these days, it's next to impossible.”
“Wow. I didn't realize Applejack had so much to do.”
“She’s a farmer, what did you expect?” I asked.
“Even farmers would try to make some free time available.” Twilight scratched her chin. “To be honest, I’ve noticed Applejack being late for other activities as well. I remember how she showed up an hour late for our recent Pony Pet Playdate.”
“So you see?” Rarity asked. “Something’s going on down at the farm.”
We arrived at the barn just in time to see Applejack take out some pies from the oven.
“Hello, Applejack,” I said. “We’ll take our usual, please.”
“Sure thing, Spike.” Applejack filled up the tins.
Unlike in the show, I picked up each pie individually and placed them on the nearby haystack.
“I don't suppose those pies are the last chore on the schedule for today?” Rarity asked unamusingly.
Applejack slapped her forehead. “Land's sakes! Is it time for our spa day already? Rarity, why don't you go on ahead and I'll meet ya there?”
“Oh, please, Applejack. Let's not kid ourselves!”
Applejack exited her house. “Well, it ain't 'cause I don't wanna. But the work on the farm has just been taking up more and more of my time.”
I asked, “Have you tried adjusting your chores to improve efficiency? Leaving out what’s considered unnecessary?”
“I’ve been tryin’ to.”
“Can't you get somepony else in your family to take over for a bit?” Twilight suggested.
AJ sighed. “Wish I could. But Granny, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom all have chores of their own. And today, they're all busy taking the harvest to market.”
“Twilight and I could try to handle your chores for the time being,” I offered.
“Are ya sure?”
“We could do at least one chore while you’re away.”
“Well... I suppose if you two got started on feedin' the pigs, I could maybe leave for an hour.”
“Ooh!” Rarity clapped her hooves. “An hour of spa perfection? I can work with that!”
Twilight’s face lit up. “Perfect! You head out to the spa, and Spike and I'll take care of things here.”
Applejack guided us to the pig pen and pulled out a list.
“Say, why do you have pigs anyway?” Twilight asked. “What do you use them for?”
“You’d be surprised how much truffles go for these days,” Applejack replied.
Huh, I feared it was for something…less family-friendly.
“Okay. This list pretty much covers everything you need to know to feed the pigs.” Applejack handed Twilight the list. “But...uh...maybe I should go over it with you just to...”
“Applejack, please,” Twilight assured her. “If there's a list involved, I am one hundred percent on top of it.”
“Hey, it won’t hurt to cover our bases,” I pointed out.
“Now, now. I really do not want to prolong our spa day any further,” Rarity said as she pulled AJ along.
Twilight waved. “Don't worry about things here! Spike and I have totally got this! I mean, it's just feeding the pigs. How hard could it be?”
I unfurled the list. “Well…it’s not as long as your other lists.”
Given how it stretched to about ten feet, that was saying something.
“Woah,” Twilight said in an unconfident manner.
“It shouldn't be different from how we normally do our chores.” I shrugged.
Twilight took a deep breath. “You’re right.” She walked over to the gate. “Okay, Spike, ready with that list?”
“Yep.” I read the first step. “‘Open the gate.’”
Twilight did just that. The gate gave off an audible creak, but the pigs were left unstirred.
“‘Step 2,’” I read. “‘Close the gate.’”
“Huh?” Twilight cocked an eyebrow.
“That’s what the list says.”
Twilight shut the gate. Once again, the pigs gave no reaction.
“‘Step 3: Walk away,’” I said.
Twilight trotted at least twenty feet from the pigpen.
“Step 4: Walk to the side of the pen.”
Once again, Twilight obeyed.
“Step 5: Cover your face with your hooves while leaning on the fence.”
“Really?” Twilight asked me. “Okay.” She put her hooves in front of her face.
“‘Step 6: Make a funny face while waving your hooves around’?”
“Uh…okay?” Twilight flapped her arms. “Belelele!”
I kept my face concealed as I snickered. “Okay…okay…‘Step 7: Walk back to the gate.’”
Twilight returned to our starting spot.
“‘Step 8: Put your arms by your side and do the chicken dance.’”
Twilight furrowed her brows and then complied. “Bawk! Bu-bu-bu-buck!”
“Bah, ha ha ha!” I guffawed.
“I knew it! You were pulling a trick on me!” Twilight snatched the list from my hands. “Give me that! Okay, let’s see what the list…oh, that’s exactly what the list really says.”
“Heh, you thought I was joking?” I looked at the pigs. “It looks like the pigs aren’t responding to anything we’ve done so far.”
Twilight read the list. “‘Step 9: Place the food bucket on the fence next to the troughs.’ Now we’re getting somewhere.”
She levitated the bucket of swill to its location.
“‘Step 10,’” she continued, “‘Grab rope from the barn, along with a stick, some string, and an ear of corn.’”
“Or not,” I replied.
Twilight hurried to the barn and returned with the items.
“If you can trust me again, the next step says to tie the rope around your waist,” I said, showing her the list.
Twilight double-checked the step and wrapped one end of the rope around her body.
“‘Step 12: Tie the stick to one end of the string.’” I read. “Step 13: Tie the corn to the other end of the string.”
“I’m starting to see why Applejack takes so long with her chores.” Twilight combined the stick, string, and corn together. “There.”
“Now, for step 14, you have to hang from the barn using the pulley.” I pointed to the contraption sticking out on the plank of wood.
Twilight threaded the other end of the rope through the pulley. I quickly grabbed it.
“Ready, Twilight!” I called out.
“Okay, start lifting,” Twilight signaled.
I quickly pulled the rope back, but once Twilight’s hooves left the ground, it was clear that my draconic strength had its limits.
“Jeez, Twilight!” I groaned. “Lay off the hayburgers, will ya?!”
“I’m going to ignore that,” Twilight said sternly. “What’s the next step?”
I grabbed the list with my free hand. “‘Lure pigs to other side of the pen with corn.’”
Twilight levitated the corn above the pigs. Immediately, they sprung up and followed the corn all the way across the pen. In the following stampede, the bucket toppled over into the trough. The pigs instantly lost focus on the corn and scurried to the trough to munch on their lunch.
“Finally,” Twilight sighed with relief. “Lower me down, Spike. Gently!”
I obliged. Twilight undid the rope just in time to see Applejack and Rarity returning from the spa.
“Oh, you two are back already?” Twilight asked.
“What do you mean ‘already’?” Rarity pulled out her pocket watch. “It’s been a full hour.”
“I guess we lost track of time feeding the pigs. So how did your spa day go? Was it relaxing?”
“Well, if watching Applejack fix plumbing counts as relaxing, then yes.”
“What about your hour of spa perfection?”
“As it turns out, the Ponyville Day Spa had a few problems with their steam room, and somepony refused to relax until she had fixed them.” Rarity glared at Applejack.
“I'm sorry, but I just couldn't let those spa ponies go another minute puttin' up with problems they didn't even know they had,” said Applejack. “Somehow they just got used to a huge bottleneck of ponies standing around waiting. I took one good look at that spa jam, and I knew I had to do something!”
“While we’re on that subject, Applejack,” I said as I joined the pony group. “Have you noticed that some facets of your chores are rather…unnecessary?”
“What do ya mean?”
“Well, I’ve noticed how Twilight had to do some things that were out of place. Like opening and closing the gate, making funny faces, doing the chicken dance. I’m worried you’re going off your rocker.”
“Spike’s right, Applejack,” Twilight said. “I know the Apple family can have rather unique ways to care for their crops (if the zap apples prove anything), but are you sure everything we did on the list is mandatory to feed the pigs?”
“Of course,” Applejack replied. “Why would I be doing it myself if it weren’t?” She walked over to the gate. “See, this gate here used to squeak so loud, the pigs would run to the other side of the pen and never come out! So I open and close it to let them know it's safe.”
“It didn’t sound that loud to me,” I said.
“Of course not. I fixed that ages ago. Then I realized putting a little fright into 'em got 'em all hustlin' out of the pen.”
“And yet when Twilight did it, she couldn’t phase them.”
“Well, no. They got used to it. Which is why I started doing the chicken dance! To show 'em that if they didn't get to eating their food, the chickens would. 'Course, being a chicken, I couldn't very well open the gate. Getting the food bucket to spill into the trough was just a happy accident because one time I left it there by mistake.”
“And this is done instead of just simply dumping the bucket of food into the troughs because…”
“Because…uh…you see…” Applejack tapped the ground with her hoof. “Huh.”
“It seems that the spa ponies weren’t the only ones who were stuck doing extra work,” Rarity pointed out.
“I wonder if I've been doing that around here with anything else.”
“Let’s find out!” I declared. “If you don’t mind changing your farming methods.”
“As long as it gets me more free time and it’s within Apple Family traditions,” Applejack replied.
Our first stop was the chicken coops. Applejack’s method was to give each chicken a morsel of food while she collects their eggs. Her reason being was that the farm once had a feed shortage. Of course, it happened a long time ago, and the farm currently had significantly more feed than what to do with them. We resorted to dumping the feed into a big pile and releasing all the chickens at once so Applejack can feed the chickens and collect the eggs at a faster pace.
Next was the watering system for the gardens. Applejack used to open and close each valve individually because a plumbing issue caused the water pressure to dwindle. She fixed that plumbing problem months ago, but still opens and closes the valves out of habit. We showed her she just needed to open all the valves at once and still get enough pressure to water her crops.
Our final stop was repairing the metal wire fence. This part was debatable, as Applejack’s method of filling the holes was already an effective way to fix the fence in my opinion. The girls and I agreed that Applejack should patch the fence if there’s only one or two holes, and she should replace the entire section if there’s a lot more.
In the end, we were able to streamline Applejack’s chores, giving her more free time than usual.
“Thanks, y'all,” Applejack said. “I guess I just got so used to doing everything a certain way, I didn't realize there were any problems.”
“It helps to have a fresh pair of eyes to see what you’re doing,” I pointed out.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Twilight responded.
Rarity concluded, “And I suppose if it weren't for our unsuccessful time at the spa, none of us would've realized it.”
“Well, now that your chores are streamlined, what are you gonna do with all the extra time?”
Applejack looked at Rarity. “I think I have a few ideas.”
It didn’t take a psychologist to see how delighted Rarity was. Both she and Applejack trotted down to the spa.
“It’s best if we take our leave as well,” Twilight suggested.
As I followed Twilight, I thought about how this episode turned out. To be honest, I didn’t expect any crucial changes, with or without fate being involved. At least I got a laugh out of Twilight making funny faces and dancing like a chicken.
“Wait, Twilight, what about the pies?” I asked.
“The pies?” Twilight slapped her forehead. “Oh! The pies!”
She quickly galloped back to the farm.