The next day began with a bit of an overcast sky, since the sunlight shining in through my window wasn't as intense as the previous days. Vigilant and I made our way to the dining hall, where we found that a few ponies were unable to join us for breakfast.
Absent were Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, but present were Twilight, Spike, Starlight, Applejack and her older brother Big Macintosh. Also present, but not there when I had initially arrived with Vigilant, was Mayor Mare, who had stopped by to discuss some business with Twilight about an event happening later in the month.
I gave the mare a friendly smile and wave, which she returned. After the business with Twilight had been sorted out, she then surprised me by asking about my interactions with the thestral community. When I asked how she found out about that, she told me that Amber had filled her in on the meeting I had had with them after everypony went to sleep. Upon hearing the story, she expressed gratitude that things went well, as well as thinking up some ideas of how to better involve the thestrals in Ponyville's activities.
Looking over the spread on the table, I saw breakfast was an egg casserole with peppers, onions, and more than enough cheese; the recipe had come from Princess Luna, who was a connoisseur of cheese, apparently. In addition, there was a stack of toast, a bowl of fruit, a tea pot with sugar bowl, a coffee carafe, and two pitchers containing what looked to be milk and orange juice.
As with the previous days, Spike had prepared a special plate with love-infused food for me to enjoy, and I must say that it went quite well with the eggs and toast. The milk, while having no love in it, was also quite good, satisfying my thirst in a way love couldn't.
During the meal, Applejack initiated a conversation with me.
"Hey, Thorax?"
"Yes?"
"I know ya are only stayin' in Ponyville for a short spell, but my brother and I was wonderin' iffin' ya be interested in swingin' by the farm for a bit."
"Coming to see your farm? Of course! I would love to do that!"
Applejack looked back at me with a wide stare, but then became nervous, looking away and rubbing the back of her neck with a hoof.
"Well, what I was meanin' ta ask was if ya wouldn't mind lendin' us a spare hoof?"
"You want me to help out?"
Applejack nodded. "I hate imposin' on ya since yer visitin' for so brief, but Apple Bloom has a school project that she's gotta get done, and Granny Smith's watchin' her ta make sure she keeps her nose and hooves on the grindin' stone. That means Big Mac and I are down a set a hooves, and we ain't got nopony else ta turn to."
"I don't wanna be askin' like this, but I don't know what else ta do."
I gave Applejack a sympathetic look. "Applejack, I'm gonna spend the day with you and your brother doing the work that helps keep your farm running. Even if I wasn't there to help, I'd still end up asking you about it, and learning all about your farm in the process. Doing this for you is giving me a hooves-on approach to it."
Applejack thought over what I had said for a moment and chuckled, then smiled at me. "I didn't really think of it like that."
"So what do you want me to help you do?"
Applejack then explained that, since the apple season was a little ways off, they needed to prepare for it. When Apple Bloom was available, they went around the entire farm and spread various types of fertilizer and deterrent agents to ward off any parasites that would attack the trees or fruit. That had been a month or so ago, and now the apple trees were blossoming, and two things needed to be accomplished.
First, we needed to go through the whole orchard and prune some of the blossoms off. This was done to allow the fruit to grow to a large size, as well as making sure the quality of the apples stayed consistent. After that was done, we would need to do something that would be a bit dangerous: beekeeping.
Applejack and her family maintained a few honeybee hive boxes on their property. They were moved into the barn during the winter, and then moved out the day following Winter Wrap Up. The bees stayed fairly docile for the most part, but often weren't fans of having their homes moved. Applejack even told a brief story in which she had set a hive box down a little harder than she had meant to, and the jostling prompted the hive to start attacking her.
She had so many stings that she had become bed bound for a day or so afterwards, and had only escaped a worse fate because Fluttershy was nearby and able to calm the hive down, though not without the aid of a beekeeping suit and a smoker full of hemp cloth.
"That business was no fun at all," Applejack finished, "and even to this day, I still gotta watch how I go about handling them darn hive boxes."
"Wow," I remarked upon the conclusion of her story. "I certainly hope nothing like that happens today."
"Hopefully not, sugarcube," she replied, "but just in case, I asked Fluttershy ta join us with her suit and smoker. She's usually pretty good with them critters, but sometimes they get a bit ornery and come after her. A couple of puffs of that smoke gun an' they usually calm down."
"Don't you use a suit?"
"Just a veil to keep 'em from mah eyes. Truth is, the beekeeper ponies I know say you should get a few shots of the venom every once in a while. Helps build up a tolerance, or somethin' like that. Of course, some of 'em are older, and they say their joints ain't so sore after they get a stingin' or two, so maybe they just sorta learned ta put up with it."
"I think I read about something like that once. Most doctors don't really agree with it, since it involves the body getting injected with what is meant to be a poison."
"Caffiene is a poison, but ya see plenty of ponies chokin' down that black bean water every mornin' fer a wake up call, so maybe them doctor ponies don't know everythin' like they think they do."
Her comment made me a bit uncomfortable. Sure, doctors could get egos and think that they know more than the next pony, but at the end of the day, their job was to make sure to you were healthy, and if you weren't, they would help you get healthy.
"Umm..."
The ponies in the room turned to the one pony who hadn't spoke yet today: Vigilant. The stallion in guard armor looked at us all a bit nervously.
"I know I'm not supposed to leave Thorax unguarded, but I don't think I can come to Sweet Apple Acres with all of you."
Applejack looked at the guard with puzzlement. "Why's that?"
"Well..."
Vigilant trailed off for a moment before recomposing himself.
"I'm... afraid of bees."
Everypony looked at him as he hung his head. I understood why right away. Guards were meant to be fearless, so him admitting to a fear was basically admitting to weakness in his mind.
Twilight got up from her seat and walked over to him, placing a hoof gently on his withers.
"That's perfectly fine, Vigilant," she told the stallion in a supportive tone. "We all have things were afraid of. Can I ask why you're afraid of bees?"
Vigilant looked at the princess for a moment before nodding and relaxing his muscles. Once he was calm, he recalled the reason for his apiphobia.
"It's because of my sister. When we were little, we lived in a small hamlet not far from Fillydelphia. My dad was a guard like I am now, and my mother worked as a maid for an office in the city. They met on a lunch break one afternoon.
My sister's name is Faded Glory. She's a seamstress in Manehattan, working for one of those clothing designers; Polomare, if I remember right.
When we were still foals, Faded and I would play near a forest that bordered the western edge of the village. It wasn't the Everfree, but you only needed to cross a river to get to that place. We were chasing each other in a game of tag, playing with a few other local colts and fillies.
My sister had wandered off in one direction while the rest of us had started moving off into another direction. We didn't see her for five minutes or so, but by then, we heard horrible screaming. I knew it was her right away, so I took off through the forest as quick as I could, wanting to find out what had happened and help her.
When I got to the scene, I saw a tree limb had broken and fell, and on the end of it was a bee hive. My sister was in a nearby creek, thrashing about and covered in bees.
I ran to help but was hit with sudden, sharp jabs of pain, followed by a burning sensation. I looked at my hooves and saw that the bees were swarming me and stinging me in my legs. Just like her, I began screaming and trying to get the bees off as well as get the stingers out.
I kept this up for a good minute or so before I realized it was useless to try until we got away from the bees, so I grabbed my sister from the creek and hauled off in the direction of the village, getting fresh jabs in my back from the swarm attacking my sister.
By the time we had gotten back, we'd sustained more than a hundred stings each. The pain was so much that I started to become ill, and once I got to somepony's backyard, I passed out.
I didn't come back to until two days later. I was in a hospital bed and swelled up like a balloon. My parents came in and tried to hug me, but I was so sore from the attack that it hurt more than it helped.
Dad told me that both Faded and I nearly died, the amount of venom being so much in us that the doctors had to perform dialysis on our blood to help get the toxin out of us.
We both lived, and agreed never to go back to that forest, but even today, if either of us see a bee, that image of them swarming and attacking us gets us locked into a panic attack."
Everypony looked at Vigilant with sympathy. I had never known this about the guard assigned to me, and a part of me hoped that recalling that memory didn't trouble him more than it did.
"Do you wanna know a secret about me Vigilant?" Twilight asked him.
The stallion nodded.
"I'm afraid of ladybugs."
"Really?"
The princess nodded. "A swarm of them got into my home as a child, and my brother thought it would be funny to trick me into thinking the spots on their backs were eyes. I believed that for quite some time, and I always thought they were really creepy from that day forward."
"But you know that that was just a joke now, right?"
"Yes, I do, but... I still get really uncomfortable around ladybugs."
Vigilant looked at her with surprise. "But you know they can't hurt you!"
"I know that, but I've carried that fear with me from a very young age. I work to overcome it, but it's still there, even after all these years."
Twilight lowered her hoof from his withers and looked him in the eyes. "My point is that my fear is irrational; I have no legitimate reason to fear ladybugs. Your fear, however, is completely rational. You and your sister nearly died because of what was likely an accident. Those bees were agitated and went after whatever they perceived was a threat to their hive, which was you and your sister, unfortunately."
"Ain't nopony here faultin' ya fer bein' a bit on edge about not likin' the idea of bein' around all them bees," Applejack reassured him. "Iffin' ya like, ya can just stay up by the house and watch from afar. Would y'all be okay with that?"
Vigilant looked between the princess and Applejack before he let out a sigh. "I suppose if I don't have to get too close, then that'll be okay."
Twilight smiled. "That'll be more than okay."
Everypony finished breakfast and began going about their day. Spike took the dishes to clean them, with Starlight coming by and offering her help. Twilight needed to attend to some of her royal duties, so she left the castle a bit before Applejack, Big Mac, Vigilant, and I did. Unfortunately, I didn't see any of the other element bearers the rest of that morning.
The four of us made our way to the edge of town, where a long dirt road led us back to Sweet Apple Acres, the large farm where Applejack and her brother lived. Beyond the fence on either side of the path were apple trees that went as far as the eye could see. Even if I transformed myself to have eagle eyes, I wouldn't see an end to the orchards stretching on towards the horizon.
We finally found our way to the main part of the farm, where a large red barn and farmhouse sat. Scattered about the front yard were various kinds of equipment, from a large set of plows on wheels, a harvester for what looked like corn, a pair of wagons with wooden side walls, and the remains of a machine I didn't quite recognize.
"What's this?" I asked while pointing at the strange object.
"That's what remains of the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000."
"...What's that?"
"A while back, these two unicorn fellers came to us with that machine with hopes that we'd buy it from 'em. Well, us apples do all our own work 'round here, especially makin' apple cider, so we told 'em no. That didn't sit right with 'em, so they made a challenge to us that they could out-cider us with that machine of theirs.
Well, another thing about us apples is we don't back down from a fight, so we all accepted and went about makin' us much apple cider as we could. We spent dang near a whole day doin' nothin' but makin' barrels of cider."
Applejack's demeanor then turned a little sour. "Unfortunately, we couldn't beat out their machine."
"So, what happened with you all losing?"
Applejack then chuckled. "Well, everypony tried their cider and universally agreed it wasn't apple cider."
I was a little confused. "How could they make cider without making cider."
"That's easy! Their machine was runnin' so gaul dern fast that they weren't doin' all the proper quality checkin' like they shoulda been. Everypony that tried their cider was spittin' out wads of mud and chips of wood from dug up apple trees. It was so bad that even the pigs wouldn't touch the stuff, and they'd eat dang near anythin'!"
Something that was so foul tasting that even a pig wouldn't eat it? "That must've been really bad."
"It was, and when the ponies all went after them two unicorns, them fellers skedaddled like a cockroach when a light comes on."
"They didn't take their machine with them?"
"Nope. They was in such a hurry to get outta here that they left it sit. We sure as hay wasn't gonna use it for cider, but a lot of the parts on it work on some of the stuff we use 'round here, so we just left it sit there so we can grab a part or two off it when we need it. Sure does save on the money of goin' inta town to pick up a piece if somethin' 'round here breaks."
I looked at the machine one last time before looking back at Applejack. "So, we need to prune some trees?"
"Yessir!" she replied enthusiastically. "Big Mac's gonna go and grab the tools we need, and we're gonna follow him out to the spot we stopped at yesterday."
"Anything special I should know?"
"Y'all done prunin' before?"
"I have. I kept a buttercup flower in the Crystal Empire."
"Ah! I remember that now. Twilight filled us all in on that."
"I imagine that that kind of pruning and what we're doing are a little bit different though, right?"
"There's a little more to know, but the idea is the same. We gotta make sure that there's only enough blossoms to make a decent yield, and that the fruits can grow to a good size. If we leave too many blossoms, the fruits won't get real big. If we take too many, we won't have enough apples to sell. I can explain it all better once we get out there."
I elected to keep my questions to myself for the moment. A short wait later, and Big Mac returned with a cart containing a few sets of shears and a few ladders.
"Do you ever consider letting any unicorns do the pruning work?" I asked.
"Granny ain't a fan of it," Applejack answered, "but if we can't get anypony else, we'll use 'em."
"Granny Smith doesn't like unicorns?"
"No, she fine with 'em. She just feels that everythin' we do should be done the earth pony way, usin' nothin' but our own hooves."
"How come?"
"She's mighty traditional in that regard. Bein' honest, I am a bit too; sometimes doin' it the old-fashioned way is just better."
"But you're more open to the idea of having unicorns and pegasi pitch in?"
"To an extent. Sure, magic and wings can help us get some things done easier, but I ain't gonna change up the whole process from how we've been doin' it for centuries. Honestly, it's a bit more satisfyin' puttin' in the elbow grease."
I could sympathize with that sentiment. My own experience with with buttercup flower and its many clippings were a testament to that. Putting in the hard work and reaping the rewards was quite satisfying.
"Anywho," Applejack continued, "I think we should be gettin' underway. Daylight's a wastin' as it is."
"Okay," I answered, and the three of began our march into the orchard, while Vigilant took a seat beside the Apple family's matriarch to watch us from afar.