//------------------------------//
// The Bad News 
// Story: Till Death Do Us Part 
// by Brian Jacko 
//------------------------------//

	Applejack awoke the next morning. She hurried down the stares for breakfast. "Mornin' Granny Smith! I see ya got a good hearty breakfast goin' there. I can't wait to dig in! I got a lot of work cut out for me today. When are those new workers supposed to start?" 

Granny Smith let out a sigh and said, "I'm sorry to break your heart dear, but I'm giving up this farm and moving to a retirement home soon."

Applejack's mouth hung open for awhile. "What in tar-nation's do ya mean Granny? This farm has been the Apple family's farm fer generations!"

"I'm getting too old to take care of this farm and I want to live out however many years I have left in peace. It's just too much work for me now that Apple Bloom and Big Mac have moved on."

Applejack still couldn't believe what was being said. "Who is goin' to take over this farm then?" she asked.

"Flim and Flam. They are very wealthy and offered quite a bit of money for this farm," Granny Smith said.

Tears flooded Applejack's eyes. "No Granny! Please! We can't do that!"

Granny Smith shook her head in sorrow several times and said, "I'm so sorry my dear, but it's time to move on in life. I hope you can move in with that stallion you have been dating."



Applejack did not want to leave this farm. She spent her entire life here aside from that one time when she moved into the city for a short while prior to getting her cutie mark. There were just too many memories and so much hard work she poured into this land. However, Applejack was outright disgusted by the farming practices of the Flim and Flam brothers. Their workers wore hazardous protection suits and they sprayed the crops with deadly chemicals to keep the parasprites and other insects away. The brothers offered Applejack a high position in the job, but she declined and left Sweet Apple Acres for good. The only place she had left to go was Sun Rise's farm. He understood her situation and took her into his own home. They would work on the farm together where they bucked pears off the trees. Applejack understood how he got his name and cutie mark. He would always wake up before the sun rise so that he could watch it. He was never late to see the sun come up. His striking blonde mane also gave her the feeling as if had been kissed by the sun. The work was really hard on the farm, but it wasn't as time consuming as when she was at Sweet Apple Acres. This stallion was a work pony to the core, and he could even out perform Applejack when it came to strength and stamina. 

Applejack stayed by his side often. She still spent much of her time with her friends, and she seemed to have even more free time now that she had such a strong and hard worker. The farm they worked on was much smaller than Sweet Apple Acres, but they were always planting more and more crops and buying more land because ponies were beginning to realize that the food from Sweet Apple Acres, now run by the Flim and Flam brothers, was causing massive health problems from those who ate from that farm often. Ponies began to flock to Sun Rise's new farm.