• Published 3rd May 2013
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Moving Day - Timothy48



Moving is hard, especially when it's to another country, and it becomes doubly difficult when you move there unexpectedly and against your will.

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Chapter 45 (Done Deal)

Chapter 45

“Sign here, here, here as well, and finally, initial here.”

With a final flick of his pen, Allen finished signing the contract laid out before him. He was sitting at his kitchen table, with Penny to one side, and Filthy Rich and one of his staff on the other side, with a sales contract between them.

Capping the pen and laying it down, he spun the contract around and slid it back to Filthy.

Picking it up in his hooves, the business stallion looked the signed contract over with a satisfied nod. “Perfect, everything looks to be in order now. A pleasure doing business with you Mr. Ross.”

Rising from his seat, Allen stuck out his hand and took Filthy Rich’s offered hoof in a firm grip. “Likewise, Mr. Rich, glad we could come to an agreement.”

“When do you think you can have the first delivery ready?” he asked as the two shook on the deal.

Releasing his grip, Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, well we just finished the last fifty acres of hay on my property yesterday, and Fluttershy says that she’s got at least fifty acres cleared across the road from me, so unless the weather team decides to forecast rain in the next few days I could probably cut tomorrow, and have it up in at least two days from now.”

Filthy’s grin grew wider. “Wonderful, I look forward to the first delivery. I’ll give Ms. Farthing the final details regarding where to transport the hay, in the meantime, I need to send word to the new field clearing team that they can get started.”

“Sounds good, we’ll be waiting for them,” replied Allen with a nod as he escorted Filthy and his associate to the door.

“I expect they will be here later this week,” said Filthy as he stepped out onto the porch, “Their letter told me they were nearly finished with their current contract near Tall Tale, and that once finished they could get started here.”

“Works for me, and Fluttershy told me she was happy for the additional help... so long as she didn’t have to interact with them too much,” replied Allen.

“I’m glad to hear that, in any case, we must be going now, good day,” said Filthy as he bade Allen and Penny goodbye.

Waving goodbye in return, Allen watched them go for a moment before he turned and shut the door behind him. Walking into the kitchen, he spotted Penny sitting at the dining room table going over some paperwork.

“Well that’s done now,” said Allen as he resumed his seat.

Glancing up from her current paper, Penny set it down and smiled. “Agreed, I’m glad we were able to come to an agreement. This is a good first step to getting your farm profitable.”

Allen nodded. In truth, he hadn’t done much as Penny had been the one to do most of the leg work and setup. All he had done in the end was review and sign the contract between his farm and Barnyard Bargains. Although, the deal had almost not happened as Filthy had tried to get Allen to agree to sell his hay exclusively to Barnyard Bargains. Allen had flat out refused, as he had wanted the flexibility to sell to whomever he wished and had told Filthy that if that was the condition for him to do business with him, he would pass on the deal. Filthy, being the savvy business stallion that he was, had quickly smoothed things over and reluctantly backed down on the exclusivity requirement.

With that particular speed bump behind them, the rest of the negotiations had gone much more smoothly. The end result being that Allen would sell his hay to Filthy at just under the current market price of five hundred bits per ton for this year, which would come to around four hundred and fifty bits once the ten percent discount was factored in. With an added clause that if the price of hay fell, then further purchases would reflect that new price. In addition, the contract would be up for renewal, and by extension, negotiation the following year.

All in all, it was a pretty nice deal from Allen’s point of view. Even with the built-in discount, Allen knew he was getting a very good price. In fact, when he had read the agreed-upon price for the first time, he had thought that someone had made a typo, but no, it had turned out that hay prices in Equestria were just that high right now. Though Filthy had cautioned that the price might start falling once Allen’s farm production came online, at least locally anyways.

Even if the price drops to one hundred bits per ton, that’s still workable, thought Allen to himself as he sat quietly in his seat. Normally, I’m selling around that price anyways, and heck, I’ve sold hay for less than that before. Idly drumming his fingers on the table, he mulled over his options. Depending on how long that price holds its current place, I might be able to make enough money this summer to last me a long time once I run out of fuel, assuming I don’t find any alternative sources soon.

Leaning back in his chair, he hummed to himself. Penny, hearing Allen’s hum, perked up and gave him a curious look. Noticing her looking at him, Allen waved a hand and said, “Just thinking to myself.”

Putting her paper down, Penny asked, “What were you thinking about?”

“How much money I might be able to realistically make this year before I run out of diesel.”

“Well, with the current price of hay, I would assume you could do very well for yourself,” she stated.

Allen nodded in agreement. “I know, but the question is how long that price will last once I start dumping hay on the market.”

“Do you think you might be able to keep up with demand?” she asked curiously.

Allen shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess it just depends on how many tons of hay are consumed on a daily basis locally, and what even counts for local.”

“Well, there is Ponyville, that’s obvious, but also Canterlot, not to mention about half a dozen smaller towns within an hours trotting distance of Ponyville that rely on the town to supply their needs as well. Finally, you have all of the farmsteads around here that come into town to buy whatever they can’t make or grow on their land,” replied Penny as she listed off the various sources of supply consumption.

“That much huh?”

“Well, Ponyville is the only town around, besides Canterlot, that has a train station, and Canterlot can’t really grow much food due to the fact that space is at a premium on the side of a mountain. So really the only logical choice for ponies down here in the valley to go shopping is Ponyville.”

“So those other towns don’t have stores of their own?” questioned Allen.

Penny shrugged. “They probably do, but most likely they’re your typical small-town general store that has a limited selection available for purchase. If you want something else or to buy in bulk, you’ll either need to order it and have it shipped in or come to Ponyville or Canterlot, and since Canterlot is too far away for most of the outlying ponies to make regular shopping trips to, Ponyville becomes the only logical choice.”

“That makes sense, if you already have to travel an hour one way, you’re probably not going to want to deal with the additional hour-long round trip to and from Canterlot, in addition to waiting for the train and walking around the busy streets of the capital just to go and pick up some nice to have things every week or so,” replied Allen with a nod of understanding.

“Exactly, so I don’t think we’re going to need to worry about oversaturating the market that quickly. Besides, if you manage to over saturate the local market, Filthy can just ship the excess hay elsewhere without having to lower his prices.”

Allen rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe, I mean if I’m just focusing on making hay, then I can crank out a lot of it. Plus with predictable weather, my main limiting factor is essentially removed, meaning I can take down a lot more in a go without having to worry about getting it up before any potential rain hits it.”

“How much do you think you can do at a time?” asked Penny curiously.

“Oh right now I’m planning on taking down all fifty acres Fluttershy’s cleared tomorrow, though...”

“What?”

Allen sighed and shook his head. “I’m just now realizing that some of my equipment isn’t big enough to keep up with this sudden expansion in acreage.”

“How do you mean?” asked Penny curiously, “I mean you’re able to take down tens of acres in just a few hours. Whereas it would take a pony days to do the same amount of work.”

Leaning back in his chair, Allen nodded. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying, but Penny you have to understand the equipment that I’m working with is old. To you, my equipment seems high-tech and rocketship fast, but I’ve seen equipment that can do hundreds of acres in the same amount of time that I can do fifty.”

Penny felt her eyebrows climb upwards in astonishment. “Really?” she asked quietly.

Allen chuckled. “Penny, didn’t I tell you? My 706 was built over fifty years ago, the same with my 806. The Case tractor is twenty years old, and that’s one of my newer pieces of equipment. All of my stuff is old and small compared to what’s out on the market today back home.”

Penny sat back in her chair and idly chewed on her lower lip. “So what do you plan to do?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You said your equipment is old and small. What do you plan to do to overcome these limitations?” pressed Penny.

“Truth be told? I don’t know,” admitted Allen as he rubbed the back of his neck, an unsure expression on his face. “I hadn’t really given much thought to it until now, because my equipment was sufficient for my needs, though my dad and I had been discussing getting a bigger tedder, but we just didn’t have the money it would take to buy a good one, even used at the time. So like every other farmer, we just made do with what we had, and I guess that’s what I’m going to have to do here. I’m going to see if I can have Brulee and maybe one other pony pull my hay rake, as it’s ground driven, so that’ll reduce some of my workload, but...”

“You need to reduce it further,” finished Penny.

“Yeah,” nodded Allen, “I wish I could have a pony pull my tedder, it’s a bit lighter than my rake, so there’s no reason somepony couldn’t do it. The problem is that it’s PTO driven, so it would need a forecart with some way to power it.”

“Does it need a lot of power to run it?” asked Penny as she pulled a pencil and piece of paper over to her and began jotting down ideas.

Allen shook his head. “Not really, probably twenty horsepower, maybe less depending on how heavy the hay is. My Super M could run that no problem... if it was currently running of course, but that’s a project for later.”

“Well, there are some ground-driven, Equestrian-made tedders on the market, though they are a bit pricey, and are not much bigger than yours,” replied Penny hesitantly.

“How much are they?” asked Allen curiously.

“I don’t know the exact price, other than that they are really expensive,” admitted Penny, “I haven’t really looked into them since I started working with you other than knowing they exist, and what they look like.”

“Well, I suppose that’s something,” said Allen thoughtfully.

“If you want, I can see if I can find one and how much it would cost?” offered Penny.

“Yeah, go ahead and do that,” replied Allen as he stood up.

“Going somewhere?” asked Penny.

“Yeah, I need to get the tractor and mower ready for tomorrow, and seeing as it’s getting on into the late afternoon outside, I figured I’d go ahead and get my evening chores done a bit early and call it a day.”

Grabbing his hat from off its hook on the pantry door, he looked back over his shoulder and asked, “Are you going to be heading home soon or are you gonna stick around for a bit longer?”

“Why? You eager to get rid of me?” she asked jokingly.

Rolling his eyes, Allen replied sarcastically, a grin on his face, “Oh yeah, can’t stand the sight of you, plus you stink.”

Penny giggled before replying, “I wasn’t planning on leaving just yet. I’ve got some paperwork to finalize before I take it down to the mayor’s office and have it notarized in the morning, and I figured I could do it here just as easily as I could at my place.”

Allen nodded, a small smile on his face. “Alright, well if that’s the case, why don’t you stay for dinner then? I’ve been meaning to even up the score since you had me over for dinner at your place last time.”

“Oh, thank you, Allen,” replied Penny, a thankful expression on her face at the unexpected turn of events, “that’s really nice of you, I’d be happy to stay for dinner.”

“Great, once I get done with my chores, I’ll get started on dinner then. How does alfredo pasta sound?”

“It sounds wonderful,” said Penny eagerly.

“Well alright, I’ll get started on that as soon as I get back,” replied Allen with a final nod. With that said, he turned and quickly strode out of the room, leaving Penny to her paperwork.

Humming happily to herself, she dug back into it, the promise of good food with a good friend making the work a little less dull.

~oOo~

The following morning found Allen across the road from his farm, discbine in the field as he made one last look over his equipment before getting started. This fifty-acre section of field had been cleared for several days, and Allen was ready to get started.

Climbing back up on the tractor, Allen put his ear protection back on and put the tractor in gear. Advancing the throttle, he turned around and flipped the PTO engagement lever up, and listened as the discbine whined to life. Not hearing any metal-on-metal action, Allen slowly let out the clutch and set off along the road at a comfortable seven miles an hour.

Looking back over his shoulder, he watched as his mower cut through the grass with little difficulty. Turning forwards, he hit the play button on his mp3 player and silently bobbed his head in time with the music.

Eventually, he reached his first turn, which was marked by a tall fence post painted white that had been planted along the roadside to his left. Giving the wheel a spin, the tractor happily turned to the right with the mower cutting along behind. Looking down to the right, Allen spotted the little warding stakes as they slipped by underneath.

You know, it’s kind of nice being able to open the field this way, instead of how I normally have to do it, thought Allen to himself, Since there’s no fence or real obstacles to worry about, I don’t have to drive with the mower next to the fence for the first pass, then turn around to go back the way I came. It’s too bad I can’t drive over those stakes though, he thought regretfully to himself, I’d love to be able to have a fully clean-looking field, but oh well, still better than dealing with actual fences.

Coming up on his second turn, he once again turned right and continued along the edge of the cleared field, his attention constantly jumping between keeping an eye on the mower, and where he was going. Thankfully, even though the warding stakes were close to the ground, they were a nice bright white, which helped them stand out amongst the lush green grass. Plus the fact that Fluttershy had trampled much of the grass around each stake as she planted them made it relatively easy for Allen to make a nice straight windrow. As he drove along, he would occasionally see the grass in the uncleared field to his left rustle as a startled animal darted away from the loud tractor and mower.

I wonder if Equestria has landscaping fabric, he idly wondered to himself, it would be pretty easy to lay some down along the row of stakes and put some stone on top to make it easier to see where the field boundary is, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally running them over with the tractor or mower. Hmm, I think I’ll bring that up with Penny the next time I see her.

Another turn came and went. This time, Allen found himself bordering Sweet Apple Acres, thankfully there wasn’t a fence here, just some boundary rocks that, while decent size, still managed to pass easily underneath Allen’s tractor with minimal fuss. Although in this section Allen did pull the TA back and let the tractor slow down, his feet hovering near the clutch and brake pedals in case he had to stop quickly because a rock was a bit too big for the tractor to pass over without causing damage.

That’s the last thing I need right now, thought Allen as he carefully drove along, the rocks safely passing under the axle where there was more clearance. Nearing the end of the row, Allen spotted an orange figure walking through the nearby apple trees.

That must be Applejack, wonder what she’s doing out here? Wondered Allen as he passed her by with a polite nod of his head when he saw that she was looking his way. Applejack at first didn’t respond, but after a second, she tipped her hat and continued on her way when she saw that Allen wasn’t causing any harm to her trees.

Coming up on the last turn, Allen carefully timed it so that his front tire would miss the final boundary stone followed by his larger rear tire. Seeing that he was fully clear, Allen pushed the TA forward and the tractor surged ahead.

Round and round the field Allen drove, the hours ticking by until finally about mid-afternoon, he was finished. Pulling out of the field, Allen felt tired but happy. Glancing down at his watch, he saw that it was around three in the afternoon.

Fifty acres in about seven hours? Not bad, he thought to himself as he guided the tractor down the driveway and parked it in front of the fuel pumps. Shutting it off, he gingerly climbed down and stretched, his aching muscles protesting slightly at moving, but with a satisfying pop, his back muscles relaxed and he let loose a sigh of relief. Pulling the fuel cap off, he refilled his tractor. While he waited for the tank to refill, he debated what his next course of action should be.

I won’t be able to get all of the field tedded tonight. I might be able to do about half of it before it gets too late though, hmmm... do I ted part of it tonight or wait until tomorrow? Decisions, decisions.

A rumble from his stomach, and pressure from his bladder, however, helped him make up his mind on what his next thing to do was.

Finish fueling, then bathroom, and then get some supper. I can decide if I want to do anything else tonight after that.

Peering into the fuel tank, he saw it was full, and shut off the pump. Giving the nozzle a little tap to get the last couple drops off of it, he put it away and after putting the cap back on, headed for the house.

A quick bathroom break and a couple of sandwiches later found Allen in one of the machine sheds, the mower unhooked and put away, and the little two basket tedder hooked up and ready to go. While he had been eating, Allen had decided to ted part of the field tonight, and then ted the rest of it in the morning, it wasn’t ideal, but he figured if he got twenty or so acres done tonight, by the time he finished tedding the other thirty tomorrow, he could check the first twenty and see if it was drying well enough to bale that day, if not, then he’d let it go another day. Though he figured it would probably go, the morning dews had been quite light the last week or so, burning off around eight or nine o’clock in the morning, and with the temperatures being in the mid to upper eighties, plus the full sun and steady breezes, he hadn’t had any trouble getting his hay to dry. In fact, he’d actually run into the rare issue of the hay drying too quickly.

Eh, we’ll see how it goes, that grass over there was much thicker than my grass, so it’s probably gonna be a bit harder to dry, we’ll see. He thought to himself as he climbed up on the tractor and fired her up. Putting her in gear, he set off down the driveway, the little tedder bouncing happily behind.

Once at the field, Allen made a few final adjustments and pulling up on the PTO lever, he watched as the little tedder whirled to life. Satisfied it was set correctly, Allen turned forward and let out of the clutch, the tractor rolling forward into the first windrow. Looking behind him, Allen smiled as he watched the little tedder rip into the nicely laid windrow and scatter the drying grass all over the place. Giving the tractor a little more throttle, he turned forward and settled in for the next few hours of work.

By the time he decided to call it quits a little after seven o’clock, Allen had managed to meet his goal of about twenty acres. He’d pushed the tractor a little faster than he had when he’d been mowing, and as such had made decent time, but as he watched the sun getting closer to the western horizon, he’d felt the early evening dew beginning to fall across the countryside and had finally decided to call it quits for the night.

Exiting the field, he motored back down his driveway and into an open spot in the first machine shed. Shutting the engine down for the final time that night, he listened to the metallic tings the motor made as it slowly started to cool down. Standing up, he gave a mighty groan as he stretched tired and sore muscles. Gingerly climbing down off the tractor, he walked over to a nearby water hydrant and turned it on. Letting it run for a minute or two he then stuck his head underneath the cool stream of water and scrubbed some of the day's dirt off his face and arms before then taking several long gulps of the cool, clear water to help quench his thirst.

Letting go a contented sigh of relief, he shook his head like a dog to get the excess water out before shutting it off and heading for the animal barn to get the evening chores done.

By the time he managed to stumble into the house, it was after nine, and his stomach reminded him again that it was time to feed it. Too tired to cook anything, he settled for cold meat sandwiches. Wolfing them down, he dragged himself upstairs, changed out of his work clothes, and took a shower before then making a bee-line to his bed. Making sure his alarm was set for the next morning, Allen turned out the light and crawled into the beckoning embrace of his trusty bed. His head had barely hit the pillow before he was off to dreamland.

Author's Note:

I was originally going to take this chapter in a slightly different direction, by making Filthy Rich try and pull a fast one on Allen in the contract, but then decided against it as I felt it went against the way I had been setting up his character so far. Plus it felt kind of clunky, so I axed the idea, so no contract shenanigans today.

As always, if there are any grammar issues or spelling errors, please feel free to point them out and I'll fix them the first chance I get.

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