Chapter 51 (Wooden Problems)
Chapter 51
Allen stood and glared at the large tree that had dared to flatten his fence. It was a giant, gnarled oak that had probably been there since before Ponyville was even an idea in the first settlers' heads. Now it was a mess of smashed, moss-covered branches and cracked wood laying across his back field’s boundary fence next to the river.
Speaking of the river, it had nearly burst its banks. The previous night's storm had caused it to rise alarmingly high. However, thanks to the efforts of the local weather team, they had managed to divert enough of the storm clouds away from Ponyville that the river hadn’t flooded, but only just. Even now its usually calm, clear waters were a roiling, muddy brown, with pieces of debris floating down the river.
Turning his attention back to the tree, Allen shook his head. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked the felled giant. The tree had no answer, nor did Allen expect it to give one. Looking down the trunk towards the Everfree side of the river, he saw the reason for the ancient trees' demise.
“Looks like the river washed away your section of embankment during that storm last night,” he said to no one in particular. Shaking his head again, he sighed as he tried to figure out the best way to remove this current obstruction in his field.
“Hmm... I can cut away most of your canopy, but your trunk is just too damned big for my saws, and I don’t have any explosives to clear you with either. Ugh, this is not what I wanted to be doing today. Well, on the positive side, I’ll have a good supply of top-grade firewood for a while,” he said to himself as he turned and headed back towards the house.
As he walked, he looked down the fence line for as far as he could see, and other than this one particular tree, no others had managed to make it across the river. Though from the looks of things, plenty of them fell in the river. He thought as he spotted a group of trees that had formed a large log jam just downriver from where he stood. Can’t let that sit there too long or it’ll dam up the river and make a mess.
Closing the gate to the field behind him, Allen again shook his head as he stuck his hands in his back pockets and trudged through the wet grass. In all honesty, he was a little irritated. With all of the unexpected rain they had gotten last night, all of his fields were too wet to get the equipment out into them, and probably would be for the next couple of days. What was worse was the fact that it was still plenty hot out, and with the humidity at damn near one hundred percent, he didn’t expect anything to dry worth a damn.
At least I didn’t have any hay down, he grumbled to himself as he walked.
Reaching the farmyard, he made a beeline for the nearest machine shed and began rummaging around for his tools. After a half-hour he’d managed to find his biggest saw, a five-gallon can of gas, cut with motor oil for the saw, a jug of water, some used motor oil for chain lube, some rope, an axe, gloves, hearing and eye protection, and a wheelbarrow to carry everything in.
With everything collected, Allen soon returned to the fallen tree and set about getting started. Fueling up the saw, he put on his hearing protection, as well as his safety goggles. Priming the saw, and opening the choke, he gave the starting cord a good yank. The saw coughed but didn’t start, so he primed it a couple more times and tried again. Once more, the saw coughed but didn’t start. Grunting in annoyance, he tried again, this time, the saw came to life, a cloud of blueish smoke emanating from the exhaust. Closing the choke, he let the saw warm up for a minute as he surveyed the downed tree and tried to figure out where a good spot to start would be, after a minute, he found his starting point, and with the saw in hand, set to work.
Time passed by as he worked, and slowly he began cutting away the fallen oaks' upper branches, many of which were thicker than his legs, and some that could give a regular tree a run for its money in girth. The main trunk was so thick that laying on its side, it was taller than Allen, and standing at six feet, four inches, Allen wasn’t a small person by any stretch of the imagination.
It’s amazing this tree has managed to survive this long, thought Allen as he cut through another section of branch, the saw kicking up a cloud of sawdust that coated Allen from head to toe in wood shavings. But, in the end, death comes for us all I suppose.
Cutting the last part of the branch off, Allen shut down the saw to let it cool, as well as to let his arms rest from its vibrations. Pulling off his goggles and ear muffs, Allen grabbed his jug of water and chugged half of it in one go. Letting go a happy sigh, he set the jug down and tried to wipe some of the sweat and sawdust that had accumulated on him off, with mixed success.
Glancing back at his handy work, Allen saw that he’d made a small dent, key word being small, in the giant tree.
Damn, this is gonna take forever to clear away, he thought as he shook his head. Glancing up at the sun, he saw that it was past noon, and decided to call it a day.
No sense in getting heat stroke, this tree ain’t going anywhere.
Packing his things up, he was soon heading back to the house for a well-earned cool shower and rest. However as he was leaving, he failed to notice several pairs of glowing eyes watching him warily from the Everfree.
Over the next couple of days, Allen would wake up early and head out to the field to continue cutting up the fallen tree. By Tuesday, he’d managed to cut away about a third of its canopy, and by that time, the ground had dried out enough that he could bring his tractor back there without any fear of leaving muddy ruts everywhere. Additionally, the oppressive heat that had plagued the area had subsided a bit and Allen was able to work longer.
Cutting away another branch, Allen paused and looked around at the mess that he’d left behind. I better start cutting these up and loading them before I cut any more branches off of this tree, he thought to himself as he surveyed the tangled mess of downed tree limbs. Pausing his de-limbing task, Allen set about cutting the downed limbs into smaller chunks and loading them into the trailer he’d hooked to his tractor. Once the trailer was full, he drove it back up to his house and offloaded the wood into a messy pile for later splitting and proper stacking. This process repeated itself several times until Allen finally decided to call it quits for the day.
As he was gathering up the last of his tools, he happened to glance towards the edge of the forest across the river, and wiping the sweat from his eyes, he paused his work as he thought he saw a pair of glowing acidic green dots disappear into the gloom.
Shaking his head, he muttered to himself, “Must be seeing things from working too hard, better get inside, get some water in me, and cool off.” Loading the last of his equipment up, he quickly left.
The following morning saw Allen getting ready to go back to work cutting hay, instead of wood, as now that the ground was dry again, he was eager to make up for lost time.
“Morning Allen, and everypony,” greeted Penny as she trotted up while Allen was servicing his equipment and Clover, Rye, Honeysuckle, and Creme Brulee were getting into their harnesses in preparation to pull Allen’s tractor and discbine to the field.
“Morning Penny,” replied Allen as he finished greasing the last zirc fitting, “how are you?”
Smiling, she replied, “Glad that the temperature has cooled off a bit and the humidity has come down.”
“You and me both,” replied Allen as he put his tools away. “So what brings you by this morning? Got some paperwork for me to sign or something?”
Penny shook her head. “Nope, I’m just here to receive delivery of our first batch of used fryer oil is all.”
Pulling the dipstick out, Allen checked the oil in the tractor. “Is that today?” he asked as he put the dipstick back in, satisfied with the oil level.
“Sure is,” replied Penny with a happy nod, “I gave them your address, and they said they would be here around ten o’clock.”
Allen nodded as he checked the tow ropes that had been attached to the front axle of the tractor. After making sure they were secured, he turned and pointed to the nearby machine shed. “Sounds good, tell them to put the barrels in there along the wall. I made some room over there for them.”
“Okay, I’ll make sure they don’t make a mess,” replied Penny as she trotted over and peeked her head inside to see where the cleared area was that Allen was referring to. “While you’re here,” she added as she trotted back over, satisfied with what she saw, “I was wondering if it would be okay if I waited inside and used your dining room table to work on some things.”
“Yeah, no problem,” replied Allen with a wave of his hand towards the house, “just be sure to lock up when you leave, and if you want something to drink, water glasses are in the top right cabinet above the sink.”
Penny smiled at Allen’s thoughtfulness. “Thank you, Allen, I was getting a tad thirsty on my walk over here.”
Allen chuckled, and turning to his team asked, “Is everypony ready?”
“All set to go, boss!” yelled back Clover.
“Alright, well let’s get going, we’re burning daylight here,” replied Allen as he climbed up on the tractor and released the park lock, allowing the pony’s to begin pulling.
“See you later Penny,” he called as he slowly rolled away.
Returning his wave with one of her own, Penny called back as she watched them leave, “See you, be safe!”
Allen nodded before turning his attention forward. Leaning back in his seat slightly, he enjoyed the slow trip to the field. Due to the fact that everything on the tractor ran on hydraulics, he didn’t have much control over it while the engine wasn’t running.
Thankfully, there weren’t any hills between his home and the field, so everything was smooth sailing.
Hopefully, the tractor will be able to run on that fryer oil, even if I lose some horsepower and fuel economy, I should be able to keep working, thought Allen as he watched the previously mowed fields roll slowly by.
Fluttershy has been doing a really good job clearing those fields, and that earth pony couple that Filthy hired is helping a lot too.
In truth, Allen hadn’t seen much of them since they had started, as they were employed by Filthy, rather than him, and Fluttershy was the one to give them their assigned work areas. He’d only met them once, on the day that they had arrived. A nice middle-aged couple, named Log Jam and Willow Branch, whose foals were all grown up and out of the house. So they didn’t have anything tying them down to one spot anymore, and as Log Jam, a former lumberjack, had told him, ‘the wandering bug had bit them’. So they’d sold their home, bought a caravan, and started traveling around Equestria doing odd jobs to earn some spending money. That’s how they had ended up becoming field clearers, and they had discovered they were pretty good at it, so they’d just kept doing it.
From what Allen had gathered, they and Fluttershy had become good friends, and she had let them park their caravan at her place to save money and make it easier to coordinate.
Allen was pulled from his thoughts when the group came to a halt. Looking around he saw that they had arrived at the field he intended to cut today. Jumping down, he undid the tow lines and coiled them up before hooking them to Brulee and Rye’s harnesses so that they could take them back to the farm while they waited for him to cut the field.
“There we go,” said Allen as he secured the second tow line to Rye’s harness, “alright, you guys go do whatever you want, I should be done in about an hour or two.”
“You got it, boss, we’ll see you in a couple of hours,” replied Honey with a salute as she and the three stallions unhooked themselves from each other. They were just getting ready to leave, and Allen was just starting to haul himself up on the tractor when Honey called out, “Are you sure there isn’t anything you want us to do at your place while we wait? I mean, you are paying us to just sit around for a couple of hours, and that just doesn’t seem right to me,” she asked. The others silently nodded in agreement.
Settling himself in his seat, Allen looked down and thought about it for a second, then replied, “Well, I’ve been working on cutting up an old oak tree that fell down across the river into my backfield from the Everfree. If you want, you can hook yourselves up to a wagon, go back there, haul some of the cut wood up to the house, and stack it in a pile.”
Honey smiled. “We can do that! Is there a particular spot you want it stacked?”
“Just stack it near the rest of the wood, you’ll see it,” replied Allen as he opened the throttle a touch and hit the starter, the old 806 rumbling to life.
Taking that as their cue to leave, the four earth ponies turned and headed back to the farm while Allen got busy cutting hay.
The roar of the diesel and whine of the discbine slowly faded as the four ponies trotted along back to the farm. Normally, they would usually just wait around until it was time to either bring Allen his next piece of equipment or to bring him and his tractor home for the night. However, now that Allen had given them a job to do while they waited, they were eager to get started.
Reaching the farmyard, they first decided to hook up Allen’s tedder to the forecart that Allen had built for them to use. It wasn’t much to look at, just some old angle iron that Allen had welded together over an old axle of some kind. None of the ponies were sure what it had been originally a part of, and Allen wasn’t entirely sure himself. However, he’d pulled it out of his ‘resource pile’ behind one of the machine sheds, and after welding a hitch on the back, for equipment to hook to, and some eyelets up front for the harness to attach to, it was ready to go.
“So, what should we use to move the wood with?” asked Honey as they finished hooking the tedder to the forecart.
“We could use one of Allen’s hay wagons,” suggested Rye.
“Yeah, that sounds like a good plan,” agreed Clover as he and the others started walking towards the far machine shed.
“Why don’t we use that small one? You know, the one with that hole in the deck?” said Brulee as the group rounded the corner and spotted the wagons in question.
Honey nodded. “Yeah, I think that one will work, and I doubt Allen will be too upset if we bang it up loading wood.”
Clover laughed. “Do you think he’d notice any more damage to it?”
Honey looked from Clover to the wagon in question and slowly shook her head. “I doubt it. This thing looks like it needs to be junked,” she said, poking one of the wooden boards that made up the deck with a hoof, a part of it breaking off as she did so and falling to the ground. “Honestly, looking at it, I’m not sure it would even last one load. This wooden deck looks pretty sketchy to me.”
Walking up next to his sister, Clover put his front hooves up on the deck and gave it an experimental tap. “Seems solid enough to me, besides, it’s not like we’re going to be pulling this thing through the wilderness or something. We’ll just need to make sure it’s not overloaded is all.”
Pushing himself away from the decrepit wagon, he walked around to the front and grabbed the tongue with a hoof. “Here, give me a hoof will you?” he asked as he pushed it away from him.
In short order, the four ponies had managed to pull the wagon from the tall grass and weeds along the side of the shed.
“Whew, looks like this thing has been sitting there a while,” commented Rye as he wiped some sweat away from his brow.
Clover nodded. “Yeah, I think Allen mentioned that he and his family didn’t really use these wagons that much anymore.
“I can tell, it looks like all of these tires have gone flat,” remarked Brulee, “how are we going to move it now?”
“We just need to re-inflate them,” said Honey, “I watched Allen do it on his baler the other day. He’s got an air pump in this shed, all we have to do is turn it on and stick the hose on one of these little stems and the tire should fill up with air. Though...” she trailed off for a moment, an unsure look on her face, “I’m not sure how much air we should put inside each one.”
“We’ll just put enough air in so that the tires aren’t flat anymore, simple,” replied Brulee as he and Clover maneuvered themselves into position on either side of the wagon tongue and hitched themselves up to it. Giving a grunt, the pair soon had the wagon slowly rolling forward, while Honey and Rye ran around behind it to give it a push, and before long, the group was in front of the machine shed’s double doors.
Pushing open the smaller service door, Honey fumbled around inside for the light switch. After a minute or two, she finally found it and flipped it on, the overhead lights flickering to life.
“Okay, we’ve got light, now let's see if we can get these doors open,” she said as she trotted to the middle of the double doors. Levering herself up on her hind hooves, she managed to undo the chain keeping the two doors together. Dropping back to all fours, she tried opening the left side door but found it wouldn’t move very far. Looking to the left, she spotted the reason, an additional latch on the far edge of the door. Groaning she quickly undid it and tried again, this time she was able to effortlessly slide the door open.
“Okay, so where is this ‘air pump’?” asked Rye as he looked around.
“Over there,” said Honey, pointing to a small red cylinder on wheels by the wall.
Trotting over, the two ponies looked it over for a moment, before Rye asked, “Okay... so how does it work?”
Grabbing the power cord that was wrapped around the pump's handle, Honey carefully slotted it into a nearby wall socket and flipped a switch on the pump which nosily came to life.
“Now we just got to wait until this needle gets high enough and we can turn it off!” she shouted over the din of the air pump, a hoof pointing at a small gauge that read air pressure.
“And how long is that going to take?” replied Rye, his ears pinned back from the racket the little machine was making.
Honey shrugged. “A couple of minutes? I think Allen waited until this gauge reached one hundred before he unplugged it.”
“Okay, well you do that, I’m going outside where it’s quieter!” shouted Rye as he beat a hasty retreat.
Honey stuck her tongue out at him as he left, leaving her to watch the needle steadily climb. Eventually, it reached one hundred and she pulled the plug, a quiet hissing noise replacing the noisy clattering and whirring of the air pump.
Grabbing the metal handle in her mouth, she carefully dragged the air pump out of the shed and set it down next to the wagon.
“Okay, now we just got to take those little black caps off the stems and stick this... doohickey on it and the tires should inflate,” she said, pointing to the air hose fitting and the tire stems in turn.
“Alright, well go ahead,” offered Clover as he waited for his sister to get started.
“Why me? I got the air in the tank. One of you should fill the tires,” she whined.
“But you’re the only one who saw Allen fill them, none of us have any idea what we’re doing,” retorted Clover.
Honey opened her mouth to reply, but after a moment closed it instead and pouted. “Fine, grab that hose and bring it over here,” she commanded as she sat down next to the first tire, and awkwardly tried to get the little cap off the tire stem.
It took a few tries, as even though pony hooves are surprisingly dexterous, they are still hooves at the end of the day, and things that were made with fingers in mind tend to be difficult to use with said hooves. However, patience and persistence, along with a small amount of swearing, saw the little cap come off in the end.
I’m not putting it back on, thought Honey, an annoyed look on her face as she carefully maneuvered the air hose into place and pressed the end against the stem. At first, a loud hissing was all that could be heard as the air went everywhere but inside, and the tire didn’t seem to want to inflate. However, after a few moments, Honey managed to get it properly seated and the loud hissing sound became more muted as the tire slowly started rising.
“So how much air are we supposed to put?” asked Clover as he peered around Honey’s withers.
“Don’t know,” she replied with a shrug, “I was just going to put enough air in so that the tires aren’t flat anymore.”
Kicking one of the flat tires, Clover grumped, “These tires seem like they're more trouble than they are worth. I mean, a good steel shod wagon wheel will last a pony a long time, and you don’t have to keep it filled with air either.”
Honey just shrugged again. “Allen said metal wheels would tear up the roads back home too much, and at the speeds the vehicles in his world traveled at, they would be very uncomfortable, and even dangerous.”
“Still seems like a real hassle,” mumbled Clover as he watched Honey pull the air hose off the tire stem and move to the next one.
“Yeah, but unless you want to go back to town and grab a cart, we’ve got to make due with what we got,” she replied as she unscrewed the second cap and started filling the tire.
The sound of the front door opening and closing caught the earth pony’s ears and they all glanced back to see Penny exiting Allen’s home, a curious expression on her face.
“Hey everypony, what’s going on?” she asked as she trotted up.
“We’re filling these tires up with air, so that way we can haul some wood that Allen cut up from his backfield to the house, while we wait for him to cut the field,” replied Clover.
“Oh, I see,” she replied as she watched Honey finish filling the second tire with air and drag the pump around to the other side of the wagon. Looking down at her hooves, she noticed the little black stem cap, and picking it up in her magic she asked, “What’s this?”
“It goes over that tire stem there, but it’s hard enough getting it off, so I didn’t feel like putting it back on. I was just going to put them on Allen’s workbench inside once we were done and let him put them back on,” replied Penny as she removed the third cap and got to work filling the third tire up.
Inspecting the little cap in her magic for a moment, Penny quickly reattached the cap to the stem, before doing so as well for the first one.
“You really should try to put things back the way you found them,” she lightly admonished as she followed Honey around to the other side and put the third cap back on when Honey moved to the fourth and final tire.
“Normally I would, but these little caps weren’t really made for hooves to grasp,” replied Honey as she began filling up the final tire.
Picking up the final cap in her magic, Penny said, “I understand, but still, I doubt Allen would have been happy to find these little caps missing from his tires.”
“I was going to tell him,” retorted Honey as she finished filling the last tire and began looping the air hose back around the handle of the air pump.
“And I never said you weren’t, but we all know how things go,” replied Penny as she stuck the final cap back on,” You might tell Allen, but he might get busy and forget to put them back on.”
“Well then that’s his problem,” snorted Honey around the handle of the air pump as she dragged it back into the machine shed.
Following her inside, Penny shook her head. “Maybe, but you were still the one to take them off. In any case, they’re back on now, so it’s a moot issue. Just at least try and put things back together when you take them apart in the future, please? If these little things get lost, Allen has no way to replace them, and that could impact his operation.”
Honey opened her mouth to reply but ended up shutting it and instead giving a shallow nod of understanding.
Seeing that the matter was dealt with, Penny turned around and trotted out of the machine shed, Honey following along behind.
“So,” she began as she trotted up to the group of stallions, “what’s this about some wood that Allen cut up?”
“Allen said he had a tree fall across the river and into one of his fields. Apparently, he’s been cutting it up over the last few days, and since we don’t have anything to do while we wait, we offered to move some of it out of the field for him,” replied Rye.
“Interesting, do you all mind if I tag along to take a look at it? I need a break from paperwork anyways,” asked Penny as she watched the four earth ponies get hitched up to the wagon.
“Not at all,” replied Clover as he finished hitching himself up, “just follow us.”
Falling in alongside them, Penny and the four earth ponies set off. Exiting the farmyard, they soon found themselves on a dirt track that ran through a large windbreak comprised of pine and various deciduous trees arranged in four orderly rows on the east side of the farm past the machine sheds. Once past the trees, the group found themselves in a wide laneway between fenced fields that gently sloped down towards the river.
“I see the tree he was talking about,” remarked Penny as she spotted the fallen giant in the distance.
Clover whistled. “Wow, now that is one big tree.”
The rest of the group nodded or hummed in agreement as they trotted along the laneway. Eventually, they reached the gate that would let them into that section of field and turned left through the opening.
Coming to a stop near the large tree, the earth ponies quickly unhitched themselves and spread out to inspect the fallen giant.
“This thing must be over two hundred years old,” commented Rye and he laid a hoof gently against the fallen trunk.
Clover hummed in agreement. “Easily.”
“Looks like Allen made a good-sized dent in cutting it up,” said Penny as she trotted around the outer edge of what was once the tree's crown.
“Yeah, and it looks like he cut the logs up into manageable sizes for us as well,” said Brulee as he inspected some of the cut branches.
“Yeesh, some of these branches are as big as a normal tree!” said Clover, a look of awe coming over his face.
“Yeah, well they aren’t going to move themselves, so we better get started,” replied Brulee as he stuck his head under a smaller diameter branch and lifted it enough that Clover took the hint and stuck his own head under the opposite side. With the branch balanced between the two stallions, they carefully maneuvered it over to the wagon and with the help of Rye and Honey, rolled it onto the wagon.
“Would you like some help?” asked Penny as she watched.
“Up to you,” replied Clover as he worked.
“We never turn down free help,” commented Honey with a cheeky smile.
Laughing, Penny lit up her horn and started picking up the smaller branches and gently floating them over to the wagon. Occasionally, she’d help the earth ponies with an awkward log and she’d even use a low-power cutting spell to further trim down the length of some of the smaller logs for easier work.
After a time, the wagon had a decent collection of wood on it, and the ponies decided it was time to take it up to the house. All of them were covered in sweat, dirt, and sawdust to one degree or another, though Penny was the cleanest of the group by far, and none of them wanted to overload the wagon in case the tires couldn’t handle the weight.
The four earth ponies were just getting ready to hitch themselves back up when all five of them heard a bone-chilling howl from the other side of the river that sent shivers down all of their spines.
Whipping around, they spotted half a dozen pairs of glowing, acidic green eyes peering at them from the edge of the Everfree Forest. Nervously, the ponies all bunched up together as they watched six adult timber wolves stalk out of the forest, their jaws open in vicious snarls as sap dripped from their wooden teeth.
Swallowing nervously, Penny said, “I-I think we should go now.”
“Y-yeah, I-I think t-that’s a g-good idea,” agreed Honey shakily.
“Everypony stay calm, and slowly back away,” said Brulee quietly. “If we turn and run, they’ll give chase. Thankfully they’re on the other side of the river, and timber wolves can’t swim.”
“They can’t?” whispered Clover.
“No, they start coming apart if they get submerged in water for too long, and the river is flowing too fast for them to get across quickly,” he replied confidently, as having lived in Ponyville his entire life, he was passingly familiar with many of the creatures that called the Everfree their home.
“But what if they start crossing the downed oak tree?” said Penny suddenly as she pointed at the large trunk with a hoof.
The group turned their gaze away from the main group of timber wolves and spotted a pair gingerly attempting to cross the river via the fallen oak tree.
“Then we might have a problem,” said Brulee as he began weighing their options.
Risking a look over his withers, he grimaced. Too much open ground, we’ll be run down before we can get to safety, and the wolves will just jump over Allen’s fences, while we’ll be penned in. Looking back at the two wolves trying to cross, he saw that they were halfway across the river now, though judging by their movements, they weren’t very confident in their footing.
The only way they can get to us is over the tree trunk, which for all its size, is still very narrow, he gave Penny a sideways glance, before then looking at the mess of smaller branches littering the ground around the tree, he suddenly came up with a plan. It wasn’t a good one by any stretch of the imagination, but it was the best chance they had at surviving.
“Okay, new plan,” he said quickly, catching everypony’s attention as they managed to wretch their gaze away from their impending doom. “We can’t run, as they’ll catch us before we get to safety, and all of these fences will just end up funneling us while they can just jump over them. We need to bottle them up on the tree trunk while one of us goes and gets help.”
Turning to Penny he said, “Do you know any shield spells?”
Penny shook her head. “Just a weak one to keep the rain off,” she replied sadly.
“What about offensive spells? Timber wolves hate fire, and ice spells can mess them up pretty good too.”
“I know a small fire spell, but it’s only good for lighting fires, not for fighting giant wooden wolves, and the only cooling spell I know is to chill drinks... sorry,” she replied sadly.
Brulee sighed. “It’s okay, not everyone can be as good at magic as Twilight Sparkle.”
“Uh, guys, those wolves are getting closer, if we’re going to do something, we better do it now,” called out Clover as he watched the wolves get closer and closer.
Grunting in annoyance, Brulee looked around and spotted several long, sturdy branches and said, “Okay, here’s the plan, we’ll use those branches to try and push the wolves off the tree and into the water while one of us goes and gets help. Penny,” he turned to the unicorn, “is your magic good enough to levitate a heavy branch and push it around?”
The unicorn nodded.
“Good, grab one and help me, Rye and Clover keep those wolves off this side of the river, Honey,” he said turning to the other mare of the group, “you run and get help, and please don’t argue, we don’t have time,” he said as he watched her open her mouth to argue, before turning away and rushing towards the nearest sturdy looking branch, picking it up with a hoof and awkwardly limping to a spot where he could push the timber wolves away from their side of the shore.
The rest of the group quickly followed suit, with only Clover staying just long enough to look at his sister and jerk his head in the direction of Allen’s house and safety before turning and joining the others.
Shutting her mouth with an audible clack the earth pony mare simply gave a single, determined nod, turned, and ran.
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At least alan can get back a lot faster as he dont even need fumes to do that distance. winding on the starter motor would do the job just as ewll. If its an older mechanical gearbox and not an automatic, which I thought wasnt a good design for a tractor due to the accuracy needed in effort at low speed?
ok this is a amazing chapter.
funny that you start it with a tree down as i had storms here 4 weeks ago now and i am still cutting trees and fixing fence.
I have feeling Alan's guns are going to come very handy in the near future plus make him a town hero.
Oh dear, got some trouble with the neighbors. Methinks they want that fresh-cut wood.
Nice chapter and now Allen gets to find out why ponies fear these creatures.
Next chapter: Allen learns that Equestrian Timberwolves are absolutely nothing like the ones back on Earth.
And Equestrian Timberwolves will learn the same lesson many a horror movie victim learned when the chainsaw gets busted out.
Maybe the timberwolves will like humans for some instinctual reason or something, and cuddle up to Allen
Another amazing chapter. Eager for the next.:D
Next chapter: Allen vs Evil Dead
media.tenor.com/dQtEsZSd0PsAAAAd/ash-evil-dead.gif
A chainsaw might look good in a zombie flick but it's not a terribly effective weapon unless you manage to pin the timberwolf down, and they're not going to help you in that regard while trying to bite your face off. Same goes for a gun. Against flesh, sure, it'll mess 'em up but wood? You'll have to get real close to cause much damage. A shotgun will probably have buckshot in it which is useless-- a solid slug of massive kinetic energy is what you want when shooting an animated pile of rotten lumber.
I do wonder if the timberwolves will balk when encountering one of his tractors? Big, noisy, spinny parts. Could scare them off once or twice until they figure out how clumsy it is.
Penny the teleporting amnesiac. :P
Probably mean moot not mute.
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Haha, thanks. I fixed it.
Fun fact. I learned recently that some chainsaws start by pulling the cord to its full length, then letting them go.
No comma after speeds
Put a semi-colon somewhere in here
11577812
Comma removed, thanks.
The ponies figuring out the tires and air compressor was brilliantly done. Cute, at the same time showing the crew to be reasonable and intelligent.
I think it is mandatory I read these chapters while sitting in a tractor on a lunch break. Back to tilling for spring planting.
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Haha! Nice, my tractor is almost back together, so I'll be getting back out in the fields soon myself. (PTO went out last fall.)
Oh crap! I hope Allen can help out!
just wondering how the next chapter is progressing?
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Slowly, I've been busy with hay and other farm work lately, but rain is moving through my area now so I'll have some time to finish it up.
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rain what is rain?
we will be lucky to get a full first cutting there will be no second cutting this year.
hay prices are way up.
take your time you have to make hay when the sun shines.
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Already cut 7 acres this morning. Hope to have it up tomorrow, but probably won't be ready to bake till Monday.
11612056
every one i have talked to around here is telling my dust is a problem this year it is so dry you can cut it in the morning and bale it in the afternoon and it is dusty.
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Yeah, we were having that problem up here as well. But we had some rain come through and that helped a bit.
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well rain day update. first cutting was above normal in size. it was looking like second cutting was going to burn out but now after two weeks of rain most every day it is coming back.
i heart my pastor's with hitting them hard with 2-4-D and a huge dose of fertilizer but they are bouncing back now i am hopping to have the horses on grass soon.
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Got a little rain this morning. My first cutting was half of what it was last year, which is okay, because I wouldn't have enough room for a normal year anyways as I still have a lot of hay from last year that didn't sell. Hoping to move it all this year.
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if you have that much put it on allhay.com
jack your price up and you will be surprised.