Honey Dipper
Gardening with Rose
Honey Dipper
Admiral Biscuit
If any pony were to make it to Earth, Pinkie Pie would be my top pick. She could open a restaurant that would give Tim Horton's a run for their money. Sugarcube Corner's coffee was good, their sweets were better, and I was almost one hundred percent certain that Pinkie Pie never had off days. She was always bright and chipper, and she remembered how I liked my coffee even though I hardly ever ordered it.
“Good morning, Sam!”
“Morning, Pinkie.” I held the door open a moment longer to let a pair of ponies exit. I couldn't remember their names—they were both pegasus mares. One of them had a barbell cutie mark, and the other had three suns. As soon as they were clear of the building, they crouched down and then flew off.
“Just coffee for me.”
“Are you sure?” She leaned over the counter. “We made some crullers this morning that are so light they practically float.”
“If I'd known, I wouldn't have had breakfast already,” I said.
“Hmm.” Pinkie turned around and poured me my coffee. “What about half a cruller? I Pinkie Promise it'll put an extra spring in your step this morning.”
I couldn't really turn her down. “Sure. Hey, Pinkie, do you know where Honey Dipper lives?”
“Yuppers.” She set the coffee on the counter and took my money, sliding a bit of change back my way. “She's at the very end of Cantle Street. That's over on the southeast side of town.”
“Thanks. I’m working with her today.”
“Oh,” Pinkie said. “She's really nice.”
That was an odd endorsement.
•••
I sat in the corner and sipped my coffee, watching the morning tradesponies. Individual ponies and pairs usually didn’t sit for breakfast—they were probably eager to get started with their day’s work. Larger groups of ponies did tend to take a booth or a table: nearby, a cluster of carpenter ponies was discussing the upcoming job, while across the room a group of mares was gossiping over breakfast.
Out of habit, I sort of listened to their conversations. The first time I’d set foot in Sugarcube Corner, desperate for my first coffee in months, conversations had immediately died down. I’d huddled in a booth, just waiting for a police pony to drag me out and toss me back into the street. Every eye in the place had been on me, and I think if Pinkie Pie hadn’t been so welcoming towards me, even though she didn’t really know me, that would have happened. If Ponyville had police ponies—I’d never seen one. If they didn’t, it might have been an angry mob dragging me out.
Now, though, none of the ponies really cared if I came in and minded my own business. Thus far, none of them besides Pinkie Pie had gone out of their way to greet me or offer me a place at their table, or ask to sit at mine, but I was sure that would come in time.
I didn’t want to be overly late—even though there wasn’t a specific start time—so I didn’t dally. I brought my cup back up to the counter when I’d finished and headed out the door.
•••
Honey Dipper's house was right at the end of Cantle Street, just like Pinkie Pie said it was. It had that familiar slightly worn-down look that a lot of farmhouses on Earth did, and was surrounded with several outbuildings and a privacy fence. I couldn't help but wonder if that was to keep the bees in the backyard.
There was also a more pronounced horse smell. It was something I rarely noticed in town; most of the ponies bathed frequently and used perfumes and scented soaps, and for just a moment I looked around, expecting to see a pasture with horses in it.
I didn't hear anybody working out back, and I was a little bit early. She'd probably be up: most farmers were. Just the same, I kept my knocks quiet and polite in deference to the early hour.
It took her a minute to answer, long enough that I was wondering if maybe she hadn't heard me. Since lots of ponies wore horseshoes, knocks were presumably louder, a fact which her front door bore witness to: I could see scratches and gouges in the wood from pony knocks.
Honey Dipper was a golden, honey-color mare with a dark brown mane and tail. More distinctively, she had three off-white socks, which was something that I’d never seen on a pony before.
It was obvious what I’d interrupted: she had a harness half-on, several straps trailing behind her.
“Hello,” I said, crouching down to get to her level. “I'm Sam—I'm here for the job you had posted?” I hadn't been able to get a clear look at her cutie mark, and thought it would be rude to just lean over and check it out.
“Oh.” She flicked her ears and studied me thoughtfully. “I . . . I've seen you in town. Helping Ginger Gold cut firewood.” She shifted around on her hooves, either nervous or else she was trying to get her half-on harness to sit right.
“I don't scare bees.”
She blinked. “Bees?”
Now it was my turn to be confused. “I thought—I guess the poster didn't say, but I assumed, you know, that we'd be doing something with bees.”
“There might be wasps,” she finally said. “I, um, empty pail closets and outhouses and turn it into compost for the farmers.”
I hadn’t expected that. “That sounds like a shitty job.” I put my hand up to my mouth but she started laughing.
“I'd—I won't be mad if you say you don't want to. I didn't put that on the flier, 'cause I thought that everypony in town knows what I do, but I guess you didn't. It’s not fair to ask you do something when you didn’t know what it actually was.”
It wasn't something that I wanted to do. But if I left, there wasn't much chance of finding work today, and she did pay well. Plus, she seemed like a really nice mare—Pinkie had been telling the truth about that.
“I'll do it.” Then a thought struck me. “I should probably go back to my house and get my shoes.” The last thing I needed was tetanus.
“Okay. There's a shed behind my house where I keep my wagon. When you come back just go out there and then we can get to work.”
•••
My shoes were old and nasty and barely holding together any more. As I walked down Cantle Street a second time, I decided that if I got through today and decided that this was something that I was willing to do more often, I was going to order a new set. I had enough money saved up to buy them, but I'd been putting it off until it got closer to winter, when I’d really need them.
I'd also changed from my shorts into my painting pants. They were already ruined enough that a little bit of manure wouldn't make them any worse.
I wondered how much Rarity would charge me for a simple shirt. Something durable but not very nice. If things went well with Honey Dipper, that might be something to consider in the future. Still, if I was reasonably careful, I didn't think that I'd manage to get my chest dirty.
My mind flashed back to old black-and-white photographs of farmers working shirtless. If they could do it, so could I.
•••
By the time I returned, Honey Dipper had gotten her harness the rest of the way on and had hitched herself up to her wagon. She had her eyes closed and one hind leg cocked until I got close, then her ears turned my way and she opened her eyes.
“Were you dozing?”
“Some ponies don't like me working during the day,” she said. “It's even worse in Canterlot. My cousin works there. You can't carry wagons of manure through the streets until after dark, it’s the law. So I work at night whenever I’m working in town. That way, I don’t bother anypony.”
“Switching shifts like that isn't fun.” It was something I’d never had to deal with, but I had friends who did, and they always acted kind of like zombies. “Well, I'm ready if you are.”
“I didn't know how soon you'd be back,” she said. “So I didn't go to the barn and put in the barrels. You can load them, right?”
“Yeah.” I knew a thing or two about barrels from all the times I'd worked at the miller's.
There were four of them, and I put them in the front of the wagon. They were empty, so I didn't even need to bother with setting up a ramp on the back of the wagon. “They haven't got the sewer system running through the whole town, yet,” Honey Dipper explained. “And some of the swampier areas aren't good for digging a pit outhouse, so they use barrels. We'll change those first, and then come back here with them and then go out to Mint Swirl's farm and empty her outhouse.
“It's hard to get help during the summers, 'cause everypony can get farm work.”
•••
The barrels weren't too bad to change. Each of the pailhouses had a little door in the back, and Honey Dipper had left the lid for those barrels right next to them. It took some careful wiggling to get them out, and then I used her mallet to pound the lid back on, put the new barrel inside, and then roll the full barrel up into the back of her cart.
It did feel a little bit unfair that she wasn't doing any of that work, but it would have been inconvenient to have to unhitch from the wagon each time. And I guess I got my break when we moved to the next house, since I couldn't help her pull the wagon.
“It's always important to make sure that there's nopony in there,” she told me as we were walking to the next outhouse. “Or else you might get an unpleasant surprise. Usually when I'm doing it by myself, I like to knock on the door to make sure nopony’s in there and then leave the wagon in front until I've got the barrels changed.”
“That seems like a lot of work. You'd have to unhitch and hitch back up several times.”
She nodded. “But it's better than being under there and nopony knowing.”
•••
I couldn’t make sense of her route. Garbage trucks stopped at every house in order on the prescribed day, but she didn’t. She skipped over a couple of blocks to the next house.
Depending on local laws, there might have been a sewer line laid on the street without all the houses connected to it, but that seemed unlikely to me, especially since I noticed outhouses in several backyards.
I pondered over that while I was changing out the next barrel—anything to keep my mind off what I was doing—and came to the conclusion that either her customers notified her when they needed service, or she made her plan based on how fast a particular household might fill up a barrel. It wouldn’t be efficient to be constantly taking half-empty barrels from homes; she’d fill up her wagon and have to make more trips.
Hopefully, she hadn’t decided to do a partial route in deference to me, but I wondered if she had. She wouldn’t know how much help I might be, how much she might have to explain, and she might have wanted to keep things simple.
Maybe she’d base any future hiring of me on how well I did today. On my attitude—if I constantly complained about the work. Or my competence—could I do the job without accidentally tipping a barrel over?
That was a problem with their job board system. A pony never knew who might show up, although I thought that in a small town, they’d learn quickly who the incompetent workers were and just send them away.
And in all honesty, the ponies seemed to be more industrious than humans.
•••
Back at her house, she stopped the wagon on the downwind side of her house. There were lots of piles of compost in varying degrees of freshness, and it looked like we were going to start a new one.
The piles were arranged in an odd zig-zag pattern, which I asked her about. “Oh, you've got to turn the piles every now and then for them to decompose,” she explained. “It's easiest for me to do it this way, 'cause as soon as I finish one, I go to the next and then shovel the other way.”
“So we need to uncap them and empty them out?”
“We can, but I was hoping to do that after lunch. After we empty Mint Swirl’s pit.” She tilted her head towards her wagon shed. “There’s shovels in there, put a couple of them in the wagon. One for you and one for me. And a lift bucket, we’ll want that for when we get deeper, and I’ve also got a collapsible winding tower and some rope. They’ll all fit in the front compartment of the wagon.”
•••
Pony outhouses—really, outhouses in general—weren't the biggest places. I was a bit crowded in mine, at least from a headroom standpoint, and as Honey Dipper pulled her wagon up alongside our destination, I started to have second thoughts. Not just about what I was about to be doing, but also about how I was going to fit in there well enough to do any work. My back wasn't going to be too happy about this.
“I should have asked sooner,” Honey said. “You don't have a harness do you?”
“No. I can grab ropes with my hands and pull them, though. What do we need to do?”
“Move the outhouse off the pit.” She reached around and unhooked her singletree from the wagon, letting it trail behind her. “Okay, it's really awkward to back up like this; can you pick up the chains and clip them to the ringbolts on the bottom of the outhouse?”
“Ringbolts?”
“They're probably hidden by the grass. There should be a set on both ends. I'd rather pull it from the door side, 'cause that way if we get anything on the ground, nopony will be stepping on it when they go to use the outhouse.” She turned her head back. “The traces on my harness unhook from the singletree, too; if you want to unsnap them and hold up the traces, I can back into position.”
I held the traces out of the way while she backed into position, then fished around in the grass until I found the ringbolts. I wonder if my outhouse has these? I bet it did, and I'd just never looked.
There were spring hooks on the ends of her chains, essentially really simple carabiners. Interestingly, the latch could open either way, which was probably better for ponies.
“Do you want me to help push?”
She shook her head. “Unless you get low, pushing will make it want to tip forward, and dig the front of the skids into the ground. If you can pull the front up, that would help.”
I had some trouble finding a good method, one where I wouldn't be in her way. There wasn't enough room for me to crowd between her and the outhouse, and I finally resorted to reaching alongside and rocking it.
Once she got it moving, it slid smoothly on the grass, revealing the pit, which was much larger than I'd anticipated. With the outhouse off it, we had plenty of room to work.
She unclipped herself from the front and hung her traces on her wagon. "Alright, I guess we can get started.”
I nodded and picked up the shovel. The handle was the wrong size for a person, of course, but that couldn't be helped. Another thing to consider if I wanted to make a career of this, but for odd jobs it was hardly worth investing in my own equipment. “Are—” I bit my lip, considering. It seemed to me that she'd be uncomfortable working in her harness, but then maybe she thought I was going to be uncomfortable working in my clothes.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I tilted my head towards the pit. “Anything special I need to know?”
“Everything goes in the wagon, and try not to spill it on the ground.”
“Got it.”
“Sometimes when I'm working at a really fancy pony's house, I'll put down a tarp, just to make sure.”
“I'll be careful,” I promised. I was already going to do my best to make sure it stayed off me, so I could also be careful to keep it off the lawn.
“If you start digging, I can set up the winding tower over the pit and rig it, for when we get deeper.”
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Good for Pinkie!
So Honey Dipper... I'm guessing her mark isn't for this specifically, but for doing dirty jobs other people won't? I can see a mark story there, of a bunch of foals facing an EWWWW sort of task and her wading in and taking care of it.
I think that "was" was meant to be a "way."
Yep! Called it. (recognized the term from the time we got our septic tank pumped at the farm.) A good pair of work boots for Sam is top priority, the kind you unlace at the back door and leave outside. Honey might also have a side-income delivering sealed containers of quicklime (sealed or it soaks up humidity) for sprinkling over the... raw honey. (but not too much, or it doesn't decompose) Cheap ponies would use wood ash, although it doesn't control the smell as much. As a side-note, one of the major pillars of civilized society is fresh water and sewage disposal, and the importance of keeping the two separate. In our world, human waste is *not* used for fertilizing food crops because that's a disease vector, and in rare occasions where people forget that, Mother Nature reminds us in dramatic fashion.
Suggested reading for interested onlookers: Cottage Water Systems by Max Burns.
I'm guessing you meant that way
Missing the opening quotation mark
She is a gong farmer. Her cousin is a nightsoilpony.
My home requires one to come occasionally, as we have a cesspit. Town has be saying street will have sewer, but they've been saying that for 20 years, and our street is right off the main street.
them
And how did she ever get a cutie mark in that line of work
Or she doesnt but cant find something that relates to what hers is?
She doesnt seem to enthused about her line of work
This chapter reminded me that Sam has been going topless for awhile now.
I remember her struggling with that last story or two ago.
9524608
I’m actually guessing her cutie mark is in ‘doing dirty jobs’ like I said below. And I guess she doesn’t want a job with SMILE or the EIS :p
I can tell living in Equestria would be hell for me; six foot frame doesn't mix well.
(I doubt Sam is that tall)
Ya know this would be a good job for a unicorn. Do it by telekinesis at a safe clean distance.
Hmm....I take it that engineers are rare in this universe?
9524248
Nope, her mark is for this specifically. Which, quite honestly, once you get past the squick factor, is a really good job. You’ve always got a steady supply, ponies pay you to take it away, and then when you’ve turned it into compost, ponies pay you again for it.
9524311
It was indeed! Correction made; thank you!
9524320
Yeah, that wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. Although not needed for work at the pail houses, at least.
I’m not sure she’d be the one selling it; I think she’d have enough work without the added complication of managing a shop. Although I suppose she could deliver it with a new barrel as part of the service, if a pony wanted her to.
I think you can also use various kinds of moss; not sure how effective that is on the smell.
She might have to do some mixing back at her place to make sure that the stuff that got over-limed by sensitive ponies gets re-moistened. I’d think you could possibly add water to it, too, if you needed to, but I could be wrong about that.
Yes, and that’s always a problem in the developing world (well, both things). In impoverished nations, or ones where fresh water is hard to come by, modern flush toilets and sewer systems are an impossibility.
I might be wrong on this, but I suspect if properly composted/treated, human waste can be used to fertilize with no adverse consequences; however, if you don’t do it right, diseases have a field day.
Also good is this YT video:
9524325
Corrections made, thank you!
9524454
You are correct!
I haven’t had one come yet, although it’s probably getting to the point where I ought to. I dunno how much my tank holds.
9524608
Correction made; thank you!
I presume she got it the same way other ponies get theirs. Maybe one of her parents had the same job, and she followed in their hoofsteps, or maybe it was something that just fascinated her as a filly and she got an apprenticeship to whoever did it in Ponyville prior to her (and who might still be competing with her). She might have started out on a farm working with animal manure and broadened her horizons.
She’s not unenthusted (although I see how that might come through in the text); however, she does recognize that Sam might have offered to help based on false pretenses--might have thought that she was going to be working with honeybees or something like that.
Sam’s got more of a problem with her bottom half going uncovered . . . she says I think in the first story that she gave up on shirts not long after winding up in Equestria, since clothes were expensive. She’s from a liberal province, where it’s been legal for women to go topless her whole life, so that’s not all that weird for her.
9525148
She’s probably about 5’5”, give or take an inch.
Pony houses generally seem to have larger than necessary ceilings, and pony beds sometimes seem like they’re bigger than they ought to be as well. So I think in a lot of places, a human could fit in without feeling overly crowded . . . the ceiling in my house is about 7’, and I’m 6’4” (ten meters :P), and that’s not really an issue. Well, I’d like them to be taller so I could put taller bookshelves in, ‘cause I’m running out of wall space, but that’s the only issue.
I suppose that’s one thing where headcanon could vary, of course. There is often inconsistency in how the show depicts something from the outside, vs. how it looks on the inside, and of course we don’t have a canon answer as to how tall ponies are in comparison to humans.
It would be, but by the same token, I don’t feel like it’s the kind of thing a unicorn would want to do.
9526040
In terms of professional civil engineers like we have these days, almost certainly. We only need to see how often civic projects fall down on their own in Ponyville to know a lot of their engineering is more of ‘that looks strong enough’ or ‘that worked when it was only two stories tall, so it ought to work for four as well.’
derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/2/2/541208.png
In fact, railroad engineers might be more prevalent in Equestria than civil engineers.
9526132 I am certain it was invented by Satan. (nods in self-assurance)
A story about shoveling sh- wait, this isn't going to turn into politics or modern journalism, is it?
9526868
No promises.
I am not certain that I could do this work without vomiting. I hand to turn down a promotion in inspection because I had to look into moving objects on an assembly-line and the headmovements cause severe motionsickness for me.
9526130
Well, one of those I wouldn't count since Pinkie was using balloons in the frame. Like Georg pointed out, I'm wondering if they'll harness the power of fluid anytime soon.
9527128
There are certainly some kinds of work that take a special person--or pony--to deal with. I don’t think I could do what Honey Dipper does, but I’ve had to deal with poop in my other job before.
I do know for an actual fact that I cannot deal with a chaos of kindergartners. I worked with the little ankle-biters for one day for a photojournal story; never again.
9527790
A fair point.
Although, I have to wonder, since magic is so pervasive in Equestria, if that’s a thing that might be taken into account in building construction. “Oh, we can get away with a 20% structural reduction if you only have ponies with framing cutie marks working on it.”
They do have the dam, so that’s something. And there was also a panning shot over Ponyville that showed a water wheel in one episode.
It’s possible that towns like Canterlot have a central hydraulic system, much like London used to. I think that would be an interesting detail for somebody to put in a fic.
I completely forgot to track this lol.
It's a dirty job, but someones got to do it. Probably pays pretty well to.
9536470
It is, but in a civilized society, it’s got to be done. And it does pay pretty well, because not many ponies want to do it.
Reading this sort of stuff makes me glad I live in the big city. No septic tank for me!
Hah, Honey Dipper. I love it, play off honey bucket.
Also limestone has to be her best friend. Not the pony, although... thats a good thought. We use limestone in our outhouse at camp. Helps break it down.
Another curious thought. Do you see pony poop like human or horse poop? There are several differences, but I feel like Sam would make a comment next chapter about that.
Sam can now change her name to Michelle Rowe, Host of Dirty Jobs: Equestria Edition!!!
9548414
You probably haven’t got a well, either, which can be its own set of issues.
9565411
Limestone’s good, and I think wood ash can be used, but I’m not absolutely sure on that. I feel like it’s something I came across once. Or just straight up lime.
I see it more like horse poop. Not all that unpleasant, certainly not compared to the human stuff.
9574905
She did mention in an earlier story that Mike Rowe would love Equestria . . . you’re right, though, she could totally host a show on how things are done in Ponyville.
A unicorn would be better for this, lol
9601333
Yes, totally, but what unicorn would want to do it for a living? None of them, that’s who.
This chapter is so full of horseshit
9608868
I know, right?
Still, based on research, equines are champion poopers, and somepony’s got to deal with it.
9604884
Don't be so stereotypical, or I'll start to suspect that you're just a pen name for Silver Glow.
I'm sure there are plenty of good working-class unicorns around, especially in a place like Ponyville. Look at Rarity's parents!
Of course, they might well also be in plenty of demand for the harvest.
9653156
Ah, crap, they’re on to me!
That’s actually an interesting question, one that I don’t think the show has ever answered. We know that Twilight can harvest all the apples in one go, and while she’s OP for a unicorn, it’s hard to imagine that an average unicorn couldn’t harvest one tree at a time.
At the same time, we know from the Winter Wrap-Up episode that they don’t want to use magic, which could either be stubborn traditionalism/tribalism, or it could really have an effect on the food crops. Maybe not as a one-time thing (AJ didn’t get mad at Twilight for helping with the apples), but it might be cumulative.
And if magic’s off the table, it could be that most unicorns lack the physical strength to do hooves-on work.
But even if all that’s true--even if we assume that unicorns are, in general, too weak to pull a plow or a harvester, and we also assume that using magic directly on crops is bad, there are likely support roles unicorns could do. I don’t think that a practical pony would turn down help if it was offered, not during harvest time.
I also do think that unicorns tend to prefer not doing physical labor, and generally wouldn’t be interested in emptying out outhouses.
9604884
9671244
I started writing a comment... just a few rambling paragraphs pondering Nature vs. Nurture, and how a unicorn might be raised to have no problems at all with digging out cesspits. It turned into a short story.
No True Unicorn... if you're interested.
9895309
That’s how it happens.
I am interested, thank you!
Wouldn't you want to put the (future) compost on the downwind side of your house..?
9939751
Yup, that would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?
Dunno how that one slipped by me, honestly. It’s fixed now; although there are print copies of the book where it’ll be forever immortalized.
I used to have to do that. Worst couple years of my life. I vowed never again.
11043766
I have also done that, and yeah, it’s rough.
Honey Dipper I get it
11138000
Sam found the wrong kind of job. But it pays well.