A Break in Apple Bucking Season
Relaxing with a Broken Promise
“Up an at ‘em, Apples!” I holler, standing in my usual spot between Apple Bloom’s and Big Mac’s doorways so they’d both hear me. “Breakfast is waitin’ for ya downstairs!”
I flatten my ear against Big Mac’s door and listen for any sign that he woke up. Sure enough after a second I hear his bed creak and a few heavy hoofsteps on the wooden floor so I know he’s out of bed. Next I sidestep and put my ear against Apple Bloom’s door for the same purpose. I can already hear the adorable little yawning noises she makes when she stretches sits up in bed. I can practically see her rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and slowly blinking as she greets the new day.
Stepping back from the door I nod to myself and head down the creaky staircase past Granny’s room. I pay her closed door no mind as she doesn’t help us with the outdoor chores anymore, so there’s no reason to wake her up this early. Sometimes I’m actually grateful she’s so hard of hearing or else I’d be worried about waking her up by accident when I wake up my brother and sister.
When I reach the bottom of the stairs I turn to the right to get the table ready for the first meal of the day. At this point I’ve already been up for almost an hour and I prepared breakfast right after I finished milking the cows.
By the time my siblings join me, leftovers of sleep still etched into their features, I’ve got the table all set up for them.
“Mornin, li’l sis!” I smile as my little sister reaches the bottom of the stairs, followed by my big brother.
“Mornin’,” she yawns. Her bow is crumpled and battered from a night of rest. I still don’t get why she sleeps with that thing on. I mean, it’s the cutest gosh-darn thing you ever saw, but still.
“Good mornin’, Big Mac!”
“Eeyup.” His eyes were barely open and he swayed back and forth a little as he walked. He was never much of a morning pony.
They both sit down to a plate of hay hash browns, fried potatoes, applesauce, and a pitcher of fresh milk to wash it all down. I already ate while I was cooking so I take this time to explain the game plan.
“Welcome to the last day of Apple Bucking Season! Today we’ll hit the last section of the orchard and gather up the rest of the apples. I figure me and Bloom can handle that while you work on building the new chicken coop, Big Mac.”
Normally this is when I’d expect an “Eeyup” from my brother but today he just turns his head to look out the window. Raindrops drumm against the glass panes and trickle down the outside. Despite it being time for the sunrise the thick layer of clouds blocks out the light and leaves everything in a pretty dim, gloomy atmosphere.
“Do we really have to?” my sister asks imploringly, making a pouty face you wouldn’t believe.
“Well… yes,” I answer hesitantly. It’s not like my sister to complain about her chores. She always has a good attitude towards manual labor, just like any other Apple. “Those apples aren’t gonna buck themselves.”
“It’s just, we’ve been buckin’ apples all week. We’re gettin’ tired,” she pleads, glancing over at Big Mac for confirmation.
I can see the battle between pride and fatigue flare up and quickly die with a whimper before he answers, “Eeyup.” He looks at me with his head lowered slightly, apparently ashamed that he’d let his work get the best of him.
“Plus the weather’s just so nasty,” Apple Bloom continues. “Do you really wanna go outside and spend all day in the rain?”
After years of practice I’m finally getting to be able to resist my sister’s adorable little begging pose, but something about her tired eyes and crumpled bow really gets me. I find myself looking outside with the same expression my brother had worn just a minute ago.
“Not really,” I admit as much to myself as to my siblings. With a strange mixure of hope and anxiety I ask, “but don’t y’all want ta get the last day of Apple Bucking Season outta the way? We’ve been lookin’ forward ta this all week.”
“Those apples’ll still be there tomorrow. We’ve got days before they start falling on their own,” she points out. It’s a pretty good point, I admit. There’s not any real reason that we need to get done apple bucking today other than my stubborn pride. When I woke up this morning and saw the weather I promised myself I wouldn’t let it stop me from wrapping up Apple Bucking Season, but I hadn’t stopped to think of the rest of my family.
I sigh and look out the window again, considering my options. Defeatedly I reply, “Alright. We can take the day off. We’ll finish the last section of the orchard tomorrow. Now eat your breakfast.”
My siblings smile and start to chow down with an abrupt enthusiasm that can only come from unexpected good news. I disappear from the table and venture another floor down to one of our many storage rooms. When I return my brother and sister are almost finished eating.
“As soon as y’all’re done why dontcha come over to the living room and we can play a game of AppleLand,” I beam, waving some board games in my hooves for them to see.
“Eeyup!” my brother nearly shouts, his ears perking up. For some reason he’s a huge fan of board games.
“Oh, alright!” my sister cries with joy. I feel like she would be as excited about any other relaxing activity. She really just needs a break from all her hard work. We all do, actually.
The two of them gulp down the last of their breakfast and rush into the living room where I’m waiting with the board of AppleLand already set up.
“Oh! Oh! I wanna be yellow!” Apple Bloom announces as she throws herself down next to the board.
“Okay,” I laugh, putting the yellow piece in the starting position. “And I’m guessing you’ll be red?”
“Eeyup,” my brother smiles.
“And I’ll be green,” I pause, “to match my eyes.”
The three of us giggle. That’s sort of a long-running joke between the three of us. We can’t remember how it started or why we thought it was funny but I always play as green to ‘match my eyes’. It doesn’t matter why. We laugh together anyways.
With our little color-picking ritual complete, we start to play. We laugh our way through AppleLand, pointing out details on the board we never noticed and making jokes that only we would understand. Soon we move on to another game and we take turns playing Battlepony and trying to guess where the opponent hid their pieces.
After an hour or two Granny Smith ambles down the staircase and joins us after grabbing some apples from the kitchen. As a family we while away the hours playing charades, Guess Who, and just about every other game we can think up.
At some point Apple Bloom points out that the sky has cleared up and the sun is starting to break through the clouds. We all get up to gather around the window and look at the weather.
“Don’t worry,” tell her with a smile, patting her cute little head. “We can still wait till tomorrow to go back to work.”
“I reckon it’s still mighty muddy out there,” I wink. “And we wouldn’t want ta tear up all that wet grass, now would we.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” she grins.
“Nope,” Big Mac concurs.
“Alright then,” I head back to our pile of board games, still grinning. “What should we play next?”
I know I promised myself I’d be more productive today, but sometimes keeping promises isn’t as important as spending time with the ponies you love. Just seeing them have so much fun together makes today better than any Apple Bucking Day I can remember.
Author's Note
I wrote this for the Equestria Daily Writer's Training Ground #014. The prompt was "Making a promise is the easy part. Keeping it, on the other hoof...".
I was actually considering just not writing a story this week because I had no ideas at all, but I forced myself to write this just because I've made it so far already without quitting. So here it is. I don't like it.
Thanks for reading, though! Sorry if you don't like it.
