A Day In The Life of Big MacIntosh

Some ponies reckon that, just because I'm a farmer, I'm woken up to the sound of a cockerel every morning. And, to some extent I guess, that would be true, but it hasn't really been the case since Apple Bloom came along. She's eleven, I'm nineteen, so I have a good few memories of life before the little yellow bundle of joy came along. AJ doesn't really remember such a time, even thought she was five when Apple Bloom arrived. But I suppose that's because she kinda had to grow up pretty fast after our parents passed. What with Granny getting on a bit, Apple Bloom being too young, and me being too...well, me, the duty of keeping the farm going fell squarely on AJ's shoulders, but we all do our best to lessen the load. Nowadays, I'd say me and AJ take 40% of the work each, Apple Bloom and Granny take about 10% each. I do the chores, Applejack handles full on buisness, since I'm too shy to haggle. The best I can do is stand by AJ and pretend to look formidable as she handles the actual business.

AJ has kinda taken the farm into her own hooves. Ma and Pa died when I was eleven, Applejack was eight, and little Apple Bloom was only three. She barely remembers them, and sometimes feels a little sad when she can't. But not for too long, me or AJ're always there to cheer her up. In my opinion, she got the good end of the stick. You can't miss what you never really had.

Anyway, I was woken up at my usual time of 6:30am, by the sound of Apple Bloom screaming her morning mantra,

"WHOO-HOO!" her voice rang in from across the hall, "It's a new day! A whole new day to earn mah cutie mark!" If it weren't for the fact that only AJ can tie her bow (Apple Bloom can't reach, Granny's hooves are too shaky and old, and my hooves are just plain huge) she'd probably already be out the door. Of my family, I'd say that I had the least "preparation" to do. I run a brush through my mane, just enough to make it sit flat...ish, pull on my yoke and I'm good to go. Every single one of us washes every day. I have a wash every evening, Applejack washes in the morning (to wake herself up, then she has to brush her mane properly, her tail too, tie it back and then put her hat on - see what I mean about me having to do the least?) Apple Bloom always goes just before dinner, when the day's crusading is done, when we can finally clean her up and she'll stay clean - at least until tomorrow. Granny washes sometime during the late morning, after we've all left to do our chores or left for school.

Back to the morning routine thing, Apple Bloom has to wait through all of "Applejack's Morning Ritual" (as I call it) for AJ to tie in her bow. But for all the time Applejack takes, I can't really blame her. My mane is short, so's my tail, so it's hard to get tangled. Applejack likes having a long tail and mane (one of the few female social conventions she doesn't mind) so she has to tie them back or they'll get muddled up and she'd be up all night every night trying to get it untangled. Granny's so slow and old that nopony feels right waking her up before she's good and ready. She'll usually come down about ten and get straight started on cooking lunch, and then on making apple pies, apple fritters, apple bumpkins, apple sauce, apple candies and anything else under Celestia's sun that has apples in it.

Because I have so little to do in the way of grooming, I can often score an extra five minutes or so as a quick lie-in. In a farmer's life, lie-in's that last longer than ten minutes are few and far between. So the extra five minutes I can get on a near-daily basis are a small blessing. The bed's still warm, I'm still comfy because I haven't moved a muscle, Smarty Pants is-

...er...Smarty Pants is...somewhere in Twilight's place. I mean, he's her doll, right? I didn't take him...and use him as a teddy-bear...SHUT UP!

Ahem, anyway: as a result of all this, I'm almost always the first one downstairs. That means I;m the one who makes breakfast. It's the same every morning. Coffee for me and Granny, orange juice for Applejack and Apple Bloom (Apple Bloom is too young for coffee, and AJ, for some reason, doesn't like the taste) two slices of toast for me, no butter; one slice with butter for both Apple Bloom and Applejack; bowl of cereal for Apple Bloom, an apple and a glass of milk for AJ. Simple enough, really.

Applejack is always the second one down, because Apple Bloom insists of packing her saddlebag for school the second before she leaves. So whilst I make breakfast, AJ sets about making a packed lunch for Apple Bloom. Carton of apple juice, cheese sandwich, some-sort-of-apple-based-treat-(usually-pie), normal apple and two bits for something extra if she wants it. The two bits often aren't spent, instead put in her piggy bank once she gets home from school.

After that's all done, me and AJ sit down and enjoy the few minutes of quiet we have before the day really begins. In applebucking or cider season, we discuss the day's work, in normal times, we either sit in silence or discuss current events. The most exciting early-morning-conversation we have on a regular basis is who's gonna drop Apple Bloom off at school. It was usually AJ until that incident with the love poison. I like Cheerilee with a friend, and the feeling's mutual, but Apple Bloom and her nutty friends have got it into their heads that we're secretly in love, so I'm usually dragged along in the mornings and forced into conversations with Cheerilee. Could be worse, I suppose, she is a very nice mare. To keep things interesting we've started making up stories, and saying them just loud enough so Apple Bloom and her friends hear it. Apple Bloom hasn't come into my room ever since I told Cheerilee that I have a pet spider in there. Of course, that's a lie, though for a brief period when I was six, I tried to keep a fruit bat as a pet. Sadly, I had to let Fruity go because he kept dive-bombing AJ. It wasn't Fruity's fault though, because Applejack insisted on eating her apples right next to his nest, and as slowly as ponily-possible.

After Pa died, I had to become the stallion of the family. I do most of the heavy lifting, and a straight half of the applebucking. AJ does the rest of both of those things. We both help Granny cook, all four of us help make cider, and we all help keep the house clean and tidy. In short, we all do our part, we all earn our keep. Like I said, 40, 40, 10, 10.

But even though I do exactly the same amount of work as Applejack (possibly less if you count AJ's practically raising Apple Bloom as her own) I always feel like I do the most. Not in the angsty teen "it's not fair!" kind of way, just, I feel like I do. Honestly, it gives me a sense of pride. I certainly take on a fair few of the jobs that nopony else wants to do (except maybe AJ, but she'll only to them if I'm not around to do them for her) and I take on a few jobs that nopony else can do. But we'll get to that later.

For now, I was sitting, eating my dry toast and drinking my coffee, thinking about what needed doing. It was that sweet rest-period between Zap-Apple season and applebuck season. Our yearly calendar is something like this:

December - March: Doing what we can to make it through the winter, selling cider mostly, but no actual work in the fields

April - June: Zap-Apple season

July - September: Applebuck season.

September - November: Cider season

Anyway, bottom line, work in the fields was pretty light about this time. This was usually the time of year when me and Applejack go around and fix anything that needs fixing. We have plenty of money from the Zap-Apple jam, and plenty of time. Not to mention, the weather's good so we can work late, and leave things out to set or dry overnight. Also, the storms are usually on their way by now, we want to the roof working at it's best. After Ma and Pa died, there was the three-year-long period in which we really had to scrape by. Me and AJ were too young to help around the farm to any decent degree, and Granny, even then, was too old to do that work, so we had to hire help.

I was just thinking that I might go into town and maybe see a friend for the day when Apple Bloom came racing down the stairs, pounced on her chair and started attacking her breakfast. Applejack watched this with mild amusement, and mouthed "Good luck" before she slammed her hoof down on the edge of her plate, sent the apple on it flying into the air, catching it in her mouth and swallowing the whole thing in one bite. Then she stood up and went out to start her chores.

This is one thing I will never understand. She has a smaller mouth than me, she's younger than me, yet I can't for the life of me do that. I either miss my mouth completely, or the apple is too big for me to swallow in one. AJ gets it square in her mouth every time, and has no problem swallowing it whole. This is one of the few things about her that never fail to annoy me. Most of the time we get on fine, being adults (near enough) and having more important things to do (like run the farm, look after Apple Bloom and Granny ect), but there are some things about me that will always rub her the wrong way, and vice-versa. As a result, I started eating with my mouth open, causing her to wrinkle her muzzle, then stick her tongue out at me before she left the kitchen for the fields.

Apple Bloom was giving me that look whilst she ate her cereal. That "how am I going to make you confess your love to Miss Cheerilee today?" look. It was usually something like "pretend it's teacher's day so I can buy flowers on the way to school, then make Big Mac give them to her" Cheerilee had been kind enough to feign hay-fever the fifth time it happened, so nopony else would grow suspicious of the flowers and think we really were in a relationship. She's a lovely mare, and a great friend, but honestly, just not my type.

Apple Bloom stayed staring at me, and I started to get a little nervous. That filly is an evil genius, and her obsession with potions didn't stop with the love poison. She visits Twilight with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle every week for lessons in potion making, and she practices both at home (she turned the spare room into a lab) and at Zecora's hut. Zecora's nice, and I never grow tired of her stories. I've always wondered what life beyond Equestria's borders is like, where the Griffons and Zebras and Dragons live, and Zecora has no end of incredible stories. We should have her round for dinner... I think, and we should, to thank-slash-apologise her having to deal with Apple Bloom constantly. It's a wonder she hasn't blown up Zecora's house yet - although she did come close with our guest bedroom a few weeks ago. Thankfully, she was sensible enough to buck it out of the window when it started making a strange noise. Bottom line, we were thinking of putting a flower bed in front of the farmhouse, and the plowing has been taken care of.

After I've dropped Apple Bloom off at school, had a nice (if slightly pressured) talk with Cheerilee, I make my way back through town to meet up with Applejack. In the times of year when there isn't much work to do in the fields, the two of us can afford to stand by the apple cart and sell - at the very least, it means we can serve more ponies, and it's a little less boring. Of course, I'm not necessarily needed, because AJ can handle herself just fine on her own, she's proven that many a time. I stand by the cart partly to keep her company, and partly to keep an eye on the stallions that she serves.

Applejack may not flaunt her looks like Rarity does, but she is (in Granny's words) a "natural beauty". As her brother, I can't really give an accurate judgement, but I guess she's pretty enough. The local boys certainly think so, I've seen them, pretending to be sweet when they tell their parents that they'll by the apples today, when really they just want a few minutes where they can hit on AJ. I'm not entirely sure if she's aware of it, because she's a smart mare, but she never gets cross when they flirt. Then again, they do offer to pay more, so I expect she does know, she's just using it to her advantage. Never to extreme extents, though, sometimes she gets a couple extra bits by fluttering her eyelashes, but she never does anything more than that.

Some part of me knows I'm being over protective. More than once Granny's said that the Ponyville branch of the Apple Family Tree is gonna end with the three of us, because I'm too shy to talk to any mare that I'm not related to, and according to AJ, I scare off every potential coltfriend within a three-mile-radius. I can't say I'm not glad that that's the case, because you have to keep an eye out for the bad apples in the bunch. One time, last February, I was out putting the final touches on the roof for the spring showers, so Applejack was running the town-cart on her own. Some stallion, and she refused to tell me in case I kill him, had absolutely no concept of personal space or boundries. Even after Applejack told him to knock it off twice, he carried on doing...whatever, she never specified, but she assured me it was nothing major. Anyway, bottom line: he had two hoofprints in his torso where AJ had bucked him so hard he crashed into the fountain wall and fell in.