As he busied himself with unhitching the luggage cart, a cacophony erupted from the cabin where Valencia had disappeared into. “Out. Out! You too. I see you hiding behind the curtain you squatter. Shoo. This is our house now!” Her voice accompanied by various bangs and clatters.

Worried, Mosley leapt out of the loosened straps, and ran to the door. Just in time to be practically trampled by various wildlife! A family of opossum, (The largest of whom somehow scurrying with a regal bearing, and he could swear he saw a blue collar around its neck!) led the escape. Followed by squirrels, rabbits, and at the tail end was even a turtle. Or was it a tortoise?

“Valencia, are you all right, dear?” Worry seeping into his voice, as he trotted inside.

“Perfectly all right,” His darling wife responded, “Just evicting some squatters. Apparently this is rather desirable real estate.”

Looking around, Mosley absorbed the ambiance of their new abode, as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dim interior. It seemed structurally stable at least . . . “Oh sweet Celestia, is that the kitchen?” He exclaimed, seeing what had attracted the local wildlife. Empty, he hoped that they were all empty, food containers were heaped everywhere. He assumed that there was a sink beneath the water pump, but it, and the counter surrounding it, were completely buried by filthy dishes. He truly feared to open the icebox in the corner, if the rest of the area was a clue, its contents might well be dangerous.

Surprising him, Valencia led him away from the kitchen. “One thing at a time, Dear. We can take care of that . . . biohazard, in a minute. Let us see what other surprises await in here first.”

By comparison, the common area was fairly clean, and rather spacious. A table for four, with three sturdy chairs around it was near the pass way from the kitchen. Under the only window with curtains, rested a large plush couch, which was only moderately worn. “Well that is where the squatters came in,” He remarked, pointing his hoof at the broken window pane. “I will have to board that up until we can get replacement glass.”

Nudging open the door to the only bedroom, they were both relieved that Carmel did not practice the common bachelor habit of eating in bed. Aside from some papers, and other detritus, it was fairly clean. As Valencia tentatively looked under the mattress, however, another shock awaited.

“Bwawk!” Came the defensive cry of a large brown chicken with a bright red comb, as it darted to the open closet from under the bed.

To his astonishment, his demure mare followed the fowl calmly. “It will be all right, little one,” She cooed softly, “You are not in any trouble, and we chased out all those wild critters. No one will hurt you.” The frightened chicken started to edge out at the calming tone of her voice. Eventually nuzzling her head against Valencia’s leg. “Well, aren’t you just adorable! I think you look like an ‘Alice’. What do you think, Dear?”

Startled, he went into default agreement mode, “Of course, Precious. Alice certainly suits her,” While to himself he thought, ‘Alice? That is the weirdest name for a chicken I have ever heard. Why not ‘Clucky’, or ‘Elizabeak’?’ Then aloud, “What should we do with her, take her over to Applejack?”

“Whatever for, she came with the cottage didn’t she? She will certainly be of help with the plants, eating bugs and whatnot,” Came her instant reply, “Speaking of which, we should go and take a look to see if our field is in as bad a shape as our new home.”

Sadly, this seemed to indeed be the case. Other than a full crop of weeds, there were no plants growing that they could find. The soil was moist and dark, though, and from what he could remember from his youth spent farming a lifetime ago, it appeared to be rich and fertile. “Just like the cabin, the land is a fixer-upper. Ah well, we still have plenty of daylight left, I am going back to the farm and get supplies. Applejack said we could use anything of theirs that we needed. Aside from bits, that is.” He added reluctantly.

“Not that you can blame her,” cam the unnecessary barb from his wife, “Alice and I will see what work we can get done in your absence.”

Shoulders slumped, he transferred the luggage from the cart to the porch, re-hitched himself, and made the short trek back to the Sweet Apple Acres proper to gather what tools and repair supplies he thought would be needed.

As he crested their hill an hour later, he was startled by the sight that greeted him. In front of the porch was a giant pile of refuse that used to occupy the kitchen. Alice was busying herself pecking at various items here and there in the pile. Whether in search of leftover food, or pests, he would prefer to remain ignorant. Unhitching himself, yet again, he grabbed the materials he would need to close up the broken window, and went inside.

“Wipe your feet,” Admonished Valencia, without glancing his direction, “I just finished sweeping in here.”

“How did you do all this?” He could scarcely believe what was in front of him. Aside from the broken window, which now had all of the shards removed from the frame, the cabin was nigh immaculate. Even the cheap apple print wallpaper looked brighter, and not a speck of trash remained in sight.

“Well, Dah’ling, I cheated a bit with the trash. I found a snow shovel behind the cottage, so I just shoveled it all out the front door. Most of the dishes had to be discarded as well, I am afraid. Except for a hoof full, they were beyond salvage. I think some of them had been awaiting washing since Carmel first moved in here.” She glanced at the chicken wiping its feet, as it walked back inside, “Alice was a big help as well. She picked up all the little bits that the shovel couldn’t get. Such a delightful hen.” The chicken fluffed its feathers at the compliment.

“It is amazing, dearest, you both did an astounding job. This place is already looking like a home. Still a far cry from the penthouse of course,” At this her ears flattened, and her shoulders stooped. Seeing that her his comment had caused her good mood to deflate, he quickly diverted the topic, “Well, I got the materials to cover over the window, so I will jump on that. Then I thought it might be wise to check out the roof, Better to find out now if there are any major issues.” Valencia seemed to have closed down, “Um, I will just, get to work then.”

‘Something is off.’ The thought kept nagging him as he boarded up the window. While no handy-stallion, simplistic fixes, such as nailing a few pieces of wood in a straight line, were well within his abilities. ‘Valencia had seemed to be taking everything in stride. It wasn’t until today that she had given me any stress about what happened. In fact,’ He mused, ‘She even seemed to have enjoyed the cleaning of the cabin, of all things.’ He went outside to climb up to the roof. As he checked the shingles, occasionally nudging one with his hoof, his train of thought continued, ‘Everything must have sunk in once we actually arrived here. Or maybe it was me calling this place a home that triggered the issue. This was supposed to be a temporary situation after all, and within the first hour I am calling this shack a home.’ He bent down to inspect a loose shingle, ‘Even though she has been nothing but supportive, this must have been terribly hard on her, and she has borne it with nothing but her customary grace. From now on I really must do my best to help her maintain her optimism about our return to Manehatten.’

Having reaffirmed the direction of his mindset, he fetched the hammer and nails from below and secured the handful of loose shingles. Fortunately, none of them actually needed replacing. Apparently, despite the slovenly habits of the former occupant, the integrity of the cabin was in good fairly good shape.

Upon completing the roof maintenance, he turned and took in the view of the land spread before him from the vantage of the roof. Celestia’s Sun was still fairly high, and under its rays, the land seemed to glow with promise. While he had spent most of his life as a city pony, he had never truly forgotten his early years on the farm. Nostalgia began to creep into his heart as the potential crops began to grow before him in his mind’s eye.

Hearing the door close beneath him, Mosley shook himself out of his daydream, and climbed down. “How are you, Precious? Are you feeling up to doing some work in the fields, after all, the sooner we get things planted, the sooner we can get back to our old lives, right?”

Despite his attempt to put enthusiasm in his voice, Valencia looked even more downtrodden than earlier. “If you say so dear,” She sighed, “So, what takes priority out here?”

“Well, the first thing we need to do is the weeding,” He thought a minute, “Then I can evaluate the soil, so as to best pick our crops.”

“Um hmm,” Came her unenthusiastic reply, as she set off and started pulling out the unwanted greenery.

Since he could tell that she was not in the mood to chat, and surprisingly needed no direction, they went to work. Many first time weeders would consider the job done by just removing the visible leaves and stem, but most weeds were perfectly capable of re-growing from the buried root if left alone. Valencia appeared to know this, and took the care needed to do the job right.

He watched as her strong teeth gripped the stem. Using her nimble lips, she worked it back and forth against the ground. Slowly, she loosened the reluctant roots from their comfortable home. Until, feeling it finally ready for release, she whipped her head back with a flourish. The weed rocketed out of the ground with a spray of soil, looking as if it was ejected by the earth itself. All in the same motion, she released the plant as her head turned to the side, allowing its inertia to fly it over her shoulder and land on a pile of its fallen brethren.

Shaking his head in wonder at her beauty and grace during such a mundane task, he returned to his own task. While he did not have the . . . style that she did, he did have experience. Having moved from the farm as young as he did, weeding was one of the few chores that he did have first-hoof experience at. As such, he chose to use the Hori Hori tool.

While not necessary for many of the pest plants, the Japaneighse gardening knife was indispensable for the larger, spined, opponents that seemed prevalent on his side of the field. Because of the difficulty facing these hardier plants, it had early on become his habit to use it on every foe of flora. Recalling, as he set to work, that his young colt self had made the game of imagining it a magical blade, his ally in a sacred battle against a secret enemy invasion. 'For the Glory of the Sweet Apple Acres Gardening Battalion'. Ah, youth. Still, it did indeed prove a wise choice in this field, as many of the pests had been left alone long enough to become fully grown. Horse feathers, some were taller than himself, and had to be chopped down before he could even attack the roots.

The pair worked in silence, aside from the occasional explicative, and the time passed quickly. In fact, it took his stomach growling at him to even realize that it was dusk. Turning to call out to his wife, he realized that she had already called it a day. A good day, too. Between them, the field was well over a third cleared, and easily half was due to her diligence.

Seeing the light in the unbroken cabin window, he wondered what might be for supper. As far as he knew, they really didn’t have any food. It was likely late enough that the shops in town were already closed, but he supposed he could go over to the farm and buy a few days’ worth of food from Applejack. He mentally kicked himself for not doing that when he had gotten the supplies earlier today. Chagrinned at his foolishness, he went inside to wash up before asking for food from his niece.

Author's Note

The needing of a shovel to clean sadly came from real world experience.