This Art Has Been In My Family For Generations

“Morning, Applejack!”

“Mornin’ Rares, Twi.” Applejack caught a falling apple on her back and slipped it into a basket. “What brings you around?”

Twilight coughed, but Rarity held her mouth shut. “Twilight here wanted to know about the Apple family’s relation with Ponyville’s plumbing system.”

Applejack squinted. Rarity’s grin became slightly strained, a bead of sweat going down her brow. “Hmm,” Applejack said. Then, she brightened up, flicking her hat back. “Why, this is a skill us Apples have practiced for generations!”

Twilight rolled her eyes at Rarity’s antics, and pushed her marefriend’s hoof down. “That sounds amazing, Applejack. What is it?”

“Instead of explaining, how about I just show you?” With a smirk, Applejack bowed, holding her hat to her chest. When she straightened back up, however, her hat stayed in the same spot while the rest of the mare disappeared below the hat.

Twilight starred with incomprehension at the hat sitting on the ground without its mare anywhere nearby. The hat started sliding towards her. “Eep!”

“Hup.”

“Gah!” Twilight jumped into the air. Rarity snorted as she stepped to the side.

Applejack climbed out of the ground behind the unicorns, flipping her hat back onto her head. “So, what do you think?”

Twilight stared at the tiny hole Applejack brushed over. “...How? What?”

“Its a technique us Apples have used to set up and maintain our farms,” Applejack explains proudly. “Y’know how sand kinda, floats, if you blow air through it? We’ve taught each generation to cover ourselves in this flowin’ air pocket. We push the air through the soil until they start bouncing around enough to fall through like quicksand.”

“Wow, that’s amazing!” Twilight said.

“Yup. Many generations back, we learned this in order to manage irrigation when access to pegasus rain was scarce. Softening up the soil made it easy to divert waters from the nearby rivers, open or close the path as needed.

“When Granny first got here to set up Ponyville, she brought her knowledge of manipulating irrigation canals with her when the first ponies were planning Ponyville’s plumbing system. She offered her skills in order to loosen a path for the pipes to be laid.

“The hard part is bringing something along with you. Loosening the soil around yourself is easy, but anything longer than your own body length gets you stuck tighter than a pig in a barrel. She had needed help digging up more of the dirt than she expected to, but still heck of a lot faster than shovels alone.”

Twilight smiled and stamped her hooves. “That’s extremely inciteful, Applejack. Thanks for telling us.”

“Aw, shucks, that ain’t nothing,” Applejack said, rubbing her neck, blushing slightly. “If you want to see something wild, you should go visit Rainbow.”