A/N Please note, the Rarity chapter occurred on a Monday. In terms of the story, this chapter takes place on a Tuesday. Also, I just wanted to apologize 1. for this being so late, and 2. for any typos. I just had a Winterguard rehearsal, and I am very tired. 1

Fluttershy woke to the sound of her clucking chickens. Sleepily, she gazed over at her old, battered red alarm clock. Six a.m. Time to get up. She rolled out of bed, and fluffed her feathers and started to get ready. First she went down to her kitchen. Her kitchen was a small room with a one burner stove, and a small counter. What should I have for breakfast? she wondered.

There weren't many options. War rations were small, and she didn't like to hoard the food she farmed for herself. She decided to simply eat Oaty-O's. A bland cereal that was nothing more than oats with a light sugar glaze. She poured her Oaty-O's into a chipped blue bowl, and splashed some milk inside. She only allowed herself one jug of milk per week. It was such a luxury, and she needed to sell it to make her living.

She lived outside of Baltimare, and sold everything she farmed to pay for her land. She worked all day, woke up early and stayed up late just to make ends meet. Ends meet? Oh no! Her payment to the real estate company was due by the end of the week, and she didn't have nearly enough Bits. 500 Bits due in three days, and she only had 224 Bits.

After she ate all her Oaty-O's she put her bowl in her sink, and put on her old green boots. She gently flew out her front door. The ranch is so beautiful in the sunrise. Her first task of the day was to milk the cows. She gracefully flew over to the cow barn, and grabbed a bucket from her storage closet. She began with her first cow, Ema. When she was done milking Ema, she had filled her bucket up halfway. She moved on to her second cow, and filled the bucket. She moved through her six cows and when she was done, she had three buckets of milk. When she sealed all the buckets, she flew back to her storage room.

Behind her big storage room where she kept buckets, hay and shovels, there was a magical room. She had it enchanted by a powerful unicorn. It was cold in that room, permanently. That was where she stored her milk and eggs. To keep them fresh. Frontlines paid so much more when the milk and eggs were properly stored. She neatly stacked two of the buckets on top of the current stack. With her third bucket she began a new stack. She counted her buckets. 10 buckets of milk. That is more than usual. Maybe she would get enough to pay her bills.

With all the cows milked, she the six of them out into her pasture.

"Good girls." Fluttershy murmured.

The cows grazed in a little group, and Fluttershy began to clean their stables. She used her shovels to scoop out the old bedding, and laid more out. After she disposed of the old bedding, she refilled their water troughs.

The cow were taken care of. Time to move on to the chickens. She unlocked the hatch of the chicken coop's door, and it flew open with a creak. The chickens swarmed out in a stampede of feathers, and Fluttershy flew ahead of them and opened the gate. The chickens continued to run through the gate and into the pasture to join the cows. All of her animals shared a pasture, it was easier to keep track of them, and it costs less that way.

With the chickens outside, she began to collect the eggs in a small, woven basket. The ten chickens had produced eight eggs for today. After she set the eggs safely aside she began to clean out their nests. She replaced the hay in their nests, filled the water trough, and poured seed into their food tin. The chickens were taken care of and would return to their coop at sunset.

Tomorrow was sheep sheering day, so all she had to do today was clean up after the sheep. She swiftly cleaned the stables, put them out to pasture, and refilled their water and feed bowls. When all the animals were tended to, she flew to her small wheat patch, and began to pull the weeds out of the soil.

She had to tend this patch of wheat. She could never afford to buy food in town for the animals, so she was forced to grow it herself. A few of the sprouts were growing taller in the corners, and she watered them to help them grow. None of the plants were ready to be harvested, so she moved on. She was starting a project behind the cow barn, and it would hopefully help her save money on food.

She wanted to plant a garden and grow most of her own food. Of course it had to be manageable. She couldn't hire anyone to tend a huge garden, so it had to be small. She decided to make it 3x3 feet big. One square foot per crop. All she had to do now was decide what to grow. But, it was lunch time and she needed to eat in order to keep up the work. She trotted back into her home for lunch.

When she looked in the pantry, she saw she had half a loaf of stale bread, and a few scoops of strawberry jam. She slapped a little jam on a slice of the bread, and ate it distastefully. She poured herself a glass of water and downed the whole thing. She gulped, and went back outside, and back to her new garden.

Every square foot of her garden was separate from the others, each surrounded by a wooden box. Tomorrow she would go to town to buy some seeds to start growing her food, but first the plots needed to be ready. She used a shovel to till the dirt. Since all the farm work for the day was complete, and nothing needed repairs, she worked on the garden until sunset.

Sunset? Time to bring the animals in, eat dinner, and go to bed. A long day tomorrow. She put her shovel in the storage closet of the cow barn, and went to the gate. She had a whistle hanging from a hook on a fence post. She picked it up a blew it, calling the animals in for the night. When they all returned to their pens she went to her home, where she put together a small salad dinner of old lettuce. After chocking the nasty salad down, she went to bed on her lumpy mattress.

(Wednesday)

Fluttershy woke up and clumsily flopped of her bed. She shakily stood up and started her day with more stale Oaty-O's, and the last of her milk. She repeated her steps from the day before. Milking, cleaning, feeding, collecting eggs, cleaning, feeding. But this time she sheared the sheep. Cutting off all the wool with precision. After shearing all ten of them, she had two big brown baskets full of wool.

She carried them, taking two trips, and put them both near her tools in the storage closet. Tomorrow she would sell all the things she had collected over the past month, and hopefully make enough to pay her bills. She had 20 Bits saved up to pay for food, or anything else she might need. All the other money had to go toward paying for her land. She only had two more payments left before the land was legally hers. This payment, and the next.

After all the animals were tended to she packed her saddle bag and started to fly towards Baltimare.

When she finally arrived in Baltimare, the city streets were bursting with busy ponies. She saw laborers, and seamstresses, and all sorts of different ponies. The one thing they all had in common, none of them were happy. All of them bustling about, not paying any attention to one another. To avoid the pulsing crowd of shoving ponies, she flew slightly above the crowd, as she had seen pegasi do on her previous trips to Baltimare.

It was time for lunch, but she needed to buy her seeds before spending money on lunch. The farming depot shop was two blocks down. Unlike the ponies that worked and lived in the city, she did not have all day. Hustling towards the farming shop, she passed many dull shops, and even more unhappy ponies. A bakery, and a farmer market, and several others, until she came upon the farming shop.

It was a crowded shop. Not because it was full of ponies, but because there were shelves and displays, crowding the walkways in between. The shop had a grand total of two ponies inside. Fluttershy, and the odd shopkeeper pony. He was odd, because he was smiling. A smiling pony in the midst of a sea of unhappy ponies.

"Hello, and welcome to my shop!" the pony cheered.

"Hello..." Fluttershy said warily, "Sir, if you don't mind my asking, why are you so happy?"

"Well," he replied,"because I might be the luckiest pony in Baltimare. All those unhappy ponies, doing jobs they were forced into, but I... I get to do what I was meant to do." he said as he gestured to his Cutie Mark.

It was a simple shop. That was his destiny, to run a shop. "Well good for you sir. I um, I'm starting a little garden and I need some seeds. Any recommendations?"

"Well yes, of course. Is this garden for food, or something else?'

"Food."

"Okay then, what kind of foods would you like to grow"

"Well, I've got nine square feet of garden, one square foot per crop, and maybe a berry bush on the side."

"Great, I know exactly what you need. First off, a tomato plant will grow fine in such a small spot. And for your berry bush, I would recommend a blackberry bush. It will grow to a nice size and produce many berries." he said as he placed two packages of seeds in front of her. "Oh, I forgot to ask. How much are you willing to spend on these here seeds?"

"10 Bits, will that be enough?"

"That will be more than enough, miss."

Fluttershy smiled at the news. "Oh, wonderful. What else do you think I should grow?"

"So nine crops, and a bush, and you need eight more. Correct?"

"That's right!"

"Great! Strawberry plants are small, so about four will fit in the plot. Carrots will grow nicely if planted in uniform rows. Potatoes, and radishes will grow well if you treat them the same as carrots. One lettuce plant can grow quite large in a square foot."

He rambled on about plants, and how to grow them. And Fluttershy listened intently. When he was done ranting about plants, Fluttershy picked out the ones she wanted. When she left she had a bag full of seeds, and a pot the shopkeeper gave to her for free. He was a kind pony, and obviously very happy. When all her purchases had been made she had 12 Bits left. Plenty of money for lunch. After eating at a fast-food wagon, she was back on her way to Butterfly Ranch.

A/N Once again I just want to apologize for how late this chapter is. I worked until midnight to get it done, and I really hope you enjoy this. The next chapter will take place on Thursday. Please leave reviews and rest assured that I have worked out a schedule for writing.