Honeygold the farmer gave me a quizzical look. "You want to try... bucking apples?"

"If it's not a problem for you..." I temporized.

"Naw, you can have a go, sure enough. But here's more to it than just kicking things hard."

"I understand. I'll try to be humble."

"I could tell you what to try for, but I think you'll understand what I say better if you have a go first. See what you can do to knock the apples offa this tree."

I closed my eyes and concentrated on my hooves touching the earth, trying to feel and think like an Earth pony. The ground was magical, so was I. I was a part of it. The earth gave up its gifts to us, and we returned its favor by cultivating it and caring for it, and ultimately planting our mortal bodies back into it. I thought I could feel a warmth rising up into me, lending me its strength. I leaned onto my forelegs and unleashed my rear legs at the tree. There was a great whacking dust-raising thud as my hooves made firm contact with the bark and I felt my momentum being absorbed as I shuddered to a halt. It was a real firm no-nonsense horse kick, and I was proud of it. I looked up.

And nothing happened, for a moment.

Then, one little apple fell from the tree and stuck on the point of my horn. Apple juice squirted in my face and I winced and shook my head.

Honeygold's face contorted weirdly for a moment, and I thought I had done something bad. But she was just trying to be polite enough not to bray with laughter in my face. She failed, and wound up rolling on her back, guffawing and stomping the ground, only to look back up at me before losing control again. Eventually she rolled back to her feet.

"Oh, haw! I am so... sorry, I didn't mean to make fun'aya... Snrrrk.."

"Oh, it's okay. That did look pretty silly, and you did warn me." I telekinesed the apple off my horn and offered it to her.

She waved it away. "Why'nt you just go ahead and eat that one - we can't sell it with a hole in it... Now look, this ain't something like just kicking a ball. These apples are alive, being held up by a living tree. It's the tree's job to hold the apples and give them water and nutrients and life, and the apples've got to cling to the tree to get it. You with me so far?"

I nodded as I finished off the apple.

"Well, neither the tree nor the apples want to let go before the job is done. And left to theirselves, those apples will someday get the idea that they're done and drop off the tree one by one... but by then most will be after spoiling, which is natural, 'cause a spoiling apple is just an apple's way of trying to make another tree. That's good for the trees but it ain't good for us who're doing the cultivation. So we've got to give the tree, like, a solid jolt to get its attention and ask it real nice if it'll let go of the ripe apples a bit early. It knows that we'll take care of it and see to it that its seeds get planted to make more trees. So it trusts us and lets go. And the apples get the idea that they'll be doing something useful by feeding ponies instead of making trees, so they go willingly. Still following me?"

I wasn't entirely used to thinking of a tree or apple as things that could have ideas, but I only said, "Clear as spring water."

"Okay. Now I'll do one. Just stand back and watch and keep in mind what I just told you."

She planted her forehooves hard on the ground, and I felt a rush of magic flowing through the ground. there was a surge, but the ground charge didn't deplete. The magic was in her. She leaned forward, curled her hind legs and delivered a kick that seemed to shiver the ground... but the energy wasn't from the momentum of her kick but the magic field within her entering the tree. I felt it in the trunk and the ground and the pulse of the magic field. And right after came the deluge of apples, falling straight into the baskets...