twilightpony | Getting Nervous Nellies To Chillax

The Ponyville Hay Board met today, so of course I went. By now most, if not all of Ponyville knows that I had been abducted by changelings. I think some ponies are giving me a wide berth, like I might attract changelings, or worse, that I might actually be a changeling. At the meeting, several members were looking askance at me, staring until I looked their way. Maybe they hoped to catch me dropping my disguise. Every time I shifted position or even just twitched, almost everypony there cringed and looked ready to bolt out the door. One pony was sweating heavily. I got fed up. I put my hooves on the table and told them in no uncertain terms that I was not a changeling, that I did not have changeling cooties, and that I would appreciate if everypony at the table would just chillax and get on with the meeting. There was a stunned silence. A few ponies cleared their throats, then one nervous voice chimed in, stuttering. What is a chillax? So I had to explain, as best could, through examples and etymology, Rainbow Dash's vague portmanteau term, how it isn't a contraction, and with a brief mention of Levade Corral's Harness In Wanderland, from whence originated the term "portmanteau". That took about seven minutes. Several ponies had glazed looks and one had to be nudged awake. But they stopped looking at me like I was going to sprout fangs and suck the love out of them.

As predicted, we have a fairly big surplus of first cut hay. The Crystal Empire recovered nicely from their wild growth problem and they didn't need the 20% of our harvest that we had set aside. We are going to wait until just before the first cut next year before going ahead with the plan to use that hay as building material. We'll probably use it to build the walls of a hay barn or a silage warehouse. The architecture would be quite different from what we usually see in Ponyville, so it will be tucked away out of sight in one of the new fields.

Overall, our early-cut strategy is working and we are getting good prices for our hay. If the grass grows faster and stronger in the spring, we plan on continuing with the same strategy next year.