Apples along the fjords

It must have been September the year I was
seven years old.
Our family was going by car to one of the fjords
in Western Norway to pick fruit
- primarily apples and pears.
The fjords often have the surrounding
mountains raising nearly straight
from the water, but there are also some strips
of land where people live, have small farms,
or make a living from fishing.
These days I imagine many live from tourism.
Some of the farms are/were based on fruit orchards.

When I was a child, sometimes these fruit growers
would come to our village and the families
would buy so and so many boxes
of apples, pears and plums.

But you could also cross the mountains,
descend into the fjord regions and pick
your own fruit and pay according to
how much you had picked.

Considering the travel and the time involved
getting there, I imagine it was the experience
of having picked your own fruit my parents
were out for.

It had rained, the earth was wet and muddy,
and I remember sliding barefoot from one terrace
to the other, helping pick the apples.

The smell of the fresh earth and the ripe apples.
The taste of those apples.
The feeling of mud between my toes.
Those are the things still fresh in my memory,
so many years later.

Photographers: Cheryl and/or Barak