Apples

It's like this: due to some idiocy, there are no locally grown apples on sale here in any shops. There are some at the farmer's market but not a lot and those are expensive as hell. People generally just let their apples rot under the trees. It doesn't pay to pick them up and sell them to supermarkets. The result: we have Polish apples, Chinese apples (the Chinamen are more industrious, so it seems! but to transport apples from the other side of the globe ... that, in my book, is idiocy!) and apples from Holland (everything produced in Holland -tomatoes, cucumbers, apples - is pretty to look at and equally tasteless). 

A few days ago when walking with Kuru, the dog, we came by an apple tree in the middle of our neighbourhood of aparment buidlings. The reason for it being there must have been that there were farmhouses here in the olden days. The tree was laden with small red apples. I picked and ate some ... they were just heaven: sweet but not excessively so with a tart and tangy taste.
Now, I've never been an apple person myself. I remember how my mother used to force-feed me apples, saying: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away!" Well, that's enough to have a child detest apples in no time at all. But that was before. Before our own local apples became a rarity. And now ... oh, I could kill for a decent apple. You just don't know how to appreciate things until they are gone. 

So today, I took a plastic bag and Kuru and I took a trip to pick some more apples. We met a neighbour on the way with her small dog and she too decided to come along. When there, we filled my plastic bag and her pockets with apples ... the dogs didn't like the apple picking nor the walk though. They would have went in some other direction. So in the end, there were two happy humans with their loot and two disappointed dogs, tails down, dragging their feet. The smaller dog, Jackie, got so "tired" that she had to be carried home by her doting mistress. The look of triumph on her face when she got what she wanted, namely, picked up! And the pure envy on Kuru's face because he, poor lad, is too big to be carried. 

The apples are all washed now and they look so nice on the kitchen table. There are considerable less of them on the tray than there was a few hours ago ... if they continue to disappear at that rate, I'll have to make another trip tomorrow! And in case you wonder, the yellow things are aubergines (not sure about the name) that my friend grows. 

I'm basically writing this to remind us all, including myself, that this is not the kind of advancement we need. People should be eating stuff grown where they live, unpolluted, natural stuff and not things from the other side of the world. 

Seriously ... I wonder if the Chinamen are eating Estonian apples now ???