Friday, November 16, 2007

Mango Mania

As summer approaches here the mangoes start to drip and droop down from the fabulous tree in our back yard. From late October through to Christmas we tend to collect between 15 and 30 of the things a day. And that's not including the ones the neighbor kids reach through the fence to steal or the few Amadou the guard saves for himself before giving us the day's collection. I've been freezing most of them to use throughout the year in my banana-mango bread.

I'm told that snakes like mangoes a lot too and that we might want to pull the swing set a bit forward so as to avoid an unwanted snake-on-head-while-swinging type of incident, but then there just wouldn't be any shade for the kids. And doesn't the American swing set just look so pleasantly out of place under a mango tree?

Here's a bunch I'm just waiting to grab when they fall:

Every morning Amadou strolls around and picks up the masses of mangoes on the ground. If you're in the vicinity you can hear them fall when they hit. I guess it's just a matter of time before one bonks a swinging kid on the head. Will make for a wonderful childhood memory, though. (The best story I myself have is of a bird pooping on my head while walking to school one day - much less exotic.)

Here he is with a few from the morning's harvest:

And this is what we got this morning. Yummmmm. Definitely worth dodging the mosquitoes for!