8/20/10

Picking mangoes in Florida

Last month, I posted Small is Beautiful. I had mentioned a mango tree with fruits hanging so low even a child could pick them. Well, somebody picked them all right. And it was not somebody we knew.
Mangoes hanging low
That mango tree stood at the corner of my aunts' house, a corner that is not visible from their windows. One evening, my aunts went out and proudly counted over 100 of them delicious mangoes.

Lo and behold, those mangoes were all gone the very next day! Apparently, somebody stole them right under their nose! Not a single mango was left on the tree. Incredible, isn't it? This person was not only trespassing on someone's property, but she or he or they had the audacity to pick over 100 mangoes off the tree!

Granted, my 60 to 85-year-old aunts and uncles live in a house next to their grocery store in a little strip mall. Next to their property is a busy restaurant whose customers go in and out all day long. Still, trespassing on someone's property is illegal.

The fruits of their labor, and the hopes and anticipation of tasting those sweet juicy mangoes ... all dashed, in one night. Just like that. So sad :-( Luckily, other fruit trees were not touched. There were  lychees, sugar apples, and mangoes from another tree. We were fortunate to be around to savor them all, and they were amazingly sweet.
Lychee tree
sweet juicy lychees!

Sugar apples
Mangoes from another tree

2019 was a bountiful year
for these sweet delicious mangoes.


Updated 5/21/21

You might also like:
Happy Chinese New Year Cruising during the dog days of summer Have yard sale, will travel