Mango Madness

Our treasured mango tree

I have always loved mangos. You know those hard somewhat tasteless red fruits that you buy for a dollar each(on sale!) in the grocery store back home. I never dreamed I would one day live where they grew on the trees around town and even in my own backyard. We have the biggest mango tree in our yard. Not only do we love it for its shade, it gave off a bumper crop this year. This variety isn't my favorite, as it is more to just suck on, as it isn't very meaty. It also leaves lots of "strings" in your teeth.  Rudi estimated that our tree had around 4000 mangos on it. Some of the branches were almost touching the ground with how heavy it was with fruit. We threw away and gave away MANY mangos from our tree. Sometimes Rudi or some of the kids would collect them and take them down and sell them to the local fruit vendors for about three dollars for 100 mangos! Others we sold or gave to neighbors who gathered them themselves. It was a gift that just kept giving!!! The ones that Rudi sold, he saved up the money and bought us all ice cream with it! We started getting ripe mangos around the end of November and it continued through January. Around town many mango trees are just getting ripe, so we will have fresh mangos through at least February.

Rudi and helpers collecting mangos to sell.

25 mangos per black bag...

"Are you pushing or pulling back there?"

Aren't they sweet? 

On the other side of our yard our neighbors have another type of mango tree. These are actually my favorite. I guess you could say that mangos also are better on the other side of the fence, just like everything else!!! They are a lot smaller, actually the smallest I have ever seen, but have a better "meat" inside and don't have hardly any fibrous stuff to get stuck in your teeth! Ruth and I put a lot of these away in the freezer and we have made yummy smoothies from them.

Paula holding the little mangos with the
neighbors mango tree behind her!!

 And you may think I am a little OCD about mangos, but I measured the various types we had from our yard and neighborhood. After all I did title this blog "Mango Madness", so you were fore warned!!

L.to R. (just like people!)
A big variety that Rudi bought in the market, Our very own mango,
and Our neighbor's baby mango!

And from another angle!!

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:12