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Today I am back in Batu Gajah, Perak to visit my in laws.
It is mango season and naturally, we plucked and harvested more than a few :)
Yummy!
Showing posts with label Mangoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mangoes. Show all posts
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Two Mango Trees in Batu Gajah
A couple of weeks back, I took the family back to Ipoh for the weekend. Since my wife's parents have not been staying in their house in Batu Gajah (about a half hour drive from Ipoh), she told me to go there and pluck some mangoes before they all get rotten.
Everyone in the family loves mango, whether the mangoes are sweet, sour or even unripe, my wife will find a way to make them into something really tasty. The favourite being sliced mangoes in "rojak" sauce.
I took my eight years old son, Joel and we spent the afternoon plucking mangoes from two mango trees planted by my wife's grandma. She passed away a couple of years ago and everyone really misses her, including my kids, whom till today, always refer to Batu Gajah as "Tai-po" place.
Joel plucking mangoes.
In the end, we plucked about 30 mangoes.
Joel looking for mangoes.
Finally, he spotted some mangoes and managed to pluck one.
While I was plucking the mangoes with my eldest son, I remembered thinking that, we all get to enjoy these mangoes simply because Tai-po had planted them. At that moment, I asked myself, what will I leave behind for my children when the time comes for me to go? Will it be something as simple and as enjoyable as a mango tree, where every so often they will come by and enjoy the fruits? And perhaps tell stories to one another underneath the shade of the mango tree?
I have no answer for myself now, but I think I roughly know, where the spiders are.
Related Post:
Everyone in the family loves mango, whether the mangoes are sweet, sour or even unripe, my wife will find a way to make them into something really tasty. The favourite being sliced mangoes in "rojak" sauce.
I took my eight years old son, Joel and we spent the afternoon plucking mangoes from two mango trees planted by my wife's grandma. She passed away a couple of years ago and everyone really misses her, including my kids, whom till today, always refer to Batu Gajah as "Tai-po" place.
Joel plucking mangoes.
In the end, we plucked about 30 mangoes.
Joel looking for mangoes.
Finally, he spotted some mangoes and managed to pluck one.
While I was plucking the mangoes with my eldest son, I remembered thinking that, we all get to enjoy these mangoes simply because Tai-po had planted them. At that moment, I asked myself, what will I leave behind for my children when the time comes for me to go? Will it be something as simple and as enjoyable as a mango tree, where every so often they will come by and enjoy the fruits? And perhaps tell stories to one another underneath the shade of the mango tree?
I have no answer for myself now, but I think I roughly know, where the spiders are.
Related Post:
- A Fruitful Day - June 17, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
A Fruitful Day
Went to Batu Gajah for the weekend. For those who are not familiar with Batu Gajah, it is a small town in Perak about 30 minutes away from Ipoh. To be exact, me and the family went to Kampung Bemban in Batu Gajah. Stayed with my in-laws in their typical Chinese kampung house with chickens running around and fruit trees everywhere.
The wife needed to see the family and do some family stuff. I was looking forward to this trip for a personal reason; my wife's aunt make a killer "bak chang". And its that time of the year... the "Bak Chang" Festival... :-)
Home made Hakka "Bak Chang". Yum yum... they are really da best... :-)
When we reached the house, the first thing I noticed was the Mango tree. It was filled with mangoes on the verge of being ripe!!! I quickly found a mango "harvester" and went to work.
I called it the mango "harvester" for the lack of a better name. It has a hook at the tip and a sack right below it. As you hooked the mango fruit, it drops into the sack. A great invention... I must say.
The "harvester" from another angle.
Btw, the mango tree was heavily guarded by red ants. I was fighting a losing battle with these fiery ants. Each time I hooked the mangoes into the sacks, tons of ants would crawled onto the harvester's pole towards me as I held it.
I swear some of them were conducting aerial attacks... I found myself crawling with ants... and these devils are fearsomely protective of their damn tree.
Of course, being an "ant bully" that I am, I persisted and was quite fruitful in the end, pun intended... :-) The following are the fruits of my labour... LOL... really getting carried away.
These mangoes did not make in into the sack and suffered a 15 feet drop. They had to be turned into rojak asap... yum yum.
The harvested mangoes waiting to be packed into plastic bags.
The mangoes with my weapon of mass destruction, as far as the ants are concerned... :-)
Btw, this was the 3rd harvest... I had previously bagged two bags already.
The mangoes, packed and sorted into 3 bags. 1 bag is about 60 mangoes... :-)
The Mango Tree after being stripped of its fruits.
Hard to believe that I harvested more than 150 mangoes from this tree. Btw, there are still more mangoes in the tree, which I could not reach with the "harvester".
I think in another month I will be back in Batu Gajah again... this time, it will be DURIAN!!! Yeah!.
The wife needed to see the family and do some family stuff. I was looking forward to this trip for a personal reason; my wife's aunt make a killer "bak chang". And its that time of the year... the "Bak Chang" Festival... :-)
Home made Hakka "Bak Chang". Yum yum... they are really da best... :-)
When we reached the house, the first thing I noticed was the Mango tree. It was filled with mangoes on the verge of being ripe!!! I quickly found a mango "harvester" and went to work.
I called it the mango "harvester" for the lack of a better name. It has a hook at the tip and a sack right below it. As you hooked the mango fruit, it drops into the sack. A great invention... I must say.
The "harvester" from another angle.
Btw, the mango tree was heavily guarded by red ants. I was fighting a losing battle with these fiery ants. Each time I hooked the mangoes into the sacks, tons of ants would crawled onto the harvester's pole towards me as I held it.
I swear some of them were conducting aerial attacks... I found myself crawling with ants... and these devils are fearsomely protective of their damn tree.
Of course, being an "ant bully" that I am, I persisted and was quite fruitful in the end, pun intended... :-) The following are the fruits of my labour... LOL... really getting carried away.
These mangoes did not make in into the sack and suffered a 15 feet drop. They had to be turned into rojak asap... yum yum.
The harvested mangoes waiting to be packed into plastic bags.
The mangoes with my weapon of mass destruction, as far as the ants are concerned... :-)
Btw, this was the 3rd harvest... I had previously bagged two bags already.
The mangoes, packed and sorted into 3 bags. 1 bag is about 60 mangoes... :-)
The Mango Tree after being stripped of its fruits.
Hard to believe that I harvested more than 150 mangoes from this tree. Btw, there are still more mangoes in the tree, which I could not reach with the "harvester".
I think in another month I will be back in Batu Gajah again... this time, it will be DURIAN!!! Yeah!.