Good Monday afternoon, Gary and Frankie!
Gary, I see that your Holy Men beat USC on Saturday. And the Gators whipped FSU's butts. I needn't have worried.
Yesterday I decided to avail myself of a ripe mango hanging on the tree of the neighbor diagonally behind my backyard. The view was blocked by the thick foliage of the mango tree, so there was no way the neighbors could have even known that the fruit was even on that tree. And it was right on the border of the neighbor's property directly behind me. This was very unusual, because you never have ripe mangos in December in Florida, they're simply out of season. But I've seen this particular tree do things that mango trees just don't do, like blooming out of season. So I had to sample it.
So I got my long fruit picking pole. The mango was about 10 feet high, and about 6 feet away from the chain link fence on the edge of my property. I figured that if I yanked hard on the pole toward me, there was a remote chance I could get it to land in my yard, but I still thought there was an 80% chance it would land in the backyard of the people's yard directly behind me.
Which is exactly what it did. So I at first tried to climb the fence the way I'd do it as a kid, but when I tried it, the resulting stresses and strains and aching body parts told me, "Nah-ah, baby, don't even try it!" So I got my A frame ladder, and put it over the fence, the step side in my yard, and the other side in the backyard behind me. So I climbed the ladder, stepped off onto the rail at the top of the chain link fence, and CAREFULLY lowered myself into the neighbors' backyard. And when I looked on the ground, I saw a bonus, there were already two ripe mangos on the ground in addition to the one I dislodged.
But once I was over there I went over to greet the neighbors' dog, Frida. She was the dog that had jumped my fence a couple of months ago that I wrote about. But it seems that now the owners have Frida tethered on a long rope that doesn't quite reach the fence, so she can't jump it. I believe that's Frida, as in Kahlo, the Mexican artist and notorious bisexual. I think her owners must be liberal Democrats. They had an older long-haired black dog named Bernie (as in Sanders?), but I haven't seen him in awhile, so he must have passed away. Anyway, I spent several minutes petting Frida, until she finally walked on.
I finally tossed the three mangos over the fence into my backyard, and then had the arduous task of climbing back over the ladder. It wasn't easy, since the side in the neighbors' yard didn't have any steps, just the side board that serves to stabilize it. But I had to use it as a step to hoist myself up to the fence railing, and then climb down the steps to get back down into my yard-- the easy part.
And I'm glad I went to all that trouble. When I had one of the mangos this morning, it was delicious, perhaps one of the best mangos I've ever tasted. And I have two more mangos for tomorrow morning.
