Monkeys and Mangoes

Oh Boy! Those little human- like guys were here this morning! What fun! We jumped on the screens to try to play with them and to see if we could scare them away, but they were not in a playing mood and just sat and watched as we did our best to scare them. Finally our human companions scared them away, but we are watching for them to come back to see if they want to play some more!
That was Ziggy or Zoe- we are not sure who got hold of the keyboard, but what they report is true. the monkeys were around this morning. Crows cawwing, dogs barking and Ziggy and Zoe jumping on the screens are all signs that the monkeys are near. Jim chased them away by trying to spray them with a big squirt gun- one normally used for the "festival of color"- "Holi", but good for water squirting at monkeys too! After they jumped into the trees, the crows try to chase them away by annoying them with incessant cawwing- it annoys us, and seems to affect the monkeys too.
After the monkey's left we went to add some trash to the pile we leave outside the apartment door each day for the building people to pick up and found the trash strewn all over the hallway! The monkey had obviously been there before coming to our balcony. The staff was kind enough to come and clean it up.
A couple days back Janet said that she and Renuka were in different rooms of the apartment when they heard a crash coming from the direction of the kitchen. By the time Janet got there all she saw was a melon on the floor. Renuka said that a monkey had gotten inside- either through a hole in one of the screen doors to the balcony or by opening the screen slider. There was minimal damage done, but it could have been bad- especially if Ziggy or Zoe had been awake enough to try to attack.
The monkeys are cute and its fun to watch the young ones play, but they are a nuisance as well.

It is mango season now. They started to ripen to the point of harvesting here about 3 weeks ago. Outside one side of the apartment building is a neighboring house which has a mango tree, so we get to see the squirrels and Green Parakeets come and eat some of the fruit. There is a pretty green parakeet out there as we write this now! Unfortunately, the monkeys also like mangoes! A week or two back we were watching the parakeets and taking pictures of them when we were surprised to see a long pole with a net on the end in the tree as well! At the other end of the pole was a man who had climbed about 20 feet up into the tree and he was harvesting some of the mangoes. Fortunately, he did not fall.
We read that lots of fruits are harvested the same way- by men and boys climbing up trees. It is also true that many are seriously injured or killed each year by falling- especially from coconut palm trees since they have no lower branches that might break a fall.
However, the mangoes are awfully good and many restaurants have seasonal desserts using them to great effect!