I spent a good portion of this afternoon dodging around under the spreading branches of a huge mango tree in the front yard. My dad was on a ladder, using a long hook-ended pole to knock the ripest fruit from the tree, and I was running from side to side, awkward in a skirt and flipflops, trying (and mostly failing) to catch them. Surreal? You betcha.

In addition to the mango tree, which currently has at least a couple hundred specimens swelling slowly and turning various shadoes of green, red and yellow, my dad's yard also boasts an almond tree, a couple of banana trees, and a coconut palm. The twenty-first century city kid in me is amazed - and I mean floored - that trees, growing in a front yard of a rental property without any special attention or expert agricultural effort, will still bear fruit. Lots of fruit, and perfect fruit. I've never given it much thought, but somehow I'd always assumed that the large-scale industrial practices that bring fruit to my local grocery store - which is, before today, the only place I'd ever acquired fruit - were necessary, that the centralized production implied an improvement on what we all might be able to produce on our own. Who knew you could grow a bushel of mangoes in your own front yard?