Picking fruits from the tree...

I always can't resist picking fruits from a tree. I remember those times in my childhood when I looked forward to visiting grandfather on his farm in Bulacan. Usually he has some native fruit ready for picking and he'd invite us to pick. He has a variety of fruit trees (indian mango, santol, star apple, sampaloc, balimbing, aratilis, guava, atis, mabolo), but only a few of each. My favorite is the aratilis.

It may look like cherries, but isn't really similar in nature and its like the size of small grapes. Its very sweet when its ripe. I also love that its tree is not so tall so its easy to pick the fruits by just reaching out to it.

Most of the fruit trees there are sour-tasting though, like indian mango and most of all the santol, but its those trees that bear the most fruits. Those were also the big trees, but just for fun we tried to climb it (only the lower branches) or jump high to get some of the fruits. We also did some picking using sungkit (an improvised wooden stick with a hook  used to pick fruits). After all our energies were exhausted and we have a handful of fruits, he'd then ask his handyman to pick some more. Said handyman is like Tarzan, who can hang around every tree...in no time he has filled a basket with fruits for us to take home ;)

Back here at home, the only tree left that I can get some fruits to eat from is the Rambutan. Picking time is about July/August. Its a big tree, but luckily its near our second floor balcony where I can handpick some fruits, or use a sungkit to get some more. Our sungkit is quite heavy, and I think I used up more energy than what I can get eating the rambutan fruits that I picked. Nevertheless, its one of those natural activities that can be beneficial in some ways, though most people don't care much to do.