My garden is not very big but it is full of fruit trees, each season has its own fruit. This is the place my brothers and I like the most because every time we go to the garden, we can not only immerse ourselves in the cool green space with the chirping of birds but also find a lot of food.
Jackfruit tree laden with fruit in the garden
The birds also consider the garden as their home. They are blessed with a special ability, any fruit they poke their beaks into is ripe and extremely delicious. Especially in custard apple season, just look down at the ground, see what the custard apple skin and seeds look like on top, there will be the first ripe fruit of the season that the birds can't finish eating and leave behind. Pick it down, peel off the part that the birds eat, and you will definitely have a sweet, cool custard apple piece. From then on, every day we go to the garden to see which fruit has opened its eyes and pick it, not letting the birds eat it anymore.
There were four jackfruit trees in the garden. I don’t know when my grandfather planted them, but by the time we were grown up, they were already there. Older than us, each tree had its branches and canopy spread out and was laden with fruit in season. Of the four trees, this one was the oldest, tallest, and had the most delicious fruit. Birds and bats would eat other fruits, but jackfruit was the only one they could tolerate.
There was no sign of birds, so to know if the jackfruit was ripe, the kids kept sniffing the wind to see if there was a fragrant smell. I impatiently picked up a knife and chopped a bamboo tree to make a pole to beat the jackfruit. The kids' eyes were attentively following the tip of the pole, their ears perked up, and whenever they heard the thud... thud sound, they would shout in unison: Ripe... ripe!
The kids shouted to each other to carry the ladder, get the sack, and rope to pick the jackfruit. I was the oldest so I had to climb up to pick it. The second oldest held the ladder, the two younger kids cheered. I climbed up and gently slipped the sack into the ripe jackfruit, turned it around and heard a cracking sound, my hands felt heavy. I used the rope to tie the end of the sack and slowly dropped the jackfruit to the ground while the kids cheered.
Looking at the hungry eyes of the children, I knew they were craving it. It had been since last year. I quickly plucked five Ngải leaves and quickly cut the jackfruit into small pieces, the size of a hand, to make it easier to divide and peel. The jackfruit had just been picked from the tree, and the more I cut, the more sap would ooze out of the core. Only the rough Ngải leaves could remove the sap from the jackfruit the fastest.
The most delicious fruit is the first fruit of the season. The jackfruit tree is old but still produces round, plump fruit with segments as big as a child's fist, thick and sweet flesh. Biting into the first jackfruit of the season, everyone exclaimed: it's so delicious! A good variety of jackfruit, the fibers are also golden yellow, just as sweet as the segments. Whenever the children finish eating, the adults always pick up the fibers and say it's not a waste of God's gift.
During the summer vacation, my parents let us children and I play freely in the garden. We used jackfruit sap to make dragonflies and then played hide and seek. Behind the kitchen was a large egg tree. The land was barren, but somehow the tree had many branches, each branch growing strong and spreading a dense shade. This was an ideal place for the children to hide. After a few times, the children knew every corner of the garden so well that the game of hide and seek was no longer interesting.
But the fruits in the garden always attract children. Before the fruit season, wandering around the garden, there will definitely be some sour star fruit or at least some strawberries by the fence. When the season comes, they can eat to their heart's content. The guava tree by the pond is always full of fruit every year. The happiest thing is to climb up the guava branch and swing out to the pond like a hammock, picking ripe, sweet, fragrant guavas.
In front of the house, the persimmon tree spreads its canopy over the large yard. In spring, from the bare branches suddenly sprouted many young buds. After a few days, the tree had put on a cool green color. That was also the time when the tree bloomed. The tiny pale yellow flower buds hidden among the leaves, in just a few days, turned into pretty young persimmons.
When autumn comes, the persimmons begin to lose their leaves and when the cool breeze blows, the tree is left with only branches laden with fruit. From green, the persimmons gradually turn yellow and then red as they begin to ripen. The persimmon tree seems to be lit up by hundreds, thousands of red lanterns. The starlings from somewhere flock back, chirping loudly throughout the garden. When picking persimmons, my mother often tells me to leave a branch high up for the birds. Perhaps that is why they remember and return every time the persimmon season comes.
After decades, because of life, we each went to different places. The garden was no longer intact as before. The eggplant and persimmon trees had to be cut down to make way for the new house and a larger yard. But every time we returned, we still liked to wander in the garden, not to pick fruit but to find old memories. The feeling of peace and serenity came flooding back.
Xuan Hoa
Source
Comment (0)