Guacamole Tree

There are many reasons why we love our "estate", one of them being the "Guacamole Tree" in our front yard.  This tree is quite tall and fruits in the summer.

The trick to picking avocados is to nab them when they're not so small but before they turn black, fall to the ground and spoil.  We are able to reach the low-lying fruit but had to devise a special picking contraption to get to the ones higher up.  For the ones out of reach we taped a hammer to a pipe and A tries to grab an avocado's stem with the hammer's claw.  R tries to catch the avocado before it falls to the ground and gets bruised.

The avocados then go into a paper bag with a banana for a few days to ripen.  (Sometimes we have to ripen the banana with an apple first; it's a silly cycle.)  Once the avocados soften, and hopefully tur from green to black, they go into the 'fridge unless there is an immediate demand for guacamole.

These avocados are not like the more common Hass variety; they have a smooth skin and longer necks.  R also thinks they don't taste as good as the Hass, even if they come right out of the front yard.  A does not discriminate between avocados.