Mango Wars

Birds, squirrels, iguanas, and one man who will not share

Man shall not live on bread alone…but maybe on mango? I would like that. But maybe not, as I also believe that the fruit of the tree of good and evil in the Garden of Eden was not an apple, nor any other fruit. It was a mango!

That must be the reason every mango season evil birds, squirrels, and, oh, my ancient adversary, the iguana, come out to eat my mangos!

Half eaten mango found beside my Glenn mango tree

So, every year it’s a war between me and them: Who can get the ripe mango first? Who can peck at it, leaving the rest of it inedible? Who can jump and pull it down, eating half of it and leaving the rest on the ground? Well, not if I can help it!

I’ve tried several strategies over the years, but the one that seems to work the best is splitting a large Styrofoam cup down one side and to the middle of the bottom, placing it over or under the mango (depending on which best protects it from birds pecking), then covering it with a see-through, breathable synthetic bag, which fastens at the top to the stem of the hanging mango. See below:

Protecting my mangos with Styrofoam cups and synthetic bags

Now, before someone complains about the Styrofoam cups, I use them year after year and will continue to do so. Yes, I too care about the environment…but I care about my mangos more (don’t @ me).

My system doesn’t always work. I’ve found the synthetic bag with a partially eaten mango in the Styrofoam cup on the ground. I can only imagine what happened: an iguana climbed up the tree trunk, onto a branch with a good vantage point of a large mango, jumped with arms wide, then closed in on it, iguana and mango tumbling in an army roll until the iguana was on top, biting through the bag into his prize. Just thinking about it makes me angry.

But for the most part, I have been able to save the majority of the mangos. Thank God!

Speaking of God, there’s a little mango poem I wrote a couple of years ago that sums up my passion for mangos (and growing them):

Then There Were Mangos

I wonder what God was thinking

When He created the first mango tree,

Then multiplied it into numerous varieties.

I wonder–

Was He thinking of me?

–Dale Mahfood, February 29, 2024

I must give credit where credit is due. I wrote this poem after reading some of Mervyn Morris’s poems in his collection, Peelin Orange. His poems tend to be short, compressed, and witty. Here is a video of him reading the title poem of his collection:

Okay, let’s move from oranges back to mangos.

Over the past few years during mango season, I have posted my “Mango War” videos on social media, with quite the response. One of them has had over 350,000 views, 9,400 likes, 420 comments, and 570 saves. Not that I’m into statistics or anything. I only wish that had been the stats on one of my When Trees Fall novel posts. Lol!

Here’s the video. I think you’ll get a kick out of it.

Now, would you believe that some of those 420 comments there were those who were mad at me, saying I should leave some mangos for the animals? That is very well and good for the social media critics to say, but when you’ve worked hard to grow your little mango tree to where it will bear a few mangos for you and your family, the answer is simple—No!

Although I do appreciate what a Rasta man commented on the post, “They help pollinate...should they not enjoy the fruits of their labor?” He has a point, and it sounds so biblical. In that spirit, I‘ve learned to let bygones be bygones when a critter wins a battle.

I anticipate that some of you (even after hearing about what I have to do to protect my mangos) will ask me to send you a mango. This applies specifically to a fellow author here on Substack, whom I won’t expose. But that author knows what my response will be: No (without an exclamation mark), I only have ten so-so mango, and I’ll be keeping them for me and my family. This author and I have a yearly running joke about this.

I wish you all a Merry Mango Season! And if you’re in a place that does not grow mangos, my friends at Hidden Acres Mango Farm in Davie, Florida, grow, sell and ship the most amazing selection of mangos. It’s hard to believe there are so many varieties of mangos in this world. One for every taste, which brings me back to my comment about mangos being the forbidden fruit.

---

---