Fruiting season

Yes, the rains have come, it's officially winter, and along with the rains comes the ripening and plopping of millions (I'm not exaggerating here, or only a little) of the nances that grow on the tree in my patio and fall, sometimes with an amazingly loud plop, into the patio.  I have yet to meet a Salvadoran who doesn't adore nances and rush to pick them up.  I have yet to meet a gringo who likes them very much, so it's a joy to give them away.  Lately we've been filling a gallon bag each day with these cherry-sized fruits.  Here they are, making a wreath around our rain drain where they were blown in a huge tormenta last Thursday:

It's not just nances that are ripe right now.  I had lunch today with Alex Hernandez, one of the students to whom we've given a scholarship for university studies, and he brought me a huge bag of fruit from his mother which included zapotes, a wonderfully rich tasting red-orange pudding inside a dull brown skin; marañones japoneses, a cashew relative without the nut, red-skinned with a white, mild interior; and uvas salvajes, wild grapes, deep purple-black round fruits with a tart-sweet pulp inside.  Ah, and it's also the season for avocados, mangoes, lemons, oranges, and who knows what else.  So it may be the case that in this climate fruits tend to ripen at the beginning of the rainy season, with the tree or vine beginning its next cycle during the rains.  Someone who knows the biology and climatology of Central America could probably explain this.  I'm just enjoying the results.