May 1
Life in the jungle: Orlando showed up this morning. I pulled the deck post forms off the posts we poured last week before he arrived. They did not pour very well. I wasn’t very pleased. We set up the last three forms. This time mixing and pouring wetter cement. After we poured the posts, Orlando mixed a 50/50 sand and cement mix “fixing” and smoothed out the first three posts. They look much better now. We then replaced a 4×4 post on the new greenhouse water tower as I ended up having a better wooden post to use than the one we used. I completed my day with odd jobs.
Making deck cement posts
May 2
Life in the jungle: First thing I planted some lemon seeds. I then pulled the forms off the cement posts from yesterday. They turned out better than the first three posts poured. That being said I will still have to do some touch-up work
After breakfast, I did a little bit of painting. I used up all my oil paint primer on the new greenhouse water tower. I’m not sure what to do as I still have some of the water tower to prime but not nearly enough to justify a can of primer paint. The majority of my afternoon was spent building 9 more patio stone molds. I now have 12 molds in total.
Painting my water tower
Patio stones and their molds
Every day the chickens go into my seedling grow area and often make a mess. Today was no different and I think a lot of the lemon seeds I planted this morning were for nothing. They also do a lot of damage to my starfruit and pomegranate seedlings. I often wonder if it’s worth having chickens.
I was so tired that last night I fell asleep on the hammock. Unexpectedly a phone call woke me up and I was still able to make supper. This evening, I fell asleep in the hammock and I never woke up. No supper tonight.
May 3
Life in the jungle: This morning I started mixing cement for patio stones for the greenhouse floor. Most every morning I am planning to try to make a dozen stones. This morning, I made a slight miscalculation in gravel and was only able to make 11. My current patio stone count is 17 stones including my test stones when we poured the deck post cement.
Every morning – mix half a bag of cement and make 12 more patio stones
After breakfast, I headed to the village for groceries. Getting home I did some watering and chopping at the ponds. I also slaughtered my last large broiler chicken. Today was “feels like” 41C (or 106F).
May 4
Life in the jungle: I tossed and turned a bit last night. That led to me sleeping in for a bit this morning. Mixing the cement and pouring the paving stones took longer today than expected. A few of the forms needed to be modified and all the molds needed to be cleaned after a pour. One stone from yesterday’s pour broke. Today was pouring number two with 28 stones now. I spent the whole afternoon painting the apartment.
Painting the apartment
May 5
Life in the jungle: Making patio stones this morning was again time-consuming. Yesterday’s cement mix was not the greatest. I should have used more cement. I had to pull a side off each mold to facilitate an easier extraction of the patio stone. Today’s mix was much better and I think I now have the hang of things. Today was pour number three with 40 stones now.
Today an opossum visited the chicken coops
After lunch, I painted the apartment some more. I then turned my attention to figuring out how to build a cabbage palm skirt around the rear of the house where I removed the rotting deck many months ago. I don’t have plans to replace the deck for that part of the house. After considering options I redirected the downspouts from a rear eavestrough where I need to build the new skirt.
Before & After
May 6
Life in the jungle: My first job was making patio stones. One from yesterday cracked. Today is pouring number four with 51 stones. After breakfast, I did more painting of the apartment for most of the afternoon.
For five days I have been waiting for the internet guy to show up with my tower platforms so I can finally pour my cement footing. Every day he never showed up and said he would come the next day. Screwing up my week as I never got to the city or to the ponds to make myself available to him. He finally showed up. I thought finally I could pour the footing on Monday. Until I realized that there was no main platform! I frikkin lost it. What good is anything without a main tower platform??? I am at a complete loss of words. How in the world did this become my life? The headaches of getting an internet connection and dealing with this company are completely beyond human understanding or comprehension. That is when he told me that the company had already washed its hands of this job and everything that had been done had been on his time. I am guessing it’s his way of saying that I better watch my attitude. Six MONTHS I have been waiting for this company to hook me up. And this is only a small part of the reason I am completely disillusioned about this country.
Guide wire platform(s) but no main platform
May 7
Life in the jungle: The first thing I went to the village to see Saul about him making me an internet tower base platform. It looks like he can help me. Thank goodness for Saul in my life. I then paid a visit to Verna Mae and visited for some time. Thank goodness for Verna Mae in my life down here. She is the only one I can talk to.
After lunch, I went to the ponds to water seedlings. Today is my day off but thanks to waiting for these internet guys all week I barely got to the ponds to water my seedlings. On my way home I did see a coatimundi on the road. I had just enough time in the day to take an hour’s nap.
A coatimundi on my road
This evening, I wrote Cry of the Heart
May 8
Life in the jungle: A busy day in the city to the point of losing track of time. After getting home I had to ride back up to the village as a piece of steel I purchased in the city for my internet tower was coming on the 3:30 PM bus. Before dark I completed some small odd jobs around the house. I also popped the patio stones (from their molds) that I made on Saturday to give me a head start for tomorrow morning.
Belize Part 77 (April 22 to 30)
Belize Part 76 (April 15 to 21)
Glossary of Terms
Glossary of words or people that may or may not be part of this blog post. This glossary will be at the bottom of every blog post for Belize.
Jack & Jill – These are my ex-property managers (names changed). They are Canadian, they introduced me to Belize in 1997, sold me their house in Belize in 2003, and rebuilt my house from 2014 to 2018. I have known them for over 30 years. After almost 20 years of me supporting their life here in Belize Jack decided quite unexpectedly to declare “war” on me right before Christmas 2021. They would end up stealing my business license and causing me a lot of grief. They live on the farm, but not on my land.
Wayne – He is the son of the original owners of the farm (both owners are deceased). The original farm was 2 – 30 acre pieces minus 2 – ¾ acre parcels for my house and 2 – ¾ acre parcels that Jack & Jill own which were all originally purchased from the original owners. In 2017 Wayne sold me 40 acres of land from the original 60 acres (30 acres plus 10 acres). Wayne lives in his parent’s house and has a few cows on his remaining 17 acres of land.
Orlando – Orlando is an older gentleman from the village. He’s the guy I call on when I need construction help because he is actually fair with me.
The ponds – I have 2 large (300ft long x 50ft wide x 10ft deep) ponds on my 30 acre parcel of land which is basically a jungle. I have about 60 coconut trees (mostly mature) around the ponds. In my first 2 years of living in Belize, I also planted about 250 assort fruit tree seedlings (Lime, jackfruit, custard apple, pomegranate and avocado).
The coconut field – I have about 400 coconut trees planted (various growth states) on about 3 acres of cleared land of the 10 acre parcel. I plan to add various fruit trees to the same field as soon as I can.
The river lot – my house sits on an ¾ acre lot. I have a second joining ¾ acre lot that allows me river frontage on the Belize River. I call that my river lot.
The dry – Belize has 2 main seasons. The rainy season and the dry (no rain). The wet is obviously the rainy season.
Chopping – using my machete to clear brush, vines, weeds and unwanted trees.
