November 2
Life in the jungle: I spent the first part of the day rewriting and updating an older bike touring blog post called How to document your bike tour or adventure. Last week I decided to create an online coaching course. Today I also continued researching about creating an online course. The other week I was feeling more positive than in the last two years. Today I am feeling very overwhelmed.
A fairly cool day, with a few sprinkles but no rain. Last night rain throughout the night.
A young Striped Basilisk lizard
November 3
Life in the jungle: I spent most of the day doing further online research about creating an online coaching course. And I didn’t feel productive but I think by the end of the day my attitude shifted back to a more positive attitude. I feel I have been overwhelmed for much of the week. I didn’t even realize that today was Friday. I thought I was still in the middle of the week.
November 4
Life in the jungle: I headed to the village for groceries. I was also hoping to run into the village Justice of the Peace. And I actually did cross paths with him only to discover that his standing as a JP had lapsed. He sent me to Bermudian Landing with two names of potential JP’s. I needed some JP signatures on my Belize residency application. It was a bit of running around that I didn’t anticipate but it was not the end of the world. Getting my JP signatures took up my whole morning.
When I woke up this morning, I had no internet. After lunch, with still no internet it started to rain. And that was how I ended up in my hammock and accomplished nothing for the rest of the day.
November 5
Life in the jungle: Today is my guilt-free day off. Usually, I spend most of my Sunday writing and posting my Belize blogs. Today, I spent the entire day on housework. I cleaned the bathroom sink drain and pulled apart the pipe and drain. I am amazed at how much toothpaste gunk’s up in the pipes. I washed all my windows and I did a deep clean of the kitchen. It rained the entire day.
November 6
Life in the jungle: I have been seeing agoutis most mornings for a few weeks now. This morning I saw a baby. It rained most of the day. I continued to be motivated to clean the house and cleaning in general. I cleaned underneath the house. I cleaned the chicken coop. The cement block floor that I put in the chicken coop the other week is working. My friend Verna Mae said she didn’t think the cement block floor would work because of how much waste chickens produce.
I had a late lunch. In the afternoon I posted some life coach-related questions to a bunch of bike tour Facebook groups. In the evening, I took a night walk. The river has top galloned thanks to all the rain. [Top gallon refers to the river level rising about 20 feet and flowing over its bank.]
November 7
Life in the jungle: I woke up to the yard all around the house completely flooded. The yard was not flooded last night. The rain has stopped and the sun is shining once again. I continue to feel frustrated and overwhelmed. I received a message from my web developer about suggestions for my website but sounds like a lot of work. This does not help.
This afternoon I set up a Substack page. Substack is a blogging platform. I feel it might help grow my audience by posting life coaching blogs to help attract new readers from a platform that actively reads blog posts. I am also going to start and did start posting the same blog posts to the blogging platform called Medium. I started that page back when I spent two months in Las Vegas on my bike ride. I haven’t posted to it since then but I will post my life coaching posts to that platform also.
I found a boa constrictor when locking up my chickens tonight.
My yard is flooded
November 8
Life in the jungle: The flooding in the yard is 1-2″ higher but it won’t go any higher. I have a guest from Canada flying in this afternoon. Back in May, Andy Wilson arrived in Belize by dirt bike. He is a Canadian who rode from Canada to Belize but had to go back to Canada for a month in a half which somehow turned into 7 months. This morning I prepared the bedroom for Andy
This morning I found a bantam chicken egg in the front of my greenhouse. She will never lay her eggs in the main coop as she won’t enter any of the coops. She has decided to permanently roost in the tree behind my bedroom at night. Unfortunately, she lets me know loudly every morning when she wakes up. Which is a good hour before I wake up. [Six months later she started using the chicken coop for sleeping and laying eggs.] This morning, I discovered that I have a hen that’s setting. I had to give her all my eggs, so I had to go to the village for groceries and more eggs.
Regular chicken egg on the left. Bantam chicken egg on the right.
Getting home from the village I sort of puttered around and cleaned things up in anticipation of my guest. He was supposed to catch the 3:30 PM bus but missed it. He did catch the 5:00 PM bus and arrived at the village at 6:30 PM with a lot of luggage. Fortunately, I had my bike and trailer and somehow fit everything on my bike. Ten minutes into our walk home I spotted a baby Morelets crocodile on my road. What an absolutely amazing find.
November 9
Life in the jungle: Having a guest always radically throws me off my rhythm. It was a very unproductive day. Andy and I did take photos of the baby Morelet’s crocodile we caught yesterday and then released him at the ponds.
Baby Morelet’s crocodile
November 10
Life in the jungle: This morning I went to Belize City to get my blood work results from my tests the other week. All my paperwork for my Belize residency is finally complete. I also paid my land tax for my house. I haven’t paid my house tax since June 2018. The bill came to $41.98 or $21 USD. $28.15 for taxes and $13.83 in late payment interest.
When I got home, me and Andy photographed the boa I caught by the chicken coops the other day and then we released her at the ponds. I gotta start releasing boas at the ponds and away from my chickens. [Check blog # 98 for the boa pics.]
This evening I wrote Belize blog post # 99 and this post.
My chicken coops are flooded
Belize Part 99 (Oct 24 to Nov 1)
Of Note: At this time I am currently 11 to 12 months behind in posting my Belize blog posts due to having no internet for the first 18 months of living in Belize.
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.
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.
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.
Andy – A fellow Canadian who rode his dirt bike from Canada to Belize. When I offered him the use of an apartment that I recently built and the use of my greenhouse Andy decided to stay in Belize permanently and start a hot sauce company here.
