On November 8, a Canadian guest named Andy arrived to stay with me. The weather continues to be rainy.
November 11
Life in the jungle: Today was on-and-off rain all day. I wrote multiple life coaching posts. I posted The Power of Being Interested Rather than Interesting. I worked on Instagram and started learning a little bit about reels.
November 12
Life in the jungle: Today is my guilt-free day off. I spent most of the day writing a blog post about dreams and goals, specifically my lack of a dream or goal. I was riffing with my guest. Last night I introduced Andy to the “hell yeah or no” concept of making future plans, dreams, or goals. I have no hell yeah dreams currently in Belize, which bugs me. During our conversation, I was looking at a map of Belize on my wall and asked out loud what would be a hell yeah for me. And then it came to me. I figured out what I could really get excited about doing here in Belize.
A “hell yeah” for me would be to regularly bike tour the entirety of Belize creating interesting content. I would try to bike tour every road in Belize that I could. I could interview interesting people I met along the way in a podcast/YouTube style. I would need a person to live on my farm for security reasons and I would need a video editor.
My blog post about Dreams and Goals – Emptying the Monkey Mind can be found HERE.
[Almost 10 months later I have not been able to go on any bike tours around Belize, yet. That being said, I did do a 300 km canoe trip down the Belize River and I just finished spending three week in Mexico (1 week) and Prince Edward Island, Canada (2 weeks). And I’m still wanting to bike tour Belize. I have just been too busy.]
Red rump tarantula
November 13
Life in the jungle: From an actual have something to show for your day, I accomplished nothing today. Most of the morning was various discussions with Andy about this new dream I now have. As an introvert, I was forced to take a nap in the afternoon due to brain overload. Later in the afternoon, the conversations shifted to how Andy had a dream about living and creating his own line of hot sauce in Belize for North American markets. And how we could help each other.
I can give him a place to stay and a greenhouse, and he can provide property security for me to leave the farm for extended periods to travel. The question is whether he can manufacture hot sauce in Belize and ship it to Canada. And give up his plans to ride to Colombia. So, an all-day conversation is all there is to show for today. But the future is looking very interesting. Everything is still very flooded.
November 14
Living in the jungle: I knew a sleepless night was coming. A lot of things are being discussed these last few days that could greatly affect the future. I tossed and turned most of last night and ended up sleeping in pretty late this morning.
I noticed this morning that the water level (flooding) has finally dropped about ½ an inch. This morning I heard Andy leave for the city to retrieve his dirt bike. The moment he walked out the front door it started to rain. Andy arrived here back in May by dirt bike but flew back to Canada and was gone for almost seven months. His dirt bike was being stored at Belize Customs. I had to go to the village for groceries.
This afternoon I posted Embracing Habit: The Transformation from Novelty to Normalcy to Substack, Medium, LinkedIn, and my website. This evening it started raining again.
This evening’s conversation suggested that Andy is going to stay in Belize and pursue a new hot sauce business at my place and utilize my greenhouse. I knew my greenhouse would pay off. It looks like I will have a roommate and get to go back to bike touring.
Andy’s new home. Don’t worry – windows are on the other 2 sides 😉
November 15
Life in the jungle: Today was a day spent mostly doing online research. First on bike touring and then on social media platforms and reels and monetization. I am excited about the possibility of getting back on the bike. It rained tonight.
November 16
Life in the jungle: Another day of continued research and planning out my priorities moving forward. I did a little work on my website. On Substack and Medium, LinkedIn, and my website, I posted Embracing Our Singular Moments: Grey Owl’s Timeless Message.
Things continue to go well with my guest. His plans for a hot sauce company continue. The weather was nice but everything is still very flooded—no relief in sight.
A big ass spider
November 17
Life in the Jungle: Today did not quite go as expected. Andy was planning to head to the city for some supplies. He is planning to make a sample batch of hot sauce. First thing this morning I gave all the chicken coops a proper once-over. This flooding is frustrating and makes the chicken coops all messy. As I was finishing up a very malnourished dog showed up out of nowhere. Except for being extremely skinny she was in good shape and was extremely happy to meet me.
Andy suggested we call her Sauce after his hot sauce business idea. I compromised with Saucy because she is a girl. Before Andy went to the city, he ran up to the village on his dirt bike and got some dog food. After Andy did leave for the city, I made Saucy a dog bed for her to sleep on outside at night. I guess I/we have a dog. This evening, I worked on some blogging. I posted the Belize blog post Part 46.
Malnourished and starving
November 18
Life in the jungle: The weather has been really good these last few days. This morning was no exception. Saucy continues to be very happy with her new living accommodations.
I started my morning posting Now That You Have Said That Out Loud, How Does it Make You Feel? to Substack, Medium, LinkedIn, and my website. About that time both me and Andy noticed ANOTHER skinny dog sniffing around. She looked exactly like Saucy but just a bit smaller. We watched her for a bit and then she disappeared. Two malnourished dogs at the same time that look like each other miles away from anyone?
Andy headed back to the city for ingredients to make a batch of hot sauce. I took a walk over to Jill’s old cabana and to Wayne’s who hadn’t been home this month. That’s the direction this new dog headed when she disappeared. I just wanted to try to figure this all out—no sign of the dog. When I returned back to the house the dog was in the front yard. She is a bit shyer but after a few settings, she was wagging her tail. Her name will be Pepper in the interest of continuing with Andy’s hot sauce dog names are Saucy and Pepper.
In barely over a week, I get a roommate and two dogs! Another afternoon not going as planned as I needed to build a second dog bed for Pepper. So that’s what I did. Upon Andy’s return, I went to the village for groceries. By the time I got back from visiting Verna Mae that was the end of my day.
Pepper & Saucy – Two malnourished and starving dogs
Belize Part 99 (Oct 24 to Nov 1)
Of Note: At this time I am currently 10 to 11 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.
