February 20
Life in the jungle: The last few mornings have been kind of cold. I spent a short time starting to dig my future septic trench. I had an earlier breakfast than usual so I could start painting the greenhouse. We need to enclose the greenhouse in shade cloth and insect netting as soon as possible but need to finish all the painting. Andy and I painted all day. Right before dark Jamie showed up and helped us put the water vat on the water tower, this evening, I posted Belize blog Part 63.
My road early in the morning
February 21
Life in the jungle: A warmer night last night but another cold morning (15° C). This morning, I headed to the village to get a Justice of the Peace to sign some documents needed for my Belize Immigration residency. I also picked up some PVC pipe to finish the greenhouse water tower vat installation. After lunch, I built and installed a ladder up to the vat and Andy and I installed the PVC required to pump water up to the vat. We got everything done right before dark. A hen that was sitting on eggs from January 30 has some chicks.
Water tower with ladder
February 22
Life in the jungle: This morning I missed the Belmopan bus by three minutes for my passport stamp. I got to immigration at 10:15 AM with twelve people in front of me and only one booth open. I got through the door at 1:35 PM and left immigration at 1:40 PM. All that waiting for less than five minutes to get my stamp. The only part that worked out was that Andy arrived in Belmopan at the same time in a van he was borrowing so I got a ride straight home.
A busy bus ride into the city this morning
February 23
Life in the jungle: While waiting for the morning dew to dry (for painting the greenhouse), I started to build the doors for the front entrance of the greenhouse. After breakfast, I painted all day. At the end of the day, I had to head to the village for a 2×4 I was short to finish building the front doors.
A Mexican Maske tree frog camouflaged on a deck chair
February 24
Life in the jungle: First thing this morning, I finished making the greenhouse’s front doors. After breakfast, I painted all day. Most of the water tower has its first coat of blue paint. I buried an old deck footing after I finished painting for the day. It has been a very long day and a longer week. Jamie and Joseph came over for a BBQ. After I ate, I was pretty comatose until 10 PM bedtime. For almost a month Jamies comes over on Saturdays for a BBQ and spends the night in the living room hammock. At 10 PM I hand him a blanket and bid Jamie, Andy, and any other guests good night and I go to bed. I never stay up past 10 PM.
Water tower has a coat of paint on it
February 25
Life in the jungle: Today being Sunday, it’s my day off but I spent my morning washing my deck. I give the kitchen over to Andy first thing in the morning and this morning he and Jamie made fry jacks for breakfast. After Jamie left, I slumped into my hammock and didn’t leave for five hours. That worked out to almost an extra 45 minutes of sleep per day this week. I am so behind on blog posts I will likely never catch up. And I guess I didn’t get any closer today. This morning Elton with the bushhog showed up and cut the coconut field. He was supposed to show up yesterday.
February 26
Life in the jungle: First thing I headed to the village for groceries. On my way, I ran into Elton on his tractor. He stopped to let me know yesterday on his way out he saw a jaguar on my road. After breakfast, I painted the entire day. Orlando stopped by. I need to make a set of concrete steps for the cement deck Orlando and I built last year. We discussed the materials needed and a plan on how to build the steps.
Red-cheeked mud turtle on the road
February 27
Life in the jungle: I started the morning caulking some of the trim around the apartment. A dump truckload of gravel mix for cement was delivered. After breakfast, I painted the whole day. After painting; in preparation to start making patio stones again, I cleaned up the old molds. I also moved a few wheelbarrow loads of gravel to lay patio stones in Andy’s dirt bike shed. That will be tomorrow morning’s job. I was exhausted, but this evening, I started working on Belize blog Part 66.
February 28
Life in the jungle: First thing I laid the patio stone floor for Andy’s new dirt bike shed. After breakfast, I worked on the greenhouse all day. Painting and then reconstructing the apartment’s front door overhang. Andy would prefer a larger overhang to shield the front door from rain. Another full day.
February 29
Life in the jungle: I got to Belmopan Immigration at 10 AM for my 11 AM residency interview hoping to get in and out early. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but I got in at 11 AM and out by noon. This time I got a much friendlier interviewer. This stage of the residency application process is complete. I was stuck taking the 3:30 PM bus home.
A full bus headed home
March 1
Life in the jungle: Last night we discovered a problem with the river pump and it didn’t help that I accidentally let the water vat run dry never anticipating more water problems. We think the problem is that the river level has dropped too low for the pump to handle. However, this doesn’t make sense as we now have a more powerful pump. By the end of the day, we still had no solutions. I am technically now going on 27 months with problems trying to pump water from the river.
Because we are out of water and I need two buckets of water for each patio stone mix I abandoned that job this morning until we can solve this latest problem. Instead, I headed up to the village to pay a few bills.
On my way home the weather looked weird and it even sprinkled for a few minutes. This ended up screwing the day for painting the greenhouse. I spent much of the day on assorted yard jobs but I did finish cutting the grass at the ponds. So at least that job is finally complete. With no water, I jumped in the river for the first time in over 20 years for my shower.
Undoubtedly a crocodile at my ponds killed this Green Iguana
March 2
Life in the jungle: I spent the first part of my morning digging my new septic trench. After breakfast, I painted the greenhouse. All day Andy worked on installing another new water pump (purchased over a month ago) until later in the afternoon he had to pick up a Canadian friend of his at the airport. After they got back and in the dark, he couldn’t get the pump running. I jumped into the river again in the dark. I also caught a baby Fer de Lance at the house. It’s crazy to think that the most dangerous snake in North, Central, and South America is the most common snake found around my house.
The Fer de Lance was resting on the top edge of the blue 1×3. Very dangerous for anyone or a dog walking by. Close call.
Belize Part 112 (Feb 11 to 19)
Of Note: At this time I am currently 9 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 two – 30 acre parcels minus two – ¾ acre parcels for my house. In 2017 Wayne sold me 40 acres of land from the original 60 acres (one 30 acre parcel plus 10 acres from the second parcel). Wayne lives in his parent’s house and has a few cows on his remaining 18 acres of land.
The ponds – I have two 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 two 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 my 10 acre parcel. I have planted about 350 assorted fruit trees (lemon, starfruit, mango, soursop, cashew, lime, orange) all raised from seed since my arrival in Belize in 2021.
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 two 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. Generally, when I chop I am removing unwanted vegetation around my baby fruit 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.
