March 30
Life in the jungle: Before breakfast, I was able to lay 100 cement blocks in the main chicken coop area for a raised floor. The purpose of the floor is the solution to dealing with the mud during the rainy season.
After breakfast, Jamie arrived and helped install shade cloth on the greenhouse. It’s been a long time coming to have shade cloth installed on the greenhouse. Later in the afternoon, exhaustion took over and I found myself in the hammock. A lot of work was accomplished this week.
Laying a new floor in the chick coop area to help deal with the flooding in the rainy season
Shade cloth installation
March 31
Life in the jungle: Today is my day off but I always do some work first thing. I always give the kitchen over to Andy and let him have breakfast first. I went to the ponds to chop. I saw a medium-sized Morelets crocodile in the second pond. This is the second time I have seen a medium-sized crocodile at the ponds in a week. Things are extremely dry and some of my custard apple seedlings are starting to die as a result.
I took my usual Sunday nap but I spent a good part of the day doing house cleaning. Now that the driveway was completed, along with the need to cut up patio stones, I needed to clean all the concrete dust that had been blowing through the house. And right before dark, I headed to the ponds to start watering my custard apple seedlings.
April 1
Life in the village: First thing I headed to the village for some medication for Saucy. On Saturday I noticed two bare patches on her back end and she kept licking them. After breakfast, I went to the ponds to chop and water most of my seedlings. I finished all the necessary chopping and am going to have water seedlings regularly for the foreseeable future. After I returned home, I chopped in the coconut field. So far everything is looking better there than expected seeing how we haven’t had rain in forever. Today was a long day as usual. Two new hens are sitting on eggs.
A young desert rose that I grew from seed
April 2
Life in the jungle: This morning I was the first one on the bus. I don’t know where all the different busses start their day each morning but I find it so bizarre to be getting on an empty bus in the morning. This is the second time it has happened in recent months.
A very hot day in the city. Besides regular supplies, I needed a few things for my upcoming canoe trip. After arriving home, I watered my seedlings at the ponds. I have lost a few seedlings but I have saved dozens by watering the last few days.
April 3
Life in the jungle: I started my morning chopping in the coconut field. After breakfast, I repaired an apartment septic system “mistake” I made way back. Lucky for me the septic system has not been put into use yet. After that, I started framing up a herb and seedling garden. It was another very hot day and evening.
Building a new greenhouse to germinate seeds
April 4
Life in the jungle: I basically spent the whole day finishing the framing of the herb and seedling greenhouse I started yesterday. I had time to water my seedlings at the ponds. I have chicks starting to hatch today.
Progress
April 5
Life in the jungle: I slept in this morning. I forgot to open my windows before bed and strangely the roosters were very quiet this morning. There was a very light and short rainfall this morning. I went up to the village for supplies and then built the door for the herb and seedling greenhouse.
The door
April 6
Life in the jungle: This morning I started by installing insect netting on front of the herb and seedling greenhouse. I then went to the village to pay for an IBC tote that I tracked down in Spanish Lookout. I am having the local hardware store pick it up and deliver it to me. I plan to use the IBC tote as my new septic tank for the house. I prefab (larger) septic tank would cost me $600 USD plus I would have to figure out how to get it here from the city. A used IBC tote will cost me $175 USD delivered. I then worked on digging the hole for the tote. Using the dirt from the septic hole I filled the chicken coop floors. At the end of the day, I headed to the ponds and watered seedlings.
I am filling the chicken coop pens with dirt to help combat flooding
April 7
Life in the jungle: Today is my day off. First thing this morning I chopped in the coconut field. It took all the energy and motivation I could muster. After a late breakfast, I went to the hammock and didn’t get out until 5 PM.
April 8
Life in the jungle: I started my morning chopping in the coconut field. Again, I was pretty exhausted and unmotivated this morning. Today I was cleaning in an area with a fair amount of citrus seedlings and as I feared, I came across a lot of dead seedlings thanks to the lack of rain. Frustrating.
I got a call from the Ladyville Police Department about my residency police interview. They want me to go to the station tomorrow. I assumed that they were coming to me. This is irritating as I predict this interview is a waste of everyone’s time. I already submitted a police record with my residency paperwork and what possible questions could they have that immigration couldn’t have asked me over a month ago at that interview?
After breakfast, I continued digging the hole for a septic tank. The dirt is being shoveled into the chicken coops. Which is very labor intensive. First to dig clay out of a hole and then to re-shovel that clay from a wheelbarrow through the door of a chick coop. Later in the afternoon, I went to the ponds to water seedlings. I saw a Black-tailed Cribo snake and I came across a disturbed nest of reptile eggs. I suspect that they are green iguana eggs, but possibly turtle eggs. There were three damaged and ten good eggs. I will attempt to incubate the ten good ones. [They would hatch in June. They turned out to be Meso-American slider turtle eggs.]
A disturbed Meso-American slider turtle egg nest
April 9
Life in the jungle: Today was a trip to the city for my police interview for my residency. I can only assume the purpose of the interview is for a secondary independent investigation into my background. Unless something else is requested of me everything regarding my residency is completed. Now I simply wait for approval.
By the time I got home an ICB tote that I purchased from Spanish Lookout for my new septic system had been delivered along with 115 cement blocks to finish the chicken coop area floor. Along with setting up another 10 freshly hatched chicks, I moved the 115 blocks to the work area by the coops.
I saw my very first Tiger Rat snake on my road on the way home. I came sooo close to catching it but they are super fast snakes.
Belize Part 115 (March 15 to 29)
Belize Part 114 (March 3 to 14)
Of Note: At this time I am currently 8 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.
