April 10
Life in the jungle: The morning was filled with assorted small jobs. Before breakfast, I headed to the village to pay for yesterday’s delivery of building materials and to pick up 100 ft of PVC pipe to be used as an electrical conduit. I want to bring electricity to the chicken coops to light up the main coops during the time of year when it gets dark at 5:30 PM. While we don’t lose a lot of daylight per day compared to Canada during seasons. Here when it gets dark at 5:30 PM instead of 6 PM egg production drops drastically
On the way to the village, I came across my second Tiger Rat snake and once again barely missed catching it. My first Tiger Rat snake was only yesterday. In the afternoon I also went to the ponds to water seedlings and then continued to dig deeper my septic tank hole. Another hen is sitting on eggs this evening.
April 11
Life in the jungle: There was a potential for rain over the next day. I focused and prioritized finishing my septic hole and trench as I didn’t want to have to finish this job if the dirt became wet or mud. It was an exhausting day. Everything is dug and my chicken coops are now also full of dirt. That was the physical challenge of the job. All the dirt from the hole was shoveled into a wheelbarrow and then hand shoveled all the dirt into the chicken coops to prevent the coops from flooding during the rainy season.
I think I am taking most of tomorrow off. Jamie messaged about temporarily delaying the canoe trip we were supposed to leave for on Sunday. The canoe trip has now been pushed two more weeks back.
A new septic trench and tank hole
A lot of the dirt from the septic trench was shovelled into the chick coop pens
April 12
Life in the jungle: It rained for an hour and a half last night. The rain is so very desperately needed and we barely got any. First thing this morning I chopped in the coconut field to make the kitchen free for Andy to make his breakfast. When I returned home determined to take today off, I went straight into the hammock and didn’t move until 2:45 PM for a late lunch. I did nothing but lay in my hammock for the entire day except to receive a load of gravel for my septic leech pipe trench. Mostly the weather was perfect working weather but I didn’t even have the energy to write blogs.
April 13
Life in the jungle: First thing I shoveled gravel into my septic trench. Before breakfast I had the trench and IBC tote hole prepared for the installation of my new septic system (on Monday). After breakfast, I fed electrical wire through 80 ft of PVC conduit pipe from the house to the chicken coops, dug the trench, and buried the conduit and waterline. It was a very long day.
A base layer of gravel
Running water and electricity to the chicken coops
April 14
Life in the jungle: This morning I worked around the chicken coops. I cleaned the main coop. I ran a few wires for future chicken coop lights. I laid 30 cement blocks as part of laying a concrete block floor for the chicken coop area. And Jamie, who had arrived yesterday as part of the weekend BBQ ritual, helped lower the IBC tote in the ground for the new septic system. After breakfast, laundry, and a nap I wrote Belize Blog posts Part 115 and 116.
Running electricity to the 2 main coops
Septic tank in its hole
April 15
Life in the jungle: This morning I started by laying 70 cement blocks and basically finishing a raised cement block floor for the main chicken coop area. The whole chicken coop(s) area should be fairly dry now during the rainy season. After breakfast, I disconnected the temporary septic system and connected the new septic system. After everything was connected, I headed to the village for groceries. Returning home I finished off topping the septic leech trench with gravel. After the trench was properly filled with gravel, I spread the remaining gravel and made a gravel driveway outside my gate. A very full day.
Septic pipe installed and then buried
A new gravel driveway. After a few months, it will become overgrown. Nothing looks nice for very long in the jungle.
April 16
Life in the jungle: First thing I mixed half a bag of cement. I patched areas around the chicken coop floor where the cement blocks left gaps between coops. I saw no reason to cut cement blocks into smaller pieces to fill spots when I could just as easily fill any hole or gaps with mixed cement. After breakfast, I filled in the remaining top section of the septic leech trench with dirt. I then started a new project of building a cover for the river pump until I ran out of lumber. A cover for the pump needs to be built in an attempt to keep rainwater off the pump. Another full day.
April 17
Life in the jungle: First thing I mixed half a bag of cement for around the IBC tote septic tank. I want to slowly pour a little cement around the tank to help protect it from ground dirt pushing into the tank. I then went to the village for lumber to build deck-step forms for a set of stairs I needed to build for my deck. Over a year ago I rebuilt the rear portion of my deck out of cement and I have never gotten around to finishing the job or building a set of steps. After that, I finished the job I had recently started by running an electrical conduit to the chicken coops from the house. During part of the year, egg production drops drastically because of less daylight. I then finished framing the river pump shed I started yesterday. Another full day.
April 18
Life in the jungle: First thing I mixed half a bag of cement to use to protect my septic tank. I have four newer patio stone molds (All my other molds are pretty beat up). When I mix my half-sack of cement for the septic, I make four patio stones to slowly build a little bit of an inventory for any new project that pops up. While digging gravel for the cement mix out of my gravel pile, I dug a bunch of green iguana eggs. About half a dozen eggs were destroyed by red ants but I did manage to salvage 30 eggs. It took a little while to set all of them up in makeshift incubators. I already had 10 turtle eggs from 10 days ago that I found disturbed at the ponds.
Green Iguana eggs I dug out of my gravel pit set up in a homemade incubator
This afternoon, I started building a raised flower box for growing lettuce. Over a year ago I built a wood frame, covered in window screen wooden box to raise lettuce in pots. That plan didn’t go so well. So today I built a cement (block) foundation box for the wooden box to sit on. That way Andy can grow lettuce in dirt and this wooden box I made will finally be of use. Right at the end of the day, I went to the ponds to water seedlings. A very long and full day.
I made this box to grow lettuce. So far we are not having good luck growing it.
Belize Part 116 (March 30 to April 9)
Belize Part 115 (March 15 to 29)
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.
