May 31
Life in the jungle: I started my morning back working on my (compost-making) chicken coop. I had one small coop door and the main door left to build. An excavator operator came by but I will have to wait to hear from the company owner on an estimate. I’m anxious and any day the rainy season will start. After lunch, I spent the rest of the writing my canoe trip blog. I ended up writing about the canoe trip in three blog posts.
June 1
Life in the jungle: First thing this morning I was back working on my (compost-making) chicken coop. I finished installing the chicken wire over the exterior of the coop. Basically, all that is left is to finish building the hen house when I can acquire more lumber (hopefully tomorrow). I then framed a duck house for the ducks I received last month. They are growing like crazy. I have to wait for lumber to complete that job also.
After lunch, I went back to work on my canoe trip blogs. I was able to post the first blog post and was starting the second blog post when my website crashed. I now have to wait until Monday to have that fixed. With a dead website, I organized all the canoe trip photos and videos on my phone and edited the first five videos for future posting.
New chicken is mostly complete
June 2
Life in the jungle: First thing this morning I washed some railings on my house deck and painted them. This was a job I finally started last month but haven’t had a chance to get back to. I also finally organized and put away my camping gear.
I also discovered that seven baby Meso-American slider turtles had hatched. Back in April, I discover a disturbed turtle nest at the ponds. I was able to salvage ten eggs and today seven of them hatched. As today is my day off, later in the afternoon, I took a nap in the hammock.
Baby Meso-American slider turtles
June 3
Life in the jungle: First thing I headed to the village for groceries. After breakfast, I started digging a hole for my new cabana septic tank. The ground is so hard that my hands are now blistered up. It’s another situation where if I don’t get the septic in the ground before the rainy season, it’s going to get messy. [This hole would end up 4 ft x 4 ft x 4ft and I was unable to get the septic tank delivered in time for the rainy season. At the time of writing this, the hole is full of water and partially caved in. Technically my biggest mess of the year.]
Right before dark, Saul showed up with a load of hardwood lumber that had been waiting weeks for. I was really tired this evening.
June 4
Life in the jungle: I spent the whole day using up all the lumber Saul brought last night. At the moment, I can only get substandard lumber, but I am so desperate I will take anything I can my hands on. I have six outstanding projects that I need lumber for. I had to carefully examine every piece for damage and length so that I could use and not waste a single inch of any boards.
I built the table tops for two workbenches that I made for the greenhouse’s front entrance the other week. I built two plant shelves for an herb garden that I framed up a few months ago. A lot more lumber is required to complete this job. I set aside the lumber required for a shelf system for germinating seedlings (Building this will be tomorrow’s project).
New workbenches in the greenhouse front entrance
I used the remaining lumber to get a start on building the chicken coop house for the compost-making coop. It was a long day.
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June 5
Life in the jungle: First thing I went to the ponds to water seedlings. I won’t go into the coconut field as I am too afraid until after the rainy season starts. I am fearful of how badly the seedlings there are probably doing. I never imagined things could ever be this dry, for this long. Even large (young) coconuts are literally falling over. I never saw that before.
Coconut trees are literally falling over because of how dry everything is
Getting home I built a shelf system for germinating seeds. After lunch, I posted my Belize River canoe adventure blog post #2 and 3.
All day you could hear the jungle burning. The sound of burning bamboo makes an unmistakable loud popping sound. Every year the locals set fires for no good reason causing great damage and destruction to the jungle. I am 100% convinced that it is the Belizean’s way of following the path of human moral depravity. Most societies/countries are determined to take the path of moral depravity generally expressed through sexual expression. I am convinced habitat destruction and the killing of wildlife is the Belizean’s expression. This evening everything was pretty smoky.
This morning I turned on my Merlin app for a few minutes
June 6
Life in the jungle: First thing I headed to the ponds and chopped around all the seedling trees planted on the first mound. Upon returning home I shared my first canoe trip blog post to a dozen Belizean Facebook groups. After lunch, I had to repair a screw-up done on my apartment toilet flange. This is not easy considering the flange is PVC glued to PVC pipe that is encased in cement.
In the afternoon I went back to the ponds and was able to chop around the seedlings planted on the middle mound. The rainy season may start tomorrow. Andy officially finished wiring up the greenhouse with power. The other week he wired up the apartment.
Hot pepper plants in the greenhouse
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June 7
Life in the jungle: First thing I cleaned my main chicken coop. Rain is expected this afternoon. It’s best to clean up all the chicken shit before things get wet. From there I headed to the village for some groceries. The thunder started at noon. I had a ridiculous situation before lunch. The Belize Tourism Board called me and said that they had been in the area but couldn’t find me and were looking to follow up on my tourist application that I submitted after my arrival in December 2021. They are following up two and a half years later. I wish I could make this up.
After lunch, I composed an email to the Minister of Infrastructure Development & Housing, CEO of Infrastructure Development & Housing, and Area Representative for Belize Rural North and it was even recommended that I email the Minister of Agriculture Food Security & Enterprise.
For months I have been reaching out and bugging the government to make some repairs to the road and now the rainy season is upon us. The road guy who was quick to help last year has since been transferred to another district. He suggested writing a letter/email. It probably won’t result in anything but one still must go through the motions. [No one responded to my emails.]
Later in the afternoon, I continued digging the hole for the new cabana septic.
New cabana septic tank hole
Belize Part 121 (May 18 to 30)
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.
