June 16
Life in the jungle: It rained throughout the night and into the morning causing me to linger in bed. I discovered three sick chickens including my original alpha male rooster. I didn’t expect that. After I killed them, I walked them to the river to toss in. The rooster’s spur caught my (pointer) finger and dug deep. That’s not cool, to have a piece of an animal imbed into your skin. I hope it doesn’t infect. After cleaning the wound, I attempted to dig and add some dirt to one of my chicken coop floors. I had added dirt months ago and the dirt had since settled more than expected. A few more wheelbarrow loads would be helpful. Except it started to rain and the job turned into a muddy gong show.
Today is my rest day anyway. I gave up and found myself napping on my hammock into the afternoon. there was on-and-off rain and thunder throughout most of the day. After a late breakfast, I checked in on my green iguana eggs and counted 18 hatchlings so far. [Back in April I had accidentally dug up a nest and have been incubating the eggs. Yesterday they started hatching.] I released them behind the house. I spent what little time was left in the afternoon researching chickens and raising soldier fly larvae on YouTube. There was more rain and thunder tonight.
Released baby Green Iguanas
June 17
Life in the jungle: Last night there were hours of thunder and lightning along with rain most of the night. I am not sure if it was yesterday’s extremely long nap or the thunder or even thinking about a planned trip to Canada for possibly next month but insomnia hit me badly and I am pretty sure it was well after 4 AM before I fell asleep. That caused a late start to my morning. First thing, I checked on my septic tank hole for my new cabana. There was about a foot and a half of water with the sides caving in. When I jumped in to bale out water the water was at my rainboot level filling my boots with water. My attempt to bale water resulted in more of the sides of dirt to cave in. This is truly a disaster. If only the hardware store had picked up my tank last week. I have no idea how to fix this mess.
Septic tank hole full of water – what a mess
I needed desperately to finish my new duck house. Last week I had half finished it. But I am waiting for more hardwood lumber to finish the job. The problem is that the ducks need to desperately be allowed to roam free as they have turned their chicken coop into a muddy soup. So, I used more expensive pressure-treated lumber to finish the house. In the later part of the afternoon, I started working on two black soldier larva-rearing compost bins. Black soldier flies are native to Belize and are an exceptionally healthy and easy insect to raise for chicken and duck food. They already are found in our compost bin but unfortunately, our compost bin was never designed to harvest the larvae. I worked on this until a heavy rain shower came through the area. In the evening, I continued with my chicken-keeping research.
In the end, 7 eggs of the 28 green iguana eggs that I was incubating didn’t hatch. All 21 babies were released behind the house.
June 18
Life in the jungle: Today there were two more sick chickens. This is definitely not good. I went to the village for groceries. At Verna Mae’s I found a newborn Red-cheeked mud turtle and then on my way home, I found a baby Meso-American slider turtle on the road. Today I potted some mango seedlings that I have been raising in wet paper towels. I spent the afternoon building two soldier fly larvae compost barrels. They are about 90% complete. No rain today
A baby Meso-American slider turtle beside a baby Red-cheeked mud turtle beside a $1 coin
Check out Belize blog Part 125 for more Red-cheeked mud turtle pics
I turned on my Merlin bird app this morning
June 19
Life in the jungle: The time has come to start replanting seedlings that died during the Dry Season. I headed to the ponds to replace and plant about a dozen seedlings. Mostly some custard apple and a few limes and pomegranates. At the ponds, I also heard a mountain lion make multiple calls/screams.
After breakfast, I finished the two soldier fly larvae barrels and did a little work around the chicken coops. Later in the afternoon, I planted a dozen soursop seedlings in the coconut field replacing dead seedlings.
Prototype soldier fly larvae bins
I turned on my Merlin bird app this morning
June 20
Life in the jungle: In the middle of the night, I heard the thunder and the rain. It rained all night and all day today. When I woke up the front yard ponds that were dry last night were basically full (a 4 ft pond & a 9 ft pond). The frogs, tree frogs, and toads are officially awake and making their music. I discovered a dead chicken some ways away from the coop. I don’t think she was sick. She had been dead a day or two and I had heard commotion in that general direction a few times the other day. Either way, this is a bad time for me to have chickens.
I wrote Belize bog posts Part 121, 122, 123 and 124. I discovered that I have lost or deleted blog post #119. That sucks. When I went to post a blog, I discovered the internet speed was super slow so I transitioned to editing my book. I am not sure if I have even worked on my book this year but I was thinking about it recently. I really need to make getting my book finished a priority. I started going through a proofread of my Mexico stage chapter. Right before bed I did a night walk around the house to see what creatures I could find. I found a Two-spotted snake. This is the first one I have ever come across.
A Two-spotted snake (Coniophanes bipunctatus)
June 21 & 22 – I appear to have lost my notes on these two days which is beyond strange. That being said, most of my time during these days would have been spent re-planting seedlings in the coconut field. I also finished my duck house and compost chicken coop.
A new duck house (that the ducks would not use)
The new compost chicken coop is also now being used
June 23
Life in the jungle: First thing, I planted some of the last seedlings in the coconut field. Fortunately, this is my day off. I am physically exhausted. Instead of breakfast, I collapsed in my hammock, had a late lunch, and then went right back to the hammock. Over the last three days, I planted 41 soursops, 9 starfruit, 13 lemons, 5 mangos, 12 sapodillas, and 8 Rambutan.
My Merlin app this morning
Belize Part 123 (June 8 to 15)
Belize Part 122 (May 31 to June 7)
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.
