September 4
Life in the jungle: It rained on and off most of the day. I continued working on painting bookshelves. I am getting closer to finally completing this project. I spent most of the afternoon organizing computer notes. In the afternoon, I slaughtered two broiler (meat) chickens. A tropical wave is on its way to Belize.
September 5
Life in the jungle: There was rain throughout the night. Occasional rain through the day. When there was a break in the weather, I headed to the village for groceries and dropped off my broken chainsaw for repairs. I spent the whole day continuing my work on Andy’s kitchen. Cutting and installing shelving to the wall and a little painting of more shelving. Things are starting to take shape and soon Andy will have a functional kitchen. I stopped by the ponds to check on my papayas. They look good, but everything is extremely overgrown. They are calling for a lot of rain over the next few days.
My road is getting quite flooded
September 6
Life in the jungle: It rained the entire night and virtually the entire day. My main accomplishment today was editing another four pages of my 2019-21 bike ride book.
September 7
Life in the jungle: I put what I could put together for Andy’s kitchen and while I have some more shelves to paint and install, Andy finally has a usable kitchen. After breakfast, I did some yard work waiting for Andy to return from the village. He took longer than I hoped. (We make sure one of us is always at the farm.) Upon his return, I biked up the road and spent the afternoon chopping along the edges of the road. The road has received no maintenance in many months and the jungle is always trying to overtake the road. No rain today. I am totally shocked that the river did not “topgallon” (flood its banks) from all the recent rain.
Apartment kitchen and bathroom shelving installed
September 8
Life in the jungle: A mixed day. I slept in a bit. But it is my day off. I updated and shared an introduction blog post about my website for new social media followers. I put a coat of primer on some new shelving for Andy’s apartment. I took a nap in my hammock for a good part of the afternoon. At the end of the day, I slaughtered two broiler (meat) chickens.
In the evening, I did some research on raising soldier fly larvae. I have a few bins of larvae going, but they are not set up properly. I need to dial this in as it is an important project that I need to be successful at. I want to raise my own source of protein chicken food so my chickens no longer need to run loose. I also want to collect the soldier fly exoskeletons and frass (droppings) for compost.
There was no rain today. The river is about a foot and a half from “topgalloning.” I am shocked that it hasn’t yet, and has yet, the river bank has yet to flood this year.
Left photo: Malachite Butterfly
Right photo: Tropical Grey Cracker Butterfly
September 9
Life in the jungle: I spent most of the day researching how to raise soldier fly larvae. For the last few months, I have been doing a poor job of trying to raise soldier fly larvae for chicken food. The thing is, I feel like there is an important opportunity for raising them. There are two ways to raise them. There is the way hobby farmers raise them to feed their chickens and eat organic waste. Then there is the way business farmers raise them, for the same reasons but also collect the insect’s frass (waste) and exoskeletons for the purposes of soil additives and compost.
The interesting part that is when mixing frass with seedling soil, is that the plants create a natural insecticide against insect pests. Raising soldier fly larvae for their frass is also more conducive to expanding and growing a business on a much larger scale. Raising soldier fly larvae is not really talked about in Belize, but I feel like there might be a real opportunity in the country. My problem is without any help on the farm I am unlikely to be successful in seeing a return on my investments in raising soldier fly larvae.
Soldier fly larvae rearing bins
Soldier fly larvae
Today Andy officially uses his own kitchen. Very soon after Andy moved to Belize last November, we were able to set up the apartment I built in the greenhouse so that he could sleep in it. It ended up taking until this past June to get his toilet installed. And now we finally have his kitchen finished. Since his arrival, he has been using my kitchen for all his meals. Initially, I cooked supper for both of us, but due to my workload on the farm, Andy had been cooking supper for both of us for most of this past year. Now Andy is self-sufficient in his own place, and I am back to cooking my own suppers. No rain today.
September 10
Life in the jungle: I was planning to head to the city until I read a message Andy sent me last night. I think tomorrow is a holiday. Crap, so this morning I headed to the village and spent the morning moving some lumber to be added to a lumber order that is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. Luckily our local grocery store is open until 12 PM on holidays. There was rain this afternoon and I ended up napping and felt quite frustrated with myself for doing so.
September 11
Life in the jungle: First thing, I dug a short 25 foot trench for an electrical conduit line to my outdoor kitchen. My outdoor kitchen has never really been used and at this point become completely obsolete. But with some lumber, it would not be too difficult to turn the kitchen into a useful shed. I want to install an electrical outlet and light socket in the shed. I was hoping that the lumber to seal the kitchen would have been delivered today, but no luck. Most of the afternoon was spent chopping in the coconut field. The heat and humidity was pretty high today. No rain today. I found my first duck egg near my property entrance gate.
My outdoor kitchen with plans to turn it into an enclosed shed
September 12
Life in the jungle: A hot day in the city picking up supplies. Arriving home in the afternoon I forced myself to go to the ponds and cut grass. I got further than anticipated. No rain again, and likely for the rest of the week. Things are drying up.
Belize Part 130 (Aug 24 to Sept 3)
Belize Part 129 (July 24 to Aug 1)
Of Note: At this time I am currently 6 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.
