Tropical Storm Nadine reached Belize over the last few days with lots of rain.
October 20
Life in the jungle: It rained all last night and this morning, but not nearly as much as expected or in proportion to most of the country. There were moments of heavy rain showers throughout the day. By night time the rain had stopped and the river had risen considerably.
I spent most of my day in front of my computer. I posted Belize blog Parts 108, 109, 110 and to my Flora and Fauna page, I posted Narrow-bridged musk turtle. I also updated my Are you interested in living in Belize? Here’s an unusual opportunity blog post. This was a post I wrote almost one year ago. That update took a good part of the afternoon as so much has changed on the farm in this last year.
I also did some modifications to my Home Page. I changed my Latest News category to Belize Keynote & Jungle lifestyle Content. A place where I can post and highlight my more important Belize blog posts so they don’t get lost in all the rest of the blog posts. I need to invest more time in writing blog posts that are more Belize content-oriented versus my day-to-day life posts.
Backyard flooding
October 21
Life in the jungle: There was more rain last night and as of this morning the river is high but not top-galloned (flooded). I headed to the village for groceries and did a little chopping along the road. The weather was overcast and rain held off until after lunch.
I couldn’t resist, I skipped a nap yesterday and my hammock looked way too inviting. After my nap, I started working on a blog post I hadn’t touched since February about jungle living. This is a very extensive post covering all aspects of jungle living. I also spent all evening working on it. The first draft is nearly complete at almost 7,500 words.
October 22
Life in the jungle: At some point in the night the river top-galloned or flooded its bank. As a result of Tropical Storm Nadine, the Belize River rose approximately 25 feet. The result is most of the yard and into my coconut field is flooded by probably an average of 4.” This is the first top-gallon of the year. I had expected multiple top-gallons since June. Since last year a lot of work has been done to deal with impending flooding. I built a driveway with patio stones and I built a floor in the chicken coop area with cement blocks. I laid a patio stone walkway partly around the house. The greenhouse is dry and the new greenhouse expansion is also dry.
First thing I headed to the village to pick up broiler (meat) chicks. I was supposed to pick up layer chicks but somehow, they were never picked up from Spanish Lookout. I also paid for my zinc order that was picked up yesterday in Spanish Lookout. The zinc is the roof for my soon-to-be-built cabana. Returning home I slaughtered my last broiler (meat) chicken. With everything flooded, after lunch, I continued on my jungle living blog post. The post is basically complete and sits at about 8,500 words. I think tomorrow I will start with the process of posting it to my website. This will likely be a big job as I want to optimize the post for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I haven’t SEO’d a blog post since my two month stay in Las Vegas during my bike ride in February 2021.
Andy took some amazing photos of some Collard Acari’s in the yard this afternoon. They have been attracted by the papaya trees in the yard.
Collard Acari’s – all Acari photos are credited to Andy Wilson
October 23
Life in the jungle: Blue skies and no rain, but flood levels have slowly risen a bit. The flooding is usually between an inch and 6″ depending where you walk in the yard but the water level seems marginally higher than previous flooding.
I spent the day working on the Living in the Jungle blog post. I copied the text to the website and was able to pick and insert all the photos. This post is a very big job.
Driveway flooding
October 24
Life in the jungle: The flooded yard is maintaining its current level. So, I basically spent the day SEO (Search Engine Optimization) my Jungle Living blog post. At first, I was very discouraged with the task. A 9,000 word blog is a huge blog post to optimize. I almost gave up; in a sense why bother? I am at a crossroads with my website but I have been at a crossroads with my website for over a year now and I don’t have the time to deal with it.
My website costs me money every month to run for the last five years and counting but doesn’t generate a penny of income. Part of me thought maybe I should just unplug it but I feel like I have close to 100,000 hours invested in it. Technically it’s the closest thing for me ever having a “baby.” Part of the problem is I have absolutely no clue where to start, another part of me has no money to invest into it. And even if I invested money into it, I have no time to retain any knowledge gained.
In 2021 I spent two months in Las Vegas learning SEO (among other things) and SEO optimized many bike tour blog posts. I even refreshed my learning a year ago. Do you think I remember anything from that? Nothing. If I learn something, but don’t use the knowledge regularly, I forget it. There is no way I can commit to a regular schedule of website/blogging as a career with my workload on the farm.
If you by chance read this and are an SEO expert familiar with WordPress and would like a jungle adventure for free. Please, please reach out to me.
Eventually, a few things came back to me and I was able to get the post fairly SEO optimized, not nearly perfect but maybe close enough. The post is live and tomorrow I will share it with all the Belize expat groups on Facebook.
At the end of the day, I did a bunch of proofreading for Chapter 2 of my bike ride book. Another project that I am almost two years behind. There were sporadic rain showers all day.
Collard Acari’s – my favorite bird that frequents the farm
October 25
Life in the jungle: The flooding was down extremely marginally this morning. First thing, I shared my new blog post – A Comprehensive Guide to Living in the Jungles of Belize to 10 Facebook Groups. I got some good feedback and compliments.
“I just read this blog in its entirety with my husband and it is probably the most informative, well-written piece on Belize we’ve come across so far. Excellent work! I never, ever want to live there, but there was a time when I would have pushed all of these bits aside and hoped for the best. Very cool that there are people like you who can enjoy, navigate, and appreciate all of this natural beauty.”
“There is useful information here. Longest blog I’ve ever read! Full of suggestions for living in the jungle.”
“Be prepared to scroll well beyond your previous internet experience.”
“Well worth the time to reach the final page.”
I started to do some more of my bike ride book edits until I came across a comment asking for a post on how to (attempt) to make your house scorpion-free. I was inspired to write it. I think I got about 90% of the writing complete (2,000 words).
By the evening there was a noticeable (small) drop in flood water. There were a few rain showers today.
Collard Acari’s
Five years officially unemployed – not good
Belize Part 136 (Oct 12 to 19)
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.
