On November 15 less than a week after flood waters from Tropical Storm Nadine subsided we got hit with Tropical Storm Sara. On November 16 we experienced top-gallon again. Top-gallon means the Belize River has risen about 25 feet and has flooded its banks and there is flooding everywhere.
November 26
Life in the jungle: First thing, I headed to the ponds and finished this round of chopping. The grass over the mounds is completely overgrown, but the flooding needs to disappear before I can bring the lawnmower. So, for the foreseeable future, the ponds are done. The purpose of the chopping is to clean around all the seedling fruit trees and papaya plants I planted in June.
Another opossum was caught at my chicken coops
After lunch, I headed to the village for groceries, but not before I paid a visit to the Community Baboon Sanctuary Museum. A few days earlier, I got the idea in my head to reconsider my original plan of raising mahogany trees for reforestation of the jungle. When I first arrived in Belize three years ago this was my plan. But after a tough first 18 months of a lot of shitty experiences in the country, I abandoned the idea altogether. I can only assume that being in a better place caused me to reconsider. A natural first step was to talk with the conservation organization that oversees conservation efforts in this area.
Truthfully, I expected to walk away from that conversation very disappointed. I talked with them for a while with plans for further conversations. This initial contact was productive and they seemed excited in further conversations. Andy agrees that raising trees for reforestation could have a symbiotic relationship with his hot sauce business.
The Belize River at Bermudian Landing
On the way home I came across a good-sized Black-tail Cribo snake on my road. I haven’t seen too many snakes in a long time.
November 27
Life in the jungle: I spent the whole day working on my front deck. Much, much earlier in the year, I had started to repaint the rear section and part of the front section of the deck. This morning, I finally continued with that project by washing algae and mold off the railings and after lunch, I put a coat of paint on them.
The weather has been amazing ever since Tropical Storm Sara hit (except for all the rain and flooding). Temperatures have been perfect with next to no humidity.
Black Howler monkeys in a tree
November 28
Life in the jungle: This morning, I continued to work on my deck. In the morning, I cleaned railings and after lunch, I painted the railings until I ran out of blue paint.
I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning and weeding the fence around the house. The fencing is falling apart. It needs to be replaced. This is kind of frustrating as I don’t need more projects and this one is going to be big and expensive. This evening, I measured out the fence. There are 275 feet of fence around my house. The fence is essential to keep the dogs safe from mountain lions and jaguars.
This morning the flooding was down by a 1/4″ for the first time and was possibly another 1/4″ by the end of the day.
This morning my Merlin app picked up an amazing surprise!
An endangered Crested Guan
November 29
Life in the jungle: Continuing with the painting theme, first thing I washed some sections of the house that had become stained with algae. I also cleaned and prepped Andy’s apartment window trim (some of the apartment trim only had a primer coat). After lunch, I painted all the areas I had cleaned and prepped.
Later in the afternoon, I started laying a cement block floor in one of the chicken coops. Earlier in the year I shovelled dirt into the pens to prevent flooding when the river flooded its banks. The added dirt helped, but the dirt still turned into muddy soup. With the cement block floor, we can now also collect the chicken waste for manure.
The flood waters have continued to very slowly recede. I think the water is down another inch. Sunny, beautiful weather all day. Today I noticed a white-necked puffbird in the breadfruit tree
After all this time, I still needed to paint the apartment trim.
They were painted a matching tan.
November 30
Life in the jungle: This morning, I wiped down and washed another section of the house exterior for painting this afternoon. Then with time before lunch, I continued laying cement blocks in the chicken coop I started yesterday. I got that coop floor completed.
After lunch, I painted a second coat on Andy’s apartment window trim. After all this time (one year) the apartment is officially finished. I then painted another (small) section of the exterior of the house that is susceptible to algae. For the most part, I have finished painting any exterior sections of the house that could use a coat of paint.
Then I laid cement blocks and completed a second chicken coop floor. Of the three coops that had a dirt (mud) floor, two of them now are cement block floors. The third one survived the flooding better than the other two. I will not cement block its floor, but I think later in the year I will put a few inches of gravel on top.
Cement block floors in the chicken coops
Perfect weather today and the flooding has dropped a couple of inches in the last 24 hours. Transporting cement blocks across the yard to the chicken coops has created a disastrously muddy mess. This will get worse when the flooding is officially over.
Strange caterpillars on a lime tree leaf
December 1
Life in the jungle: Today is my day off, but I took the morning to clean up the area around the chicken coops from laying the cement block floors. I also slaughtered two roosters and a broiler (meat) chicken.
After lunch, I took a nap in the hammock. I was desperate for my hammock and initially Saucy and Pepper with their barking made that difficult as I suspect there was a monkey in a nearby tree.
Top-gallon is over. For the last 15 days, the yard has been flooded thanks to Tropical Storm Sara. Now comes the fun part – mud. I find the mud is way worse than the flooding. There was a heavy rain shower this afternoon.
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly
Belize Part 142 (Nov 19 to 25)
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 assorted 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 a 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.
