February 17
Life in the jungle: Before bed last night, I started posting Belize blog Part 150. I did not sleep great last night. This morning, at about 5:45 AM, it started raining. Seriously? Will this dry season ever start? You know how in North America you can get a rogue snowstorm in April? Now imagine that the snow has never stopped snowing until April. That’s kind of what it’s like right now.
Before sunrise, I finished posting Belize blog Part 150. I then posted Belize blog Part 151. The significance of Part 151 is that it makes me officially up to date on my daily blogs up to the end of January.
When I first came to Belize in November 2021, it took me 18 months to get a proper internet connection. That put me behind 18 months of posting blogs about my day-to-day life in Belize. My day-to-day blogging takes a bit of work to post between writing, proofreading, sorting through photos, and posting.
Plus, even if I had time, I can’t just post 50 blog posts overnight. And for the purpose of sorting photos, I have to wait until the following month to post the current month’s posts. For example, I can’t post any of February’s blog posts until March, so I can properly sort ALL of February’s photos out. Anyway, after three years and three months of living in Belize, I am finally caught up on posting my day-to-day blog posts!
I then transitioned to my Snakes of Belize blog post. I hadn’t looked at that blog post in weeks. I spent the remainder of the morning trying to SEO-optimize that post with virtually no luck. [As of four months later, I am still working on this blog post.]
There were sporadic rain showers all morning. After lunch, I brought two sacks of manure and fertilized mound 1 at the ponds. I am currently in the process of fertilizing all my seedlings there. Returning home, I spent most of the rest of the afternoon chopping in the coconut field.
The photo on the left is one of the more interesting photos I have ever taken.
I broke open a Mud Dauber (or mud wasp) nest and discovered it full of orb spiders, which is food for the wasp larvae.
February 18
Life in the jungle: In the morning, I chopped in the coconut field. After lunch, I brought two more sacks of manure to the ponds for mound 3. Then I slaughtered a broiler (meat) chicken. In the afternoon, I started to build a trellis for Blue Butterfly peas. While in San Ignacio last month, I was given some Blue Butterfly pea seeds. It is a vine plant, and the flowers are edible. Andy is interested in the flowers to see if he can get a blue hot sauce with the flowers. No rain today.
I set up two trellises for Blue Butterfly Peas.
It wouldn’t take long before my plants were in bloom, and I eat the flowers almost on a daily basis.
The flavor is what I describe as pleasant tasting.
Five years ago today was a really cold night for me
February 19
Life in the jungle: This morning, I got my first duckling incubated and hatched by a chicken, and my first all-yellow duck. First thing, I chopped in the coconut field. After lunch, I brought my last two sacks of manure fertilizer to the ponds. This job is now done. At the ponds, I discovered my first pineapple. Whenever I buy a pineapple, I plant the pineapple tops at my ponds.
In the last part of the afternoon, I was able to finish the Blue Butterfly pea trellises and plant some baby plants. No rain today again – fingers crossed.
As a huge Dexter fan, I found out through a Facebook post that Michael C. Hall has a band called Princess Goes to Butterfly Museum. I gotta be honest – I’m definitely a new fan.
I have my chickens incubating my duck eggs
February 20
Life in the jungle: First thing I wrote, Belize blog Part 154. I then headed to the village for groceries. The road is starting to improve very slowly. After lunch, I headed to my hammock. I always have work, but I am pretty on top of things. Most of my projects are on hold due to waiting for lumber or lawnmower parts, or things to dry up more.
In the hammock, I was thinking maybe I should take off for a few days and take advantage of the window of opportunity. But this evening, I reached out for help to purchase and pick up some of the lumber that I was waiting on. It turns out, we are picking it up tomorrow morning. This will set me up to start building my cabana and a compost toilet for Andy.
Later in the afternoon, I washed my drinking water eavestrough.
The Brown or Striped Basilisk (male). In Maya, it is called Tolok
February 21
Life in the jungle: This morning, with Nelson, a friend from the village, I headed to a small lumber yard a little less than 25 kilometres away on the Northern Highway. I was able to get the lumber for the cabana that I had been waiting months for. I was hoping to also get lumber for a compost toilet for Andy, but with their prices, it would have cost about $175 USD more in materials than I am used to paying. With the dry season finally here, the lumber needed should be available again soon enough, at cheaper prices.
The lumber I picked up was four pieces of hardwood specifically for the floor framing. Due to the fact that I have been waiting almost five months for these pieces, I purchased an extra four pieces for the next cabana so I won’t be delayed on that (future) build.
Nelson works on a 2,000 acre farm in Rancho Delores that grows bamboo and makes bowels out of native hardwoods. During our ride to the lumber yard, we had a conversation that led to me now planning to head to Rancho Delores on Monday for a few days to explore the jungle out that way. Rancho Delores is about 15 kilometres further down our main road.
In the village, I learned there are complaints about a jaguar or mountain lions killing cows in the village, and the likely solution is to shoot the animal.
I saw a good-sized jaguarundi on my road this morning. He was aways away, but there was no mistaking it.
With what time I had left in the afternoon, I did some yard work.
It would appear that a large adult Spiny-Tailed iguana entered the yard, and Saucy and Pepper caught him
February 22
Life in the jungle: There was some rain in the night. That is frustrating. Even though it was Saturday, I headed to the city to get the supplies I needed for water-glassing eggs. My eggs are piling up, and I now plan to be away for most of next week. Water-glassing is a way to preserve fresh eggs for a year to 18 months with pickling lime or calcium hydroxide (food grade).
I think only one other time I went to the city on a Saturday. There was a bit of rain in the city. So much for the dry season starting.
I searched high and low, and I couldn’t find pickling lime anywhere.
Belize Part 154 (Feb 12 to 16)
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 parents’ 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 season (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.
