October 8
Life in the jungle: First thing, I shared my The Most Dangerous Animals in the Belize Jungle: Fact or Fiction blog post to Facebook groups. I will share this post for the rest of the week to about 30 Facebook groups.
After feeding the chickens, I brought a sack of sheep manure to the ponds to go around the papaya plants. Returning to the house, I took the chainsaw to a fallen tree on the road near the driveway.
After breakfast, I painted the wine cellar. The plan is for Andy to make fruit and vegetable wine, and I have a small room under the house that can store the wine as it ferments. Over the last few weeks, I have been slowly prepping the room. The room is now complete. [This room will no longer become a wine cellar.]
I then moved on to painting primer on the new cabana. There was no rain today.
I never get bored with photographing Passion fruit flowers
October 9
Life in the jungle: I continued sharing dangerous animal post to Facebook groups, and I got half an hour’s work into my Mexican chapter of my book.
It was on my radar, but not my original plan, but I spent the morning on chicken coop repair. The chicken wire along one side of one of the coops had pulled away. The problem was that a large broiler (meat) chicken rearing box (cage) and a chicken food storage box were blocking the repair.
After breakfast, I headed to the village. I was just in the village the other day, but my mosquito spray can lost pressure, leaving me without mosquito spray in the middle of the jungle.
Returning home, I went back to painting the cabana. At the end of the afternoon, I slaughtered a duck and a broiler (meat) chicken.
October 10
Life in the jungle: I brought another wheelbarrow load of sheep manure to the ponds for the papaya plants. I then recorded two long-form YouTube videos. I am determined to start creating content for my YouTube channel. I’m just trying to get a bunch of pre-recorded.
After breakfast, I had Andy help me resize the kitchen cabana door. Being the rainy season and the moisture in the air, the door to that cabana swelled and would no longer close properly. I spent the rest of the afternoon painting the new cabana.
No rain during the day, but a thunderstorm at night.
October 11
Life in the jungle: I worked a little on my Belize chapter of my book before feeding the chickens. Then I brought a last wheelbarrow of manure to the ponds. That job is complete. I then worked on and completed an eavestrough project I had started the other week.
After breakfast, I painted the kitchen door I resized yesterday, and because I had the can of tan (color) open, I painted the front exterior wall of that cabana. The interior of the cabana was completed some time ago, but the whole exterior still needs to be painted. I have so much painting to do.
October 12
Life in the jungle: Being Sunday, it was a largely uneventful day on purpose. I did some odd jobs first thing because even though it’s my down day, I still need a reason to get up in the morning. I took a nap after breakfast. I couldn’t resist and did a little blog research with ChatGPT later in the day. There is no rain today.
October 13
Life in the jungle: First thing, I slaughtered two hens and a rooster in an attempt to get rid of all my free-range chickens. When all the local chickens are eventually slaughtered, the plan is to convert the main coop into a third layer coop. We would then have three layer coops creating compost, and with 32 hens, expect almost 32 eggs a day. No more chickens running free means nobody gets eaten by predators, and no eggs being laid in random places that we never discover. But we would have collectible compost and quantity egg production. Also, chickens consume a lot of frogs, tree frogs, and snakes
I then put trim around the greenhouse front doors to keep baby spiny-tailed iguanas out of the greenhouse. In the afternoon, I painted a second coat on the kitchen cabana door and front exterior wall that I started on Saturday, and I got a little bit of primer painted on the new cabana
Thought of the day – blessed are the peacekeepers.
The shade cloth greenhouse front doors – before and after
October 14
Life in the jungle: This week, I’m sharing my What I Wish I Knew Before Moving to the Jungle in Belize post to various Belize Facebook groups. For the last few months, I have been having Facebook group “sharing” problems. Last week, I tested sharing a post’s title, page photo, and a link that people would need to click on. That way, Facebook thinks I am sharing a photo and not a website. This has turned out to be more successful (unfortunately). I only share with about ten groups at a time and spread the sharing out through the week. This is also time-consuming for me, as it now takes me three mornings a week to do.
I also worked on a new blog post called A Day in the Life of Living in the Belize Jungle. This is an unusual post for me as it’s not exactly meant to be shared with my existing audience and will not be shared on Facebook. This is “mostly” an AI-generated post that is ultra SEO and AI optimized to help build authority on Google and ChatGPT. Throughout the post, I include links and recommendations to most all my more important and more accurate jungle experience posts on my website. I plan to publish about a dozen of this style of post to my website to ensure that my website is a top-ranking website for any and all jungle lifestyle and living content within the next year.
After breakfast, I continued painting the kitchen cabana door and front exterior, and the interior of the newest cabana.
I couldn’t help but notice that all the Middle East war protestors are not celebrating in the streets now that there is peace.
Glossary of Terms
Glossary of words or people that may or may not be part of this particular 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 at the end of 2023. When I offered Andy 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.
