December 3
Life in the jungle: After sharing my A Comprehensive Guide to Living in the Jungles of Belize post to a few Belize Facebook groups, I finally pushed myself to go back to editing my memoir. After breakfast, I chopped in the coconut field.
Later in the afternoon, I attempted to fix my bike. I noticed yesterday that the rear derailleur appears to be bent. This is not good. I also discovered my rear tire was ripped (as a result of rot). Fortunately, a past guest had left me with an extra tire. It was absolutely miserable attempting to change the tire. I wasted a lot of time. I couldn’t help but find myself in a frustrated mood today. In the evening before bed, I continued working on my memoir.
December 4
Life in the jungle: Today I started SEO optimizing and working on my How to Scorpion-Proof Your House & Other Arachnids Found in Belize post. After breakfast, I headed to Bermudian Landing. To look at their greenhouse again and figure out the hardware materials needed to finish my greenhouse floor expansion project. Closely looking at their setup and returning home to look at my setup up things look easier than I initially thought.
While in the village, I also needed to arrange for a lumber order to be delivered to Sauls for Saturday. Saul’s tractor is the only vehicle that can make it down my road, and I need to get started on my cabana kitchenettes.
The worst the road has ever been
Almost a month ago, I had a video chat with a friend from my past for the possibility of a YouTube video collaboration. I hadn’t heard from him in weeks, but this morning, Paul shared our first YouTube video, but didn’t tell me. You can watch it HERE. When I got back, we had a video chat to plan the next video. I also did some greenhouse work.
December 5
Life in the jungle: This morning, I finished editing my scorpion post. Andy packed up some stuff and left this morning to camp at his new place until it’s livable. Which basically means he will only be back to get the rest of his stuff at some point. So, I will once again be by myself on the farm, after him living here for the past two years.
After breakfast and the whole day, I cleaned up the shade cloth greenhouse.
December 6
Life in the jungle: I did not want to get up this morning. First thing I post Belize blog Part 193, 195, and 195. I then headed up to the village for 9 AM to bring some ducks up to Saul, but also to meet a delivery from the lumber shop for the home delivery that I arranged the other day.
On the way down my road, we came across five White-lipped Peccary, locally known as Warree. I have never seen them before in the country, except at the Belize Zoo. I have never even seen tracks on the road before. There were two adults and three young. They were a ways away and difficult to see because of their low profiles. But man!
After lunch, I worked again in the shade cloth greenhouse. I did some maintenance, and I re-set up an enclosed seed-raising shelf. I had planted some vegetables a while back with no luck, partly because insects were eating the tiny shoots.
The shelf I set up used to be outside the greenhouse, and Saucy and Pepper basically destroyed it, attempting to dig under it after spiny-tailed iguanas. The hope is that being enclosed and inside the greenhouse will help with getting vegetables started. I have failed miserably at growing vegetables; I need to figure this out.
The sky was pretty dark this afternoon, but we barely got any weather.
A photo of Peccary that I took at the Belize Zoo in 2010
December 7
Life in the jungle: First thing, I wrote Belize blog Part 196. After feeding the chickens, I planted assorted vegetable seeds in cups – yellow watermelon, red passion fruit, green peppers, cucumber, cantaloupe, cherry tomatoes, and lettuce. Plus, I bagged 115 Mahogany seed bags.
After lunch, I took my Sunday nap. I painted a third coat of paint on the newest cabana floor. And then I planted watermelon and cantaloupe seeds again in the watermelon greenhouse. There were sporadic short rain showers throughout the day.
December 8
Life in the jungle: It was raining pretty hard on the bus to the city this morning. I thought I might have made a mistake going in today. I managed to stay pretty dry throughout the whole day, and of course, the temperatures were quite reasonable. Coming home on my road, I got completely drenched. I need this rain to quit and everything to start drying out.
Rose apple blooms
December 9
Life in the jungle: There was some rain in the night. I shared my How to Scorpion-Proof Your House & Other Arachnids Found in Belize to various Belize Facebook groups this morning.
I was determined to spend a day on YouTube and hopefully upload my first long-form video since arriving in Belize four years ago. This caused me to be frustrated the entire day. I don’t have time to add this to my workload, but when you factor in that YouTube is the largest search engine in the world, technically, this platform is more important than my website. I had done some research over a month ago for this very day. This meant I needed to review all this research and create some kind of process to upload videos for SEO optimization, not to mention at least some minor editing. It has been at least a year since I used CapCut video editing software on my desktop. Which means I also have to learn that all over again.
Midway through editing my intro video, I realized that I would need to redo the video. I recorded this video while walking down my road, and little did I realize that the sun in the background wrecked it. Against better judgment, I decided to at least try to re-record the video inside at the kitchen table. That turned into an exercise in futility and more frustration. I abandoned that idea completely. Because the weather was a little overcast, I tried to re-record the video walking down the road, but even being overcast, the sun was still an issue. Returning home even more frustrated, I decided to upload what would likely be my second video for my channel. I needed to go through the editing and upload process at least once and create an SEO checklist. That went reasonably smoothly. [I would continue to be distracted from working on YouTube for the rest of the year.]
After feeding the chickens later in the afternoon, I made another attempt to record the video while walking down the road. I’m not sure that I’m very happy about that take. I do not have this kind of time to waste. I have every expectation of getting this figured out, but even after a few successful uploads, when I consider the average time effort per video in the future quite pessimistic. I think moving forward, because of the sun’s position, I will have a small window in the morning for these recordings while walking down my road.
There were a few rain showers today.
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.
Top-Gallon – The local term for when the Belize River floods its banks during the rainy season.
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.
