December 10
Life in the jungle: I continued sharing my How to Scorpion-Proof Your House & Other Arachnids Found in Belize to various Belize Facebook groups this morning.
Today, I headed to Belmopan to finally pick up my Belize Permanent Residence card. Heading to the village, I brought Saul three more ducks. I only have two ducks left, and I’m pretty sure they will be impossible to catch. It just so happens that of all my ducks, these two somehow never got their wings clipped, making them virtually impossible to corner without them taking flight.
It’s hard to believe that I now have my permanent residency card in my hand, and everything I had to go through to get to this point.
I did have a sort of a scary experience in Belmopan; I got some food stuck in my throat. I couldn’t even wash it down as the liquid was also blocked. It sort of dislodged itself, but kind of scary in the moment. In Belize City, waiting for my bus back to the village, I witnessed a fist fight between six teenagers.
This evening, I realized that I could use a few days in San Pedro to get away. I definitely don’t have time. But being by myself back here once again, there is no one to feed the dogs. Once again, trapped in paradise, but I’m not complaining. It was a long day.
I went through a lot to get this card
December 11
Life in the jungle: First thing, I finished sharing my scorpion post to the remaining Belize Facebook groups. After feeding the chickens, I couldn’t determine what I should do next. I have so much work to do, but felt overwhelmed. Rather than force myself, I took a nap in the hammock. I can’t risk burnout.
It did pay off as I realized the missing key parts to my memoir. I need to dedicate separate small chapters as guides and reflections on the necessity of isolation, sacrifice, discipline, and resilience to reach certain lifetime goals. The good news is that I’m motivated again. The bad news is that I just added four new (short) chapters to my memoir.
It wasn’t my intention to spend the day indoors, but Andy showed up to move most of his stuff to the village. Working in front of my computer seemed like the right decision. I wrote and edited two of the four new chapters – A Practical Playbook for Being Alone and The Price of the Goal. I did write the third chapter – Discipline Over Comfort, but it still needs editing.
There were a few sporadic rain showers today. This rain is getting a little frustrating. Things need to dry out a bit.
Due to excessive rain, this cactus, which was over 25 years old, fell over
December 12
Life in the jungle: It started raining first thing, resulting in a late chicken feeding. I worked on my last new book chapter, Resilience in the Real World.
After feeding the chickens, I headed to the village in light rain to pick up some broiler (meat) chicks. After lunch, I did a YouTube episode with Snakes and Coffee. This is a new YouTube collaboration with an old friend from Canada. The other week, he released episode 1. Then we had some rain showers. This rain is killing me and my productivity. I worked on a new post that I thought about a while back, but never started, about how a house in the jungle is not an asset but more of a liability. Overall, I’m not pleased with today’s productivity.
My road currently
December 13
Life in the jungle: I posted my Month 3 – Living Safely with Wildlife in the Belize Jungle, as part of a 12-month series. This is part of my ultra-SEO optimized posts that are largely being written for Google ranking. I also started working and posted into drafts my Month 4 – Moving & Adapting to Belize Jungle Life: What to Expect and How to Thrive.
Month 1 was A Day in the Life of Living in the Belize Jungle, and Month 2 was How to Set Up Your Home in the Belize Jungle.
After breakfast, I headed to Bermudian Landing, where they were putting on a River Valley Market Day. Unfortunately, they got kind of rained on. For some reason, there were some people all the way from Punta Gorda selling some fruit trees. I’m not sure why they would come from so far, but I was able to scoop up two grape vines. I was quite happy about that. I biked home in the rain.
In the afternoon, I also started my second Belize tree blog post – Native Jungle Hardwoods of Belize: Mahogany, Cedar, Guanacaste, and Ziricote.
I picked up two grape vines at a market
December 14
Life in the jungle: I had a mixed day; I worked some more on my tree post from yesterday. After feeding the chickens, I did some yard work until rain forced me indoors for my Sunday morning nap in my hammock. There was rain and power outages throughout the day.
Later, I went back outside. I started building some covers for newly germinated watermelon plants. I’m determined to grow watermelons, and some insect seems to be eating the fresh plant shoots shortly after germination. I worked on that until rain forced me inside again. I did some housework. A fair bit of rain today, I need this rain to end.
I built these boxes to protect baby watermelon plants from insects
December 15
Life in the jungle: I woke up to no internet connection, so I wrote (this) Belize blog Part 198. After feeding the chickens, I returned to a job started yesterday, making covers for watermelon seedlings.
After lunch, I went back to a job I started the other month. I installed more sheep wire on a large passion fruit trellis I made earlier in the year. I had put some sheep wire on already to accommodate the plants when they were still quite small, but they are growing. A few times today, light rain caused me to retreat indoors.
My passion fruit trellis – it looks ugly, but…
These trellises looked ugly before the vines had a chance to grow
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.
