A female Red Rumped tarantula
January 1
Life in the jungle: There was no internet for most of the day. There have been internet blackouts for well over a week. Today was the worst (and apparently the last day according to the company).
I mostly organized my month-end photos from my phone for the December blog posts. After feeding the chickens, I did a tiny bit of painting. I spent the rest of the day working in the greenhouse. I planted 60 Mahogany and 30 Soursop seeds. I also planted some papaya seeds and transplanted some Raintree and Jackfruit seedlings. Over the last month or so, I have planted about 300 Mahogany seeds from one my trees that produced seed pods for the very first time. No rain today.
My greenhouse is filling up with seedling trees
January 2
Life in the jungle: Today was a trip to the city for supplies and more paint. The weather is calling for no rain for a while. The two cabanas need their exteriors to be painted. Because we are experiencing seasonally lower temperatures, the city wasn’t too hot today.
Likely jaguarundi tracks on my road
January 3
Life in the jungle: I worked on my frustration blog post until breakfast. It is now written, mostly completed, and in my website drafts.
I had to go to the village for a tube of caulking for the greenhouse apartment roof to deal with a leak. I was frustrated to take the time, as I was only in the village yesterday. I also completed some painting. No rain, things are finally starting to dry.
January 4
Life in the jungle: I finished and published my blog Frustration: It Will Make You or Break You in the Jungle, and I wrote Belize blog Part 200 (Dec 24 to 31). In the morning, I did a tiny bit of painting and took my Sunday morning nap in the hammock.
Last Sunday, I was determined to try to make reading part of my Sundays and read four more chapters of a bike touring book I started last week.
This morning and today, the chickens were excessively loud. Twice, I went out looking for a snake. I found nothing. Every evening, I collect 12, sometimes 11 eggs. Today was only 9. If a Black tail Cribo snake got in, he wouldn’t be able to escape, and I wouldn’t expect the snake to attempt to escape either. Truly a mystery.
On Sundays, I’ve been slowly making it my way through this book
January 5
Life in the jungle: This morning, I published Belize blog Part 197 (Dec 3 to 9).
After feeding the chickens, I mixed 2.5 bags of cement (including 25 buckets of gravel mix) and built a concrete box around the septic. I should have done this a year ago. There was enough cement left over to also make 10 patio stones. After a late lunch, I had little choice but to take a nap in the hammock.
After feeding the chickens in the afternoon, I cut some of the grass in the yard. It’s been a few months since I could do that due to all the recent rain in November and December.
The other month I framed in my septic, today I filled the mold with cement
January 6
Life in the jungle: This morning, I published Moving & Adapting to Belize Jungle Life: What to Expect and How to Thrive. It’s part of a 12-month ultra-SEO’d group of jungle lifestyle posts I’m writing for Google ranking. I had actually written and drafted the post last month.
I then shared A House Is Not an Asset in the Jungle on Facebook groups and will continue to do so all week. Then I worked on my Native Jungle Hardwoods of Belize: Mahogany, Cedar, Guanacaste, and Ziricote blog post.
I took a video chat with a young guy from Toronto with fears about bike touring. He wants to bike across Canada this year. It made me long to get back on the road. After lunch, I needed to decompress in the hammock.
I also got a few odd jobs out of the way and then continued cutting grass. The yard is finally looking maintained after seemingly months of being overgrown.
January 7
Life in the jungle: It’s been pretty cold in the morning this last week (or longer) with 17C mornings. This morning, I was determined to get back to my memoir and my dreaded Belize chapter. While editing, I ended up adding a section that ended up becoming a whole new blog post called – Discipline – A Lonely Journey.
The Belize chapter of my memoir has been a challenge, as the format of this particular chapter contains many daily journal entries of the mental challenges of my first two years here, dealing with extreme isolation, stress, and betrayal. The chapter is currently almost 22K words, and the trick is to not sound repetitive and maintain a flow.
After breakfast, I headed to the village for groceries and dropped off some eggs. There was some light rain. I pretty much did yard work the rest of the afternoon until dark.
A nice harvest of Passion fruits – my favorite fruit in Belize
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January 8
Life in the jungle: I noticed this morning that morning temperatures were finally a few degrees warmer.
I have a blog post about Mahogany trees that I wrote back in 2021 that my web developer says ranks very high on Google. The only thing is, I never really took the time to optimize it properly, so I did that this morning. I was then motivated to write a post about the beginnings of my passion for trees called For the Love of Trees. I got it partially written. I will also include this in my memoir.
After lunch, I did some primer painting on both cabanas. Later in the afternoon, I cut grass in the yard.
My second group of layer hens started laying eggs today
January 9
Life in the jungle: I finished writing and published – For the Love of Trees. I also finally got around to updating my About Me page.
After breakfast, I did a video with Paul of Snakes and Coffee, a YouTube collaboration we started the other month. When I finally got outside, I did some primer painting on the latest cabana. At the end of the day, I did some yard work.
January 10
Life in the jungle: I continued working on the Belize chapter of my memoir. Later in the morning, before breakfast, I headed to the village to drop off eggs and pick up 3 1x3x12 lumber.
I gotta tell you, it’s a bit of a challenge trying to bike 12ft long lumber down a muddy, overgrown, rutted road. There was also some rain.
After lunch, and because of the rain earlier in the morning, I didn’t paint or cut grass, but mostly did yard work.
A Red Rumped tarantula
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 Life in Belize blog post.
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 rainy season starts around June 1 and goes until the end of the year. It seems June, November, and December are the wettest times of the year.
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.
I arrived at my home on November 25, 2021, by bicycle from Canada. I have journaled my daily adventures every day since. Since I have arrived, I have built a 1,000 sq-ft shade cloth greenhouse, a tiny apartment that I refer to as my greenhouse apartment. I also started and am close to completion of two small cabanas that I refer to as my smaller cabana and my larger cabana. The apartment and cabanas are for visitors and people wishing to move to my farm. I’m also getting close to completing an additional 1,600 sq-ft shade cloth greenhouse.
