May 22
Life in the jungle: First thing, I worked on writing my Preface for my memoir. After feeding the chickens, I headed to the village to drop off eggs and biked to Isabella Bank to drop off 3 Dutchman pipe vines. I was given a velvet apple seedling in return. I have a few different “apples” on the farm, but not a velvet. Unfortunately, an apple in Belize is not the same as the apples for North America. I learned that two male spider monkeys occasionally travel through Isabella Bank. I didn’t get home until after 12.
I did a tiny bit of painting. My painting is officially done for the foreseeable future. There wasn’t much time left in the day, but to water seedlings. Every afternoon for the last month or two, I fill about five buckets of water to water various trees and passion fruit vines around the house. I also spend about 30 minutes or more every day watering seedlings in the greenhouse.
Andy did me a favor and brought me my dog food and chicken food.
I finished my preface and spent the rest of the afternoon reviewing my memoir notes, along with proofreading and editing sections.
What I believe to be a Lily Borer caterpillar (Brithys crini)
May 23
Life in the jungle: Most of my day was spent working on my memoir and sorting various files and notes on my memoir.
May 24
Life in the jungle: My allergies were really bad this morning, and my back was sore. I worked on a tiny section of my memoir before I had had enough and had to lie in my hammock.
It’s been three weeks now since I pulled a muscle in my back. This is no joke. It’s a real eye-opener regarding old age and long-term chronic pain. This has really slowed me down. That being said, I needed to slow down regardless for a bit. But if pain and lack of productivity became the new normal, I am dead in the water.
After feeding the chickens, I spent an hour on the riverbank just sitting in silence as part of my Sunday morning routine, and then my mandatory nap in my hammock. After lunch, I continued reading Jaguar that I started a few weeks ago for the rest of the afternoon.
A really good book – that I’m getting close to finishing
May 25
Life in the jungle: I started my morning writing Belize blog Part 218. Shortly after feeding the chickens, I headed to the village to drop off eggs and get some groceries.
On my bike ride out, I found a Howler monkey skeleton on the road. On my bike ride back home, I heard a small flock of Crested Guan birds.
After breakfast, I posted a blog post that I wrote the other week called – Excuse or Reason. I also did a little memoir work. In the afternoon, I planted 30 Dutchman pipe vine seeds
My day didn’t feel very productive.
There was the tiniest bit of rain in the middle of the night. Then there were two separate sprinkles in the afternoon. This evening, there was thunder and a few random showers. This may be the start of the rainy season tonight.
A Black Howler monkey skull
May 26
Life in the jungle: Early this morning, thunder and fairly heavy rain started. The first real rainfall of the rainy season has started. The question is, will the rain stick around or disappear quickly for a few more weeks? There were rain showers all morning.
I shared my How to Scorpion-Proof Your House & Other Arachnids Found in Belize blog post on the Belize Facebook groups this morning.
I worked on my memoir – American and Belize chapters all afternoon. I feel like I was pretty productive.
I got a message that my microgrant that I applied for was approved. Through the grant, I will acquire all the irrigation materials needed for both greenhouses, a large water vat, a dump truck of black dirt, and 4,000 planting bags. I was encouraged to apply for it by the Baboon Museum. My hope is that it helps validate their plans to work with me.
I was getting a little cabin fever, so in the afternoon, I went outside to figure out what to do with my watermelon greenhouse. A lot of the original boards I used to make the raised beds were rotten. I ended up using cement blocks to fix this issue. It worked way better than I expected. I built this raised bed garden shortly after I arrived in Belize to grow watermelons. In almost four years, it has been a dismal failure.
Today felt like a noticeable improvement in my back. I pulled a back muscle over three weeks ago.
Match 27
Life in the jungle: First thing, I continued editing the American chapter – America the Beautiful of my memoir.
After feeding the chickens, I mixed half a bag of cement to fix and finish repairing the apartment septic. With the hole in the ground and the rainy season about to start any moment, it was important to get this hole filled.
The other month, I opened the septic cover box and exposed the area around the pipes. The septic hasn’t been used in over a year, and we are almost through the dry season. The surprise was that weeks ago, when digging down, I hit what appeared to be “clean” water about a foot down. That water shouldn’t have been there at all. It took weeks for it to finally dry.
In the meantime, I had pulled a back muscle, and it didn’t seem like a good job to tackle at the time. Mixing cement was a risk because of my back. I back-filled cement where the 3” pipes come out of the barrels, as I’m concerned septic may be leaking at these points. But after seeing all the water last month, I now wonder if the waterline is so “extremely” high in that area now.
Filling a hole and the area around a septic pipe with concrete.
Before lunch, I had to head to the museum for a quick meeting regarding my microgrant.
Returning home, I finished setting up the watermelon greenhouse. I also got some pots ready for some tomato plants that I started raising a while back.
I accidentally dug up a green iguana nest in my black dirt pile.
There were 2 viable eggs (left) and the rest of the nest (right) were dystroyed by fire ants.
I will attempt to artificially incubate the remaining 2 eggs.
May 28
Life in the jungle: I headed to the city this morning. It’s been five weeks since my last trip. I didn’t want to face the recent heat in the city during the hottest month of the year.
Apparently, the other week the bus fare went up by $.50 USD. Somehow, I got stuck with an excessive amount of walking today, which was very hard on my back, and somehow the 12:30 return bus was their air-conditioned bus. That stuffed up my allergies really badly.
When I eventually got home, I had no choice but to recuperate in the hammock.
I found out that a guy living alone on the road between my road and Flowers Bank tripped on his stairs, resulting in a very bad fall that has likely caused him to be paralyzed. He lives and was alone and, because of his initial injuries, was unable to call for help. To make the situation even more serious, he appeared to have landed on a nest of fire ants and was attacked for hours. When they found him, they thought he was dead from being covered by the ants.
Almost four and a half years ago, my ex-property manager almost died from a fall, where she was left naked lying in her own piss for almost three and a half days because she couldn’t reach her phone for help. It’s serious business living in the jungle by yourself.
Belize City architecture
Haulover Creek
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.
