Life in the jungle: I started my morning with some housework in preparation for a fire and health department inspection for my tourist license Airbnb listing. After breakfast, I weed wacked around the yard and did yard work (moved dirt) to stay by the house. By the end of the day, no one came and tomorrow I have to go back to the city for a passport stamp. I texted my situation to my paralegal. He said he would call the appropriate departments tomorrow.
April 14
Life in the jungle: I showed up at Belize Immigration at 7:45 AM. Fifteen minutes before opening but the passport officers did not show up for work until after 9 AM. It took 2 hours to get a passport stamp! On a positive note, I am not hassled the way I was in the beginning.
Today was a hot day in the city. I spent money I wasn’t planning on. I went to price out a cordless impact drill at the hardware store. A cordless impact drill (with battery) cost $335 USD. I got the impact drill, a battery plus a refurbished regular cordless drill for $220 USD. That was too good of a deal to pass up.
My paralegal called, the health and fire departments are behind in their inspections. They will call me next week. [No inspectors would ever come, ever.] Back home I took a walk to the ponds to water the watermelon plants that I planted the other day. Many of the plants had their leaves eaten off by iguanas.
A Cottonwood tree that at one time was severely damaged. Amazing regenerative properties for this tree species
April 15
Life in the jungle: Last night I could not decide what I planned to work on in the morning. I have a few options but, in the end, could not decide. I decided that was a sign that I needed a day off. I turned off my alarms.
Today I did a laundry and then I wrote my Belize blog posts Part 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.
April 16
Life in the jungle: I slept in again with plans to write more blog posts today. I wrote Belize blog post Part 19 and the Derrick texted me that he had tuned-up my weed wacker. So, I dressed into my work clothes and biked to the village with my chainsaw as that needed a tune-up also. I ended up with valuable lessons on cleaning air filters of both machines.
Now that I was dressed in work clothes, after breakfast I headed to the ponds for a few hours of work. I hung the gate that I built the other week, I burned 3 brush piles and I did some chainsaw work. It was a fairly hot day.
A new gate
In the afternoon I did some yard work and chopping at the river lot. I am thinking that I should stock my ponds with Tilapia fish? And something is eating bits and pieces of my baby papaya trees!
April 17
Life in the jungle: I started my morning working at the ponds. After breakfast I wasn’t horribly motivated to work as it was a pretty hot day. I decided to continue working on my new garbage pit as I would be working partially in the shade. I also did some chopping at the river lot.
Today I found my first stick insect in Belize.
April 18
Life in the jungle: As per my “current” usual I started my morning working at the ponds. It was a hot one today so after breakfast I decided to salvage some pvc pipe and some fence posts in the bush. I was able to salvage 7 posts from an old obsolete fence line. It was exhausting work. This afternoon I discovered a yellow tailed oriole nest in the coconut tree beside the house. Some insect has really gone after my papaya plants in a bad way. I have no idea what kind or how to stop it. Very frustrating after growing them all these months.
A Royal Palm tree that I transplanted as a seedling a long time ago
April 19
Life in the jungle: I just couldn’t get myself in gear this morning. Which I am not very pleased with myself about. I am just tired, I guess. I replaced and fixed some door knobs in the house. I actually almost locked myself in the bedroom. That would have been embarrassing if I had to call someone from the village to come down the road to release me.
After getting groceries I spent time in the hammock. It was a hot day. Later in the afternoon I spent time working on my deck, screwing in screws into loose deck boards.
April 20
Life in the jungle: I was actually up by 6 AM. I started my day digging a dual purpose trench from the house to the perimeter fence. I ran 2 pvc pipes. One to connect water to an existing waterline that runs to the coconut field. The second pipe was to run a conduit to the fence line for a future electric wire that would run the perimeter of the house lot if ever needed.
Since I had to do some plumbing work in the coconut field, I took the time and salvaged 4 more fence posts out of the bush. After a short break I realized with rain in the forecast I should dig more dirt out of my future garbage pit. A very full day.
My garbage pit is getting deeper
In the evening I got a call from my paralegal. I am picking up my business incorporation papers tomorrow but (almost more) importantly I have a work permit interview next Wednesday at 2 PM in Belmopan. Hopefully things are finally coming together.
Breadfruit leaves
April 21
Life in the jungle: I am not sure how productive today actually was. I went to the city to hopefully receive my incorporation documents and after waiting in the city until 4 PM all I had in my hands was my Airbnb health inspection certificate. Except that the Health Board never bothered with an inspection. Welcome to Belize. My incorporation documents were couriered late from Belmopan this morning. Supposedly my lawyer is going to hand deliver these papers plus a fire department inspection certificate tomorrow evening at the farm. I suppose if that happens then my waiting around today for mostly nothing will have been worth it. [This meet never happened and ultimately all these meetings, incorporation documents and inspections were a scam by my paralegal.]
The bus fare went up from $1.50 USD to $2 USD from the village to the city. I feel like it’s been over 10 years since a fare hike.
April 22
Life in the jungle: I started my morning doing some housework in preparation for an Airbnb guest arriving this evening. I then did some plumbing work. Connecting the waterline to the coconut field from the house. The only problem is, while the pump is running no water is coming out of the faucets in the field! How am I going to solve that? This is very frustrating.
This afternoon was very overcast and had a lot of thunder. It did rain a bit on and off. After some time in the hammock, I went out in it to do some chopping. My guest arrived right before dark and that’s when the heaviest rain started. But overall, not that much rain fell today, all things considered.
Slowly seedlings are starting to germinate
April 23
Life in the jungle: My Airbnb guest was awake by 5:30 AM and gone by 6 AM. I headed straight to the ponds with the weed wacker and spent 3 hours running the machine there. The job is now much bigger as the mounds are cleaned of brush but now need to be cut with the weed wacker. I was so exhausted afterward that I right away took a 2 hour nap. But there was some rain during my nap.
After lunch, I biked up to the grocery store. Feeling guilty about my nap I chopped the river lot until after 6 PM.
A young female spiny tail iguana
Belize Part 20 (March 29 to April 4)
Belize Part 19 (March 21 to 28)
Glossary of Terms
Glossary of words or people that may or may not be part of this blog post. This glossary will be at the bottom of every blog post for Belize.
Jack & Jill – These are my ex-property managers (names changed). They are Canadian, they introduced me to Belize in 1997, sold me their house in Belize in 2003, and rebuilt my house from 2014 to 2018. I have known them for over 30 years. After almost 20 years of me supporting their life here in Belize Jack decided quite unexpectedly to declare “war” on me right before Christmas 2021. They would end up stealing my business license and causing me a lot of grief. They live on the farm, but not on my land.
Wayne – He is the son of the original owners of the farm (both owners are deceased). The original farm was 2 – 30 acre pieces minus 2 – ¾ acre parcels for my house and 2 – ¾ acre parcels that Jack & Jill own which were all originally purchased from the original owners. In 2017 Wayne sold me 40 acres of land from the original 60 acres (30 acres plus 10 acres). Wayne lives in his parent house and has a few cows on his remaining 17 acres of land.
Nery – a local in the area that helps me with certain projects when needed. A very knowledgeable guy originally from El Salvador. He teaches me a lot about farming and tree.
The ponds – I have 2 large (300ft long x 50ft wide x 10ft deep) ponds on my 30 acre parcel of land which is basically jungle. I have about 60 coconut trees (mostly mature) around the ponds. I have plans to plant a few hundred papaya trees here plus other fruit bearing trees around the ponds.
The coconut field – I have about 400 coconut trees planted (various growth states) on about 3 acres of cleared land of the 10 acre parcel. I plan to add various fruit trees to the same field as soon as I can.
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
The dry – Belize has 2 main seasons. The rainy season and the dry (no rain). The wet is obviously the rainy season.
Chopping – using my machete to clear brush and unwanted trees
