April 22
Life in the jungle: Today was killer hot with no breeze. I started my morning cleaning up my chickens and moved my large broilers to their new coop. I should mention that every day as a task, I need to look after my chickens along with watering my seedling trees. After breakfast, I painted. But I didn’t paint for too long. I am running out of the color for my apartment which is the same color as my house.
I started working on and building molds to make patio stones for my greenhouse floor. The experience was rather frustrating. I attempted to build the molds out of scrap lumber and cut a bunch of scrap lumber up only to discover that it wouldn’t work the way I thought. I was hoping to avoid cutting up a sheet of expensive plywood. I (re)built a second design. But by then with all this heat, I was done. I went straight to my hammock. I didn’t wake up until 5:30 PM. This evening, I wrote Belize blog posts # 74, 75, and 76.
My first patio stone mold [If only I realized how many patio stones I would end up making. lol]
April 23
Life in the jungle: Today is my guilt-free day off. I did spend about 30 minutes painting first thing this morning. I have two small areas on the house that require multiple coats of paint. I figured 30 minutes of work wouldn’t kill me. After breakfast, I continued to read Moving Mountains by John Eldredge until my eyes got sleepy and I took my Sunday nap. Upon waking I read some more. Late in the afternoon I slaughtered and cooked another broiler chicken.
April 24
Life in the jungle: I went to the city. I needed some supplies to finish off some projects. I was also out of the main color of paint that I am currently using on the apartment. I have also been without any fruit or (salad) vegetables for over a week. Getting home I installed the bolts for the greenhouse water tower I was working on the other week. I needed a longer drill bit to continue working, which I purchased this morning.
Thread-legged assassin bug
April 25
Life in the jungle: First thing, I built a PVC broiler feeder with some PVC parts I picked up yesterday and then moved my second batch of broilers to the second broiler coop.
My second batch of broilers with a new PVC feeder
I then went to work on my water tower. Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with the realization that I was building the top platform incorrectly. It was a rather disruptive experience and kept me awake for a while. Anyway, thank goodness for the realization and I rebuilt the platform accordingly. I spent the entire day finishing the tower. It is slow work working so high up on a tower. I still need to add a few securing nuts and bolts for additional strength.
First photo taken at the time of blog post written
Second photo taken 10 months later in 2024
April 26
Life in the jungle: This morning I had my dentist appointment for the molar I cracked on April 15th. The appointment ended up being only a consultation. The doctor said I had two options. A crown for $250 USD or extraction for $25 USD. But the current condition of the tooth was fine and I didn’t have to rush to make a decision. A crown in Canada would be about $900 USD. So, I should probably get the crown. But why spend the money or go through the discomfort now when I could get hit by a bus tomorrow? Lucky for me the doctor didn’t charge me for consultation. [Eleven months later I still haven’t had any work done on the molar.]
The rest of my time in the city was a lot of running around for nothing. I visited the only specialty bike shop in Belize as it is in the part of the city that my dentist is in. I never have time to walk the extra 2.5 km (returned) out of my way. But they don’t have the size of bike tubes I need in the Presta valve. Nobody in this country sells my tube size with Presta valves! And 700×35 is a standard bike tube size. Rrr.
I also planned to pick up some used buckets. Usually, my hands/arms are full of my project materials and produce from the city. Today my arms are empty because I was just in the city two days ago. I don’t need the buckets today but they are always handy. Getting some would have helped make this city trip productive. I get my buckets from the butcher shops at the market. I visited seven butcher shops and not one shop had any. Rrr.
Arriving home, I got my hair cut (head shaved) at the village barber. I think it had been over six months since my last buzz. I started painting (priming) the water tower and did some yard work until dark.
A Click beetle
April 27
Life in the jungle: First thing in the morning I headed to Verna Mae’s. She has an old front door that leaks rainwater badly. I offered to help repair it. This morning I caulked all the panels of the door. The job was a bit bigger than expected. Saturday morning, I will return for the first coat of paint.
From there I headed to the lumber store for some lumber. I spent the rest of the day building three deck post forms. Orlando is coming tomorrow and we are going to pour three cement railing posts. I also built two more patio stone forms. I now have three patio stone forms built. Tomorrow I will also pour some test patio stones.
April 28
Life in the jungle: Orlando showed up this morning. The day was killer hot. My phone says “feels like” 41C or 106F. We secured the three deck post forms and poured them with cement. We then installed the apartment door that has been stored unhung in the apartment since last year.
3 deck forms poured
After Orlando left, he called me. He dropped his moped bike helmet on my road. I biked out to retrieve it and up saw an endangered species Crested Guan bird on the road. This evening I also discovered one of my adult broiler chickens dead. No apparent reason. I can only assume the death was heat-related. He was a big bird.
April 29
Life in the jungle: I spent the morning cleaning up from yesterday. On my way to the village, I did a little chopping on the road. Spiny bamboo is starting to encroach on the road. In the village, I put a first coat of paint on Verna Mae’s door that I caulked the other day.
Today was hotter than yesterday. “feels like” 44C or 111F. After I got home, I dismantled and washed the inside of my drinking water vat and drum and the eavestrough that collects my drinking water. About a month ago almost all my drinking water got pumped out all over the ground when a hose disconnected from the pump. I finally ran out of drinking water a week ago. They were calling for a 100% chance of rain tonight which never came. I need rain so badly right now. Regardless, it was a good idea to wash the vat and drum before the rainy season hits. If it wasn’t for the hose disconnecting, the vat would never be empty as I can have as much as 300 gallons of drinking water stored at any given time. Another full-sized broiler chicken died today. These are hot days.
My YouTube channel – Safari Arie. Please Subscribe.
April 30
Life in the jungle: The other day a Facebook memory popped up from last year with photos of my cashew tree and its fruit. This morning I inspected my tree. Not a single fruit. I assume this is because of the lack of rain. I spent the morning doing some housework. After breakfast, I got a call from Verna Mae. The coat of paint I painted yesterday was dry and her front door was ready for a second coat of paint. On my way home from that job I stopped at the ponds and watered my seedlings.
At the ponds, I came across a troop of Coatimundis called a “band”. There must have been close to 20 of them. There were so many that it was impossible to photograph or video them as there was too much activity of them scattering. Getting to the house I had enough time for an hour-long nap. This evening I wrote the blog post Checking In
A female Red rump tarantula with an egg sack
Belize Part 77 (April 6 to 14)
Belize Part 76 (April 15 to 21)
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’s house and has a few cows on his remaining 17 acres of land.
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 a jungle. I have about 60 coconut trees (mostly mature) around the ponds. In my first 2 years of living in Belize, I also planted about 250 assort 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 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 an 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 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, vines, weeds and unwanted trees.
