May 9
Life in the jungle: As per my usual morning ritual now, I mixed cement and poured another dozen patio stones for my future greenhouse floor. This is pouring number 5 with 63 stones now. Once I get my first 100 stones I will lay my greenhouse front entrance to see how it looks and how it all works out. Before breakfast, I brought out two buckets of used sawdust to the coconut field. The sawdust came cleaning the broiler coops, I put the sawdust around a few seedlings in the coconut field. I haven’t been out in the coconut field in a few weeks because I am scared to. The seedlings are looking very rough and I am losing some to drought. This is very frustrating. Last year was soaking wet most of the year and then bang, bone dry. Two extremes, back-to-back.
Silver Argiope or Garden Orbweaver (Argiope argentata)
After breakfast, I did a little painting. I painted a little bit of the apartment and then I primed my internet tower guide wire platforms. With the same primer, I primed a bit of the greenhouse water tower.
I had a dump truckload of gravel cement mix delivered today. The rainy season may start this weekend and then that’s it for the road. I am determined to get this greenhouse floor completed in the next six months. That can only happen with sufficient materials. The owner of the company tried to rip me off by trying to charge an extra $40 USD because the last guy who delivered the first load of mix in March complained about the road.
I expect to use all of this gravel mix mixing cement
Speaking of road, for over a year I have been in contact with various officials about getting the road worked on. Numerous calls in the last two weeks as the rainy season is right around the corner. This afternoon I did received a message that there will likely be a green light on the road repairs. With rain in the forecast this weekend it could get interesting.
I spent the latter part of the afternoon adding some reinforcement steel straps to the water tower. The job is not complete.
May 10
Life in the jungle: Today was pour number 7 with 75 patio stones. After breakfast, I went to the village to purchase and arrange delivery for some lumber and more bags of cement. Returning home, I finished work on installing the reinforcement straps I installed yesterday on the greenhouse water tower. I also did a tiny bit of painting. I then received a message from a guest about arriving this evening. I didn’t quite expect the message tonight but it was all good. I was ready for him because I was expecting him last week. My lumber delivery arrived right before dark. Just as I finished putting everything away my guest showed up. A fellow Canadian who just traveled here from Canada by dirt bike.
May 11
Life in the Jungle: My guest, Andy headed to the city. Tomorrow, he flies back to Canada for a month and a half and Belize Customs is confiscating his dirt bike while he is out of the country. But he is keeping his gear at my place. [Andy ultimately wouldn’t return back to Belize for 6 months. And then he would become my roommate.] I spent the day making patio stones, painted the apartment and when Andy returned from the city, I gave him a walking tour of the farm.
May 12
Life in the jungle: I went to bed late and woke up at 5:30 AM to see Andy off. I collapsed in the hammock until after 9 AM. This messed with my morning routine. But I mixed my half bag of cement and I now have 99 stones. After lunch, I went up to the village. Saul finished making my internet tower platform so I gave it a coat of primer paint. I also grabbed groceries. Returning home, I finished off the remaining can of primer paint on the water tower. I then weed-wacked around the greenhouse. Tomorrow, I plan to start working on the floor for the front of the greenhouse. I now have enough patio stones for that section.
My internet tower main platform (upside down)
May 13
Life in the jungle: I now have 111 patio stones made. After breakfast, I headed to Saul to put another coat of paint on the tower platform. Returning home, I spent the whole afternoon putting in the floor of the greenhouse entrance. I wanted to see how the patio stones would look and work out as a greenhouse floor. I did not anticipate completing the job. Overall, I am pretty pleased with the outcome.
Grass, then gravel mix fill.
Front & rear view of the front of the greenhouse entrance
May 14
Life in the jungle: I did some laundry first thing and before the laundry was dry it started to rain. It ended up raining the whole afternoon. Today was the first rain since March 15th. My seedlings got the rain they desperately needed. I finally got my drinking water replenished. About 4 weeks ago my drinking water vat connecting hose disconnected and drained my drinking water. The rest of the day I napped and finally finished reading Moving Mountains by John Eldredge.
May 15
Life in the jungle: I got an early start in preparation for cement mixing and pouring the internet tower base and footings. Orlando showed up with two guys from the village and within a couple of hours, we had 9 bags of cement mixed and poured. We also poured 12 more patio stones. A long day. It was nice that the land received yesterday’s rain. Everything felt more alive.
Internet tower footings – finally!
May 16
Life in the jungle: This morning I am tired and overwhelmed by my workload. When the internet is finally connected my workload doubles. I have zero clue how I am supposed to stay on top of everything on the farm.
My allergies were really bad when I woke up this morning. A lot of sneezing. Yesterday’s patio stones did not turn out great. They were made too quickly and the molds were not sufficiently soaked. I mixed the next mix and now have made 135 stones. After breakfast, I finished up a part can of paint on the water tower. And then we got the briefest of rain showers. Not good for the paint.
My stacks of patio stones grows every day
I made the mistake of going to the ponds to chop. That short rain shower raised the humidity about 1,000%. The heat and humidity were killer but I pushed through for a few hours.
Returning home, I started working on framing the rear skirt of the house. I wasn’t sure how I was going to frame the skirt, but I started with the first 2×4 and it all came together. Still lots of work. During my building, I received a phone call from the internet company. Sounds like they are coming on Saturday to install the tower. I also called the public works guy and apparently road material is being delivered and spread on the road this Saturday or Sunday. I have been calling various people connected to local road maintenance for 9 months now. It should be interesting if all this can be pulled off this weekend. [The internet tower installation would be pushed back.]
Before
After. I am building a frame to hold cabbage palm lumber to close off the lower portion of my house.
The finished look should be similar to this
Belize Part 77 (April 22 to 30)
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.
