I have recently started a print-on-demand (POD) t-shirt website store. And first thing every morning I mix a half bag of cement to make a dozen patio stones for my new greenhouse floor.
July 1
Life in the jungle: First thing I mixed my cement and made my dozen patio stones. Last month I started working on a print-on-demand clothing website. I am currently in the process of having a graphic designer update my Safari Arie logo and some other graphics. I received some samples and they are all a mess. Very frustrating. I had to deal with that email. Then I went looking for and found another graphic designer. I have another graphic design I need and this now this guy is frustrating me. I worked on my website all day. Mostly I was converting t-shirt design files that I had made up even before my bike ride started in 2019. I have wanted to do this for POD business for a long time now. At least those old graphics weren’t a waste.
This is called a Gulf Fritillary and it is attacking my passion fruit vines
July 2
Life in the jungle: Today was my Sunday day off. I had some plans to build something but there was rain on and off all day long. I think the rainy season is finally here. I spent most of the day writing my book about my bike ride. I wrote another 5,000 words as part of my Mexico chapter. I am basically at 100,000 words written for my first draft. Reliving my time in Mexico and remembering all the Mexican generosity has me really missing life on my bike.
In the evening I got an email from my second graphic designer. Another graphic designer disaster. I have written multiple hundreds of thousands of words in the last couple of years. I consider myself pretty good at written communication. Both these graphic designers are based out of Pakistan and their profiles both said they were fluent in English. I seriously doubt it. The rain continued into the night.
An updated logo
July 3
Life in the jungle: With all the rain yesterday and last night I can now easily plant seedlings in the coconut field. Last week things were still too dry. I made my dozen patio stones and then I spent the rest of the day in the coconut field placing seedlings to start planting tomorrow and I chopped while I placed seedlings around. This afternoon I found a nice-sized boa constrictor in the coconut field. Only about a half hour before I was thinking it would be nice to find a boa. There was a tiny bit of on-and-off rain today. It’s nice to hear tree frogs again.
I love finding Boa Constrictors
July 4
Life in the jungle: I intentionally skipped making patio stones today to focus on seedling tree planting. I ended up planting 50 seedlings (14 lemon, 36 Soursop, and 1 sapodilla seedling) in the coconut field. I also found a second boa constrictor this morning. I found this one because he struck at one of my chickens. This is the first time I have ever found two boas in only two days.
Two Boa Constrictors in two days
July 5
Life in the jungle: Again, I intentionally skipped making patio stones today to focus on planting seedlings. I planted 22 orange trees in the coconut field and then went to the ponds and planted 7 last custard apple seedlings. The ponds are officially planted out for seedlings along the mounds. I then replaced 15 young coconut trees in the coconut field. So, I planted very close to 50 more trees today. Technically, the coconut field is officially filled/full of any planting spaces. I estimate that there are close to 425 coconut trees and close to the same amount of seedling fruit trees now. Afterward, I went up to the village for groceries. I fell asleep in my hammock before I could make supper. I’m exhausted.
A Custard apple and Soursop seedling
July 6
Life in the jungle: This morning dragged big time even after falling asleep early yesterday evening in the hammock. I am back to making patio stones after a late start. I then planted 30 pots of assorted types of lettuce. I then planted 45 baby sorrel (edible hibiscus) plants. I had planted a seed tray of sorrel probably 5 months ago but it was way too dry to even consider planting the baby plants. I’m not sure how these will turn out. I then cut and burned a mature coconut tree that was infested with grubs from the coconut field that I had discovered when planting seedlings yesterday. Sick coconut trees need to be burned right away for the risk of infestation of more grubs.
12 more patio stones made
July 7
Life in the jungle: I made my patio stones and then went to the village for a sack of corn for the chickens. I spent the rest of the day dealing with logo graphics.
July 8
Life in the jungle: It rained all morning and I was unable to make patio stones. I worked on t-shirt graphics and finally transitioned some of the graphics to t-shirt mock-ups. In the early afternoon, the rain stopped but I was no longer motivated to make patio stones. For the first time, I feel slightly productive on all the work I have spent on this t-shirt business.
July 9
Life in the jungle: Today is Sunday, my guilt-free day off. So, I made an iguana cage for some baby iguanas I caught the other week. I also received an email this morning and evening regarding my logo graphics. I am frustrated as hell at the incompetence. I ended up going to bed at 1 AM trying to deal with the graphics on my own. The mosquitos are officially back.
It’s baby Green Iguana season again
July 10
Life in the jungle: I started my morning making my dozen patio stones. After breakfast, I reached out to my website developer for help solving last night’s graphic issues. Then there was some on-and-off rain throughout the day. I continued with my t-shirt graphics and t-shirt mock-ups. I got 14 mock-ups completed and later in the day started uploading them to my website only to discover that somehow the cost of the t-shirts went up considerably during the transition between template and publish (???). I reached out to Support and they have to get back to me. I am now worried that weeks of working on this project might be a waste of time with no possibility of profit.
Some mock up t-shirt designs
This morning I released my two young roosters out of their coop. They were all that survived from a batch of chicks that hatched many, many months ago. I felt they were finally large enough to live free. This evening they wanted back in their old coop and wouldn’t go into the main coop. I found myself chasing them around in circles. I had to wait and catch them after dark to toss them into the main coop. The mosquitos are starting to really get bad.
This afternoon the Belize Tourism Board called me out of the blue to tell me my tourist license was denied (!!!). I applied for this license over 19 months ago! I told them I had been to their office multiple times last year and was always told they would get back to me. I told the person I gave up on them and closed my Airbnb over 12 months ago. She then told me that I now had to fill out some paperwork as my application was still in their system. I told them their system was not my problem and to have a nice day. [Believe it or not, almost 11 months after this phone call the Belize Tourism Board would call me again about how they were out in my area and couldn’t find my Airbnb.]
Feeding a Fer de lance a house gecko
Belize Part 85 (June 23 to 30)
Belize Part 84 (June 10 to 22)
Of Note: At this time I am currently 11 to 12 months behind in posting my Belize blog posts due to having no internet for the first 18 months of living in Belize.
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.
