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 18
Life in the jungle: My patio stone-making was a bit delayed this morning. I realized I had some internal link issues on my new website. And I realized some simple edits that would add to and improve the Home page’s overall look.
After making my patio stones I took the time to move my most recently made 140 patio stones to the greenhouse. My new total is 569 stones made. I confirmed that I need a total of 840 patio stones. This means I have 270 stones left to make or 23 more cement pours. Almost every morning since May 3rd, I have been making a dozen patio stones (5-6 days a week).
My patio stone collection is slowly growing
Between last night’s late night and mixing cement and moving 140 patio stones, I took a short nap. My afternoon kind of felt wasted. I discovered another missing hen. Crap! This is the second hen missing in two days. This time I found no carcass. Because of my unproductive afternoon, I ended up working late on my main Safari Arie.ca website in preparation for integrating my POD products into my main site.
July 19
Life in the jungle: After making my patio stones I headed to the ponds to cut the grass. The grass is growing extremely quickly. There was a good chance of a rain shower at some point today which did come later in the afternoon. Tall thick (wet) grass is not appreciated by lawnmowers. On a side note, I can not believe how dry this rainy season is. Since I arrived here in 2021 the weather has been completely backward.
It’s July and my front yard pond has to be filled this rainy season
I posted about www.safariarie.co going Live on Facebook. I spent a good part of the afternoon organizing computer notes which did not feel productive at all. In the evening, I posted Belize Part 27 (May 22 to 27) to my website. Crazy that I am 14 months behind in my blog posts. But that’s what happens with no internet for 18 months.
The night time brings out the scorpions
July 20
Life in the jungle: There was some very heavy rain first thing this morning. This caused me to linger in bed. The temperature and comfort were so pleasant that I realized from a feelings perspective that this is as probably as good as it gets for me. I was obligated to linger in bed.
After I got myself in gear and in the middle of making patio stones, it started to rain. This became something of a disaster. I ended up shoveling cement “soup” into the molds. I think I will give these stones an extra day to harden. Later I went up to the village for groceries and a short visit with Verna Mae. I don’t leave the farm much as so little work gets done now with me sitting in front of the computer most days that I rarely need supplies. I am frustrated to say that, beyond that nothing else of significance was accomplished today. Not good.
July 21
Life in the jungle: There was some more rain this morning. And there ended up being light sporadic rain throughout the day. I had already decided to skip making patio stones this morning to give yesterday’s stones more time to harden. I have a few pressing jobs outside but the wet conditions would not have been conducive to a pleasant experience. I decided to refocus on my online video courses that I had started the other week while I was waiting (forever) to get my logo redesigned. I feel frustrated. But I feel frustrated every day.
A Dwarf gecko
July 22
Life in the jungle: This morning’s skies didn’t look so great. I wasn’t prepared to get stuck mixing cement in the rain like on Thursday. I started my morning by continuing to take my online video course. After breakfast, I made my patio stones. Fortunately, none of the stones from Thursday broke as I really had to bang them hard to get them to pop out of their molds.
After making my stones I finally got around to digging a shallow trench for my internet cable conduit. I had held that job off for so long because of how hard the ground was as a result of the dry season. But now the ground was much softer. Because of overcast skies, the temperatures were very reasonable so I decided to also weed wack. I got about 1/3 of the weed-wacking done around the yard. Weed-wacking is one of my least favorite things to do. And I should have weed-wacked what I did today months ago.
I am finally getting around to burring my internet cable
This evening I posted Belize Part 29, 30, and 31 from last year June.
July 23
Life in the jungle: I sort of slept in a bit but it’s Sunday so I am allowed. This morning, I thought about and made an additional blog category for my main website. It’s not exactly a blog topic, they will be more of a photo post category. I realized that when I find an insect or caterpillar that I find for the first time I usually need help via a local Facebook group and the identification. But then six months later when I find the same insect again, I have forgotten its name. Or when I take a really great photo of a boa constrictor the photo gets lost in the hundreds of other photos, I take every month. I made a new blog category strictly about Belize Flora and Fauna that I find here and a place to keep the photos and creature names accessible. By bedtime, I had added my first 8 flora and fauna posts to this category.
I also wrote Belize blog Part 84, 85, 86, 87, and this post up to this sentence.
July 24
Life in the jungle: I made my dozen patio stones and then I spent the rest of the day watching tutorials on Adobe Illustrator CS6 so I can learn how to do graphics for social media posts for my clothing line. Getting my logo edited and updated a few weeks ago was a very frustrating experience. Today was also frustrating as I did not feel like I accomplished much.
July 25
Life in the jungle: After making my patio stones I spent a little time making seedling stakes. Last month I planted a lot of seedlings. I need to place a flagged stake next to every seedling so I can find it when the vegetation (grass and weeds) gets too tall and buries the seedlings. The way I make stakes is by chopping undesirable young trees down. And then chopping them to a desirable length. There are a few species of trees that I would best describe as weeds so I try to use those species of trees.
A locust
After lunch, I did a little bit of house cleaning. I then focused on something I need to start on and make my new focus and priority for next month – a job. My options are extremely limited at this point living in Belize. The quickest and easiest solution is to become an online English tutor. I checked out a company that another Canadian who lives abroad started working for when the pandemic hit and recommended to me. Basically, you talk casually to anyone around the world who is trying to learn or improve their English via video. You can work whenever you want and you get paid by the minute. Kind of like working for Uber but as an English tutor. You don’t need any kind of education with this particular company. I checked out some of the tutor profiles as I would need to make my own, including profile video introductions. Profile video introductions always make me very uncomfortable. That part is going to be very hard. I watched a bunch of these videos that tutors did for prospective students. It actually left me feeling fairly intimidated. I then searched YouTube to see if anyone had posted their class. Fortunately, I found some, and those videos definitely put me at ease.
The problem is that I need to upgrade my internet speed. Which I planned to do at the end of the month. The company requires 10mbps. The problem is that you have to do a speed test when you apply. Approval can take from 1 day to a few weeks. I was hoping to get the application process done now. Before I increase my speed. Now have to increase my speed first and then apply and who knows how long before I am approved. In the evening, I continued watching Adobe Illustrator CS6 tutorials. Once again, today did not feel productive. [The English tutor idea would go nowhere.]
A pink hibiscus bloom
Belize Part 87 (July 11 to 17)
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.
