July 26
Life in the jungle: I got about 95% of the way through making my patio stones and then I got hit with a soaker of a rain shower. After breakfast, I spent most of the afternoon continuing the Adobe Illustrator graphic tutorials. I actually finally feel like I am making some headway in my understanding of the graphic software. Because of cooler afternoon temperatures thanks to overcast skies the last part of the afternoon, I spent weed wacking my front yard. One of the new hens that I purchased from Orlando decided to sit on some eggs. That was a pleasant surprise
I found an unusual looking bug on my seedlings.
July 27
Life in the jungle: On my way down my road to the bus I caught a glimpse of a mountain lion, locally known as a red tiger. It wasn’t the greatest glimpse. It was only the back end of him for a few seconds as he disappeared into the bush. She looked like a good-sized one. This is only my third-lifetime sighting of a mountain lion. One in 2007 and my best sighting was this past October. No matter where I go, I always have an eye open to mountain lions and jaguars. It only takes a second and they are gone.
My trip to the city today was all about picking up my new passport. This is the first and only thing that has gone off without a hitch since I arrived in Belize. It’s been a few weeks since I have been to the city. It made for a busy trip as I don’t come here too often anymore.
My new passport came from Guatemala City. I was able to get the older passport design that still include one of Canada’s greatest hero’s. Our dumb ass prime minister has decided to remove his image from the new style passport.
I mostly did a little work outside for the rest of the afternoon. I feared that if I stayed inside, I would be too tired for anything other than laying in my hammock.
I came across yellow Rambutan fruit today. Far right photo is a Rambutan seedling I grew from seed.
July 28
Life in the jungle: I made my dozen patio stones. After that, I had a delivery of [my] last 8 bags of cement. If I did my math correctly, I should only need to mix 8 more bags of cement to finish my greenhouse floor patio stones.
I also did a cleaning of all my chicken coops. My second newest hen (from Orlando) decided to set. So, I now have two hens sitting on eggs. All my chicks from the last hatching seem to continue to do well with no losses. [There would be one chick found dead in a few days.]
After lunch, I ended up taking a nap in the hammock. I don’t know what time I started my nap, but I woke up at 4:50 PM. I’m a little pissed with myself, given my current workload. With my day shot and desperate to show something for my afternoon whipped off posting three Belize blog posts to my website. Belize blog posts 31, 32, and 33.
July 29
Life in the jungle: It rained all night and into the morning. This caused me to delay making my patio stones. I started my day with my video course that I had started taking a few weeks back until the rain stopped. After my patio stones were made, I then weeded my watermelon greenhouse. I am very frustrated with how my watermelon greenhouse project has turned out. I built this greenhouse over a year ago and have had no success. I have had plants start to grow and then get sick. And then we had a very dry “dry” earlier in the year. It was pointless to keep watering everything given how much water was needed to keep things alive. With everything so dry I had to wait for a few rainfalls for the dirt to be loose enough to weed. After a fairly late lunch, I spent the rest of the day on my video course.
Rio Grande Leopard frog
July 30
Life in the jungle: Today is Sunday and my guilt-free day off. Besides some housework, I had nothing to show for the day.
July 31
Life in the jungle: Last night I had issues with my water pump pressure switch. Out of fear, I ordered a new water pump from Amazon. After making my patio stones I spent hours trying to troubleshoot the problem with no success. Water pump issues have always been my worst fears. I then went up to the village for groceries and to hopefully find someone who could give me some insight on my pump issues. I didn’t realize today was a holiday so groceries were not going to happen. And I didn’t find the insight I was hoping for. After I finally got home, I had an extremely late lunch. And then I got a call from Canada and that was kind of my day – wasted.
My mango seeds are starting to sprout
August 1
Life in the jungle: After I made my patio stones I headed to the village for groceries. In the village, Saul’s young son gave me a neonate (baby) boa constrictor. This is the first baby boa I have ever seen here. Apparently, a dog caught it. The snake was looking in rough shape. After a few hours at home, he seemed to be okay.
A baby boa constrictor. Unfortunately it found by a dog and ultimately didn’t survive the encounter.
On the way home I stopped by the ponds. The grass was getting so high that I could no longer see a lot of the seedlings that I had recently planted there. I need to stake and flag all the seedlings I planted last month so they can be spotted during chopping and grass cutting. After I got home and dropped off my groceries, I returned to the ponds. After wasting much of yesterday I had to be able to show a day’s work at the end of today. I spent the rest of the afternoon chopping and staking seedlings at the ponds. I got a good amount of the seedlings cleaned around them.
This evening I finished writing Belize blog post #88. Unfortunately, also this evening the baby boa didn’t make it and I discovered him dead.
August 2
Life in the jungle: It rained throughout the night. Today was technically a complete right-off. I needed to see if could temporarily switch my water pumps over. I have two water pumps that pump water into my house. One pump is for drinking water and one is for utility water (dishes, toilet & shower). The utility pump crapped out the other day. I have a new one on order but it will take until about August 18th for delivery. I spent most of the morning trying to troubleshoot the utility pump and when that failed, I tried to swap my drinking water pump over but I couldn’t get the pressure switch to switch over for some reason. After a late lunch, I had to go up to the village for PVC supplies. I built a makeshift outdoor shower. I have it set up so my third pump can run the water for the shower. I have a third water pump at the river. That is the pump that pumps river water (my utility water) to a vat underneath the house. And then the utility pump (that is now broken) pumps the water from the vat to the kitchen sink, toilet, or shower. So, I now put a faucet off this main line (river to vat line). And so, to take a shower I run the river pump for water. To do the dishes, I do them in my tiny drinking water sink. To flush my toilet, I dump a bucket of water in the toilet.
I made an outdoor shower
I didn’t even get to do my patio stones today. The sky looked rough all day with no breaks. There were sporadic short rain showers and thunder throughout the day and into the evening.
This afternoon, I got stung by my first (baby) scorpion. I barely felt it and after 5 minutes I even forgot which finger was stung. There were actually two baby scorpions in a rag that I picked up and got stung from.
Belize Part 88 (July 18 to 25)
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.
