August 12
Life in the jungle: I am still wiped from the last few days. I couldn’t understand my exhaustion until I looked at the weather on my phone. It was 102F by 9:30 AM. I didn’t bother eating breakfast. I have had very little to eat in the last few days. I collapsed in my hammock for some time. When I got around to it, I started back working on my banking and budget. I frigging discovered a transaction from back in March where I was charged three times for the same purchase. I try to be so careful when checking my banking. I don’t know how I missed it. This could be a real challenge if not impossible to get fixed after almost 5 months after the fact. I am so pissed at myself. I’m just exhausted.
Erebid Moth or Black Witch Moth
August 13
Life in the jungle: I had insomnia last night. Between exhaustion, frustration and my monkey mind it took a long time to fall asleep. There were some short thundershowers in the night. That burned off this recent heat wave. The morning temperatures were so pleasant I refused to get out of bed. When I did get up and about, I messaged my bank about the extra purchase charges that I discovered yesterday. They said due to the time past it was best to first go to the business and try to sort this out. This is not good. Now I get to waste tomorrow in the city.
A juvenile Spiny tail iguana
Due to busyness, my bike has been long overdue for a fairly major overhaul. I ordered and shipped parts from Amazon months ago. I decided to pull the parts out and take a look. I then discovered either I ordered or the company shipped the wrong-sized rear wheel cassette. I can’t believe this!!! I believe the cassette is still usable but not the size I would want. This can’t be my life right now. I am so tired and overworked and completely unmotivated and so far behind on absolutely everything that I don’t know which way to turn next. And between yesterday and today, I discovered a lot of money may have been flushed down the toilet for nothing.
I laid in my hammock for a bit (again). Even after sleeping in, I am tired. I just can’t tell if this is all mental fatigue. I am so behind on so many things that I need to be doing but a big part of me wonders why I bother. I suspect recently having a bike-touring guest here for a few days this week is also weighing on my thoughts. I miss the road. Recently I have been asking myself what my definition of a successful life is. I think it’s an important question everyone should ask. For the purposes of this daily entry, my definition is not important. Everyone has a different definition. But what weighs heavily on me is that in every metric I use to define a successful life for me, I have somehow failed miserably. Every metric. The interpretation might be that I must be holding an extremely high metric or standard. Perhaps as the kind of person who would bike 26,000 km to live a life in the jungles of Belize, my metric must be much different from the average person. The truth is my metrics are extremely simplistic. Metrics that any and every human with basic rights should be able to accomplish. That doesn’t mean success comes without hard work. Success only comes with hard work. But as they say, 50% of the work is just showing up and somehow, I have failed miserably. I feel that facing failure would somehow be much easier if I just lived on a bike on the road. Perhaps I would have a better excuse for my failures.
Desert rose bloom
To satisfy the need to accomplish something today I wrote blog posts Belize Part 89 and 90. And posted Belize Part 34 (July 10 to 14) to my website. See the difference in numbers? That’s how far behind I am in posting blog posts to my website (and the rest of my life).
August 14
Life in the jungle: I didn’t sleep great last night. This morning was a trip to Belize City. First thing, I dropped off my bike at the bike shop. I then attempted to deal with this triple credit card charge I discovered the other day. The lady at the hardware store showed me their deposits for that day. She showed me they only showed one charge. Even though I was charged three times. Now I go back to the bank. This is going to be a fight.
When I got back to the village, I had to walk home for my other bike. The other day, I set up my other (mountain) bike with a spare (specialized) axel that will now allow me to pull my trailer on my mountain bike. I then biked back to the village to pick up my groceries from the city.
I can now pull my trailer on my spare mountain bike
I wanted to make my patio stones even though I generally don’t make them on city trip days. What I needed to do was to modify my waterline so I could water my seedlings. Things have been so dry that some of my seedling inventory was close to dying from no water. I must have watered for an hour. The heat was on again today.
August 15
Life in the jungle: There were some short thundershowers last night. Typical. After I just spent time yesterday afternoon modifying a waterline to water my seedlings. Feeding my chickens this morning, I discovered six baby chicks and two dead baby chicks. I transferred the mommy and chicks to one of my broiler coops. Then, I made my dozen patio stones for the day. My molds are starting to look rough. But by my calculations, I only have four pours left.
Passion flower & fruit
After lunch, I spent an hour and 45 minutes on the phone with my bank in an attempt to have my newly discovered extra double charges reversed. They told me that the charges were too old. I simply replied that no billion-dollar banker was getting my money under any circumstances. They opened a wrongful case for me. I have nothing to lose but time. I have every intention of getting satisfaction. [The bank fought me, but I fought harder and eventually got the transactions reversed.] There were sporadic rain showers in the night.
A juvenile Central American Wood turtle
August 16
Life in the jungle: I slept in a little bit. I noticed that my rooster is finally feeling better today. On August 4th, he lost his voice. Besides his voice, there seemed to be nothing wrong with him. He still provided his rooster duties. I made my dozen patio stones and now have only three more cement mixes left to complete.
After breakfast, I finally finished my banking and budget since I arrived in Belize. I was able to calculate that from a day-to-day traditional lifestyle perspective with having my house, I can live off $1,000 USD a month down here without taking on new big projects.
There wasn’t much time left in the day, so to be productive, I posted Belize blog Part 35. This evening I did a little bit of research. I definitely need to take a holiday. I realized one of my biggest bucket list items would be to see sea turtles. I have only ever seen one sea turtle from a great distance away, but not in Belize. I live in a country with sea turtles and yet I have never made any attempts to view them. Kind of ridiculous if you ask me.
A mother scorpion with lots of babies
Belize Part 89 (July 26 to Aug 2)
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.
