August 24
Life in the jungle: There was some rain last night with sporadic sprinkles throughout the day. I started my morning chopping at the ponds. The Cribo snake that I caught the other day got loose in the house for the morning. I kept finding small things moved. The weird thing was at first, I couldn’t find him. This is weird as I don’t allow for hiding places for creatures in my house, particularly because of scorpions. But later in the day, I discovered him in one of the windows.
An escaped Black-tail Cribo snake
I then headed to the village for groceries. Getting back home I then went back to working at the ponds. This evening I noticed that my 3rd (sitting) hen’s eggs are starting to hatch.
Black-tailed Cribo snake – a few photos before I released her
August 25
Life in the jungle: Before heading to the city, I had to transfer a hen and her chicks to a coop. For the first time, I have a 100% hatch rate with 10 baby chicks. I am running out of space for chicks.
This trip to Belmopan for my passport stamp did not go as smoothly as usual. Customs customer service disappeared for 20 minutes and then there was a bit of a lineup. This is the first time in a long time I didn’t catch the very next bus back to Belize City. This time and every visit moving forward I plan to get 3-month extension stamps. Three months is the longest one can stay without going in for an updated stamp. Even though I have never had an issue with Belmopan Immigration unlike the living hell Belize City Immigration used to put me through, visits to immigration always cause some level of anxiety.
I was able to finally pick up the water pump I had ordered from Amazon a while back. Getting some fruit in the market I discovered a new type of fruit called mangosteen. I had to take the 3:30 PM bus home.
Mangosteen – my new favorite fruit
This evening I put a whole bunch of Rambutan fruit seeds in wet paper towels. I don’t seem to have much luck germinating Rambutan seeds in the dirt. I also put some dragon fruit seeds in wet paper towels for germination.
August 26
Life in the jungle: I started my morning chopping at the ponds. I needed to get the last half of an order for 150 coconuts being picked up tomorrow morning. Earlier in the week, I received a call to purchase some coconuts from me. After breakfast, I installed my new water pump. Everything went back together without a problem. Dealing with my water pump(s) always has me anxious. After installing the pump, I went back to chopping at the ponds. I am close to being on top of the chopping at the ponds. The last part of my day was doing a little bit of yard work.
Scorpion cannibalism
Tonight, I watched a documentary-style movie called Big Rig. Best job I ever had. If I was forced to leave Belize and I wasn’t in a position to start bike touring again, I would become a long-haul truck driver again.
Some days I really miss my old job
August 27
Life in the jungle: I definitely enjoy having all my water faucets back working, especially the toilet. Today is my guilt-free day off. I always feel more settled when I am on top of my blog writing. I wrote Belize blog Part 91, 92, and 93 up to today. I also posted Belize Part 36 and 37 to my website. Later in the afternoon, there were some heavy rain showers. I think we are getting a lot of rain early this week.
August 28
Life in the jungle: I started my morning chopping in the coconut field. I got stung multiple times in the nose from a wasp nest. All on the nose except for 1 sting on the left side of the head. My nose felt like I got one of the freezing needles from the dentist. My nose got completely numb. The right side of my face felt like it had a sting though I have no recollection of getting stung on my right side.
This wasp nest got me good
After breakfast, I worked on scheduling Instagram posts for my POD t-shirt line. Of course, I ran into some complications, but I figured it out through a different scheduling platform. [And after all that work something screwed up with all my scheduled posts. Nothing like wasting time.]
My allergies were pretty bad (stuffed up) for some reason. Towards the end of the day, I went back to the coconut field and chopped. There were some pretty heavy rain showers tonight. My (wasp-stung) face was feeling fairly normal by the time I went to bed.
A humming bird nest
August 29
Life in the jungle: I started my morning chopping in the coconut field. Before I left the house, I could hear Jill wailing in pain. Last week I saw her helpers carry her in a chair to her cabana and every day thereafter they were showing up twice a day. Apparently, she has now hurt her back. It has become a complete gong show. A 75 year old woman living by herself with two dogs and a parrot who can’t even get out of bed and abandoned by her husband. I don’t know what was going on to cause all the wailing this morning, but they finally carried her out on a chair. Later in the day, they came back for some of her things. I assume and hope this time she is not coming back.
This afternoon I had to make another (stupid) video for this English tutor job I applied for at the beginning of the month. It took me 19 takes and then had complications uploading the stupid video. It felt like a very wasted day. My day would never be complete if a substantial portion of my day wasn’t wasted. I spent what I had left of the afternoon chopping in the coconut field.
3 days later another scorpion eating another scorpion
August 30
Life in the jungle: This morning I released 4 laying hens from their coop into the regular chicken population and then I went chopping in the coconut field. I have been raising 11 laying hens for what seems like forever. They don’t seem to want to grow very fast. It has been suggested they are not growing very fast because I only feed them corn and not a proper laying mash. Either way, I need their coop and I don’t want to release all 11 hens in a single day.
The humidity this morning zapped me. Before breakfast, I took a nap. I was very unmotivated. In order to accomplish something, I was going to go to the village for groceries, except I never made it. While Jill is not here anymore her two dogs (puppies) still are. One escaped and I noticed it attempting to play with a young hen that I had just released. But a small hen can’t handle a playful puppy. I actually thought the puppy killed the chicken and I ran out of the house to intervene. The chicken was alive and unharmed but in shock. Now I don’t know what to do. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving the property now. At the end of the day, I did a little more chopping in the coconut field.
Central American Wood Turtle
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.
