September 10
Life in the jungle: Today is my day off. I did very little today. I did the laundry and I cleaned my bedroom loft, and before bed, I posted Belize blog post Part 38. There was no rain today.
September 11
Life in the jungle: This morning, I started laying my greenhouse floor. Part of my preparation was that I sledgehammered an (old) cement and block deck foundation support down. The plan is to smash the cement blocks down into smaller pieces as a foundation underneath the floor. That way I need and use less gravel as a base for my patio stones.
Old deck supports
Busted up
Reused and finished result
Before breakfast, I went up to the village for groceries. I got rained on my way home. I was motivated to keep working on my floor but the sky said it was not a good idea. I have lots of computer work that I was working on last month, and I have done nothing on my POD t-shirt website. But I am not motivated. I decided to work on my bike ride book. It’s been a long time and it’s something I can work on without too much motivation. I finished my first draft of my Mexican chapter adding 2,500 words to the end. My Mexican chapter’s first draft is 14,500 words. I also finished my short Belize chapter (650 words). Technically, all I have left to write for my book is my epilogue.
This evening when I opened a hen house for feeding there was a scorpion and as I leaned in everything happened sort of instantaneously that the scorpion ended up on my shirt. With a swipe of the feed cup, I was able to brush him off and the scorpion became chicken food.
September 12
Life in the jungle: There were a few downpours this afternoon but by the end of the day I had laid my first 68 patio stones for my greenhouse floor.
The start of the greenhouse floor
September 13
Life in the jungle: I started my morning attempting to continue putting in my greenhouse floor. I got as far as breakfast/late morning. After breakfast, there was a downpour and even after the rain the thunder never stopped and the sky looked like crap. And even with my breakfast coffee I still needed a nap. When I was finally about to get back to work in the afternoon, I received a reply from my website developer. I had asked him about whether he used a life coach. Something inside me told me that he did. That turned into a 2 hour conversation about becoming a life coach myself. I have been considering being a life coach for over a month now. Somewhere, somehow the idea that I could become a life coach as a career intrigues me.
September 14
Life in the jungle: Today was a visit to Belize City for supplies and groceries. A hot day as usual. What time I had left in my day after I got back home, I spent cleaning chicken coops. The number of chickens that I now have has grown exponentially. I think I am going to put a floor in my main chicken coop to help facilitate cleaning.
One strange bug
September 15
Life in the jungle: I spent the whole day working on the greenhouse floor. I got 86 more patio stones laid. There was no rain today.
September 16
Life in the jungle: I started my morning heading to the village for groceries. After lunch, I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my greenhouse floor. This afternoon I was only able to lay 54 patio stones.
September 17
Life in the jungle: Today is my day off. I did laundry and a tiny bit of house cleaning. I listened to a very long but very good Tim Ferriss podcast on the topic of happiness. I encourage anyone to watch it HERE. I then started to research life coaching which was interrupted by a call from my brother that went on for multiple hours and that made for a later night than I am used to.
September 18
Life in the jungle: Because of a late night last night it dominoed into my morning. I was exhausted and needed to start my day lying in the hammock. No greenhouse floor work today. I went to the ponds to plant a pineapple top. After a late breakfast, I cut the grass around the house and did some yard work. I had to call it an early day as I had a video consultation with a life coach. My website developer had put me onto his life coach and I hoping to proceed with having a life coach. I am curious to see where it all goes and with the interest in becoming a life coach, it will be a good learning experience.
September 19
Life in the jungle: I spent the entire day working on my greenhouse floor. Unfortunately, I only ended up getting 45 more stones laid.
Progress
September 20
Life in the jungle: Another day of spending the day on my greenhouse floor. Today I got 77 more stones laid.
September 21
Life in the jungle: A quick trip to the village for groceries first thing. After breakfast, I continued to work on the greenhouse floor. I only got 47 patio stones placed but I have set myself up to lay most of the rest of the floor pretty quickly moving forward.
More progress
September 22
Life in the jungle: I anticipated quicker progress today and I got 98 patio stones laid for the greenhouse floor today. So, I predicted properly.
September 23
Life in the jungle: Another productive day laying patio stones. Today I got 85 laid and I expect I only have about 200 patio stones left to lay. Today I got my first chicken egg after I suspect more than two months since my last eggs. All my hens for over two months were either sitting on eggs or had chicks. The other week I was finally able to start separating my hens from my chicks.
Getting there
September 24
Life in the jungle: Today is my day off. I did laundry before breakfast and after breakfast, I worked most of the afternoon on a proposal to attempt to interest and invite like-minded people to possibly build a tiny home and live on my farm for free in the interest of creating a community on my land. There is far too much work on the farm for me to handle by myself. For example, as things stand, I will never properly finish my greenhouse with shade cloth as I will never be able to use my greenhouse because I don’t have five minutes of time to grow anything in it. The only way forward that I see is to try to see if I can convince others to live here also. As I have been pondering this idea of inviting people, I see the greenhouse as an interesting incentive for people to move here and use it to in turn become self-sufficient. But I need to at least finish the floor to show that it is virtually ready to use.
In the evening, I published some Belize blog posts on my website. I also wrote three future posts for my life coaching career I hope to pursue shortly. I also made an appointment for my first session with my new life coach for later this week.
The difference between a Red-cheeked mud turtle (left) and a White-lipped mud turtle (right)
Belize Part 94 (Aug 31 to Sept 9)
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.
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.
