October 4
Life in the jungle: The greenhouse floor is officially and finally finished. I started mixing cement and making patio stones in the first week of May. It only took me 6 months to complete. After everything was cleaned up, I started putting a floor in the chicken coop. I got about 3/4 of that floor finished before dark.
The floor is finished
October 5
Life in the jungle: First thing this morning I finished my chicken coop floor. I am so thankful that cutting concrete and concrete dust is finished for the foreseeable future. After lunch, I cut grass for the rest of the day. I am exhausted. Every evening for the last few weeks I have been exhausted.
Before and after – chicken coop floor
October 6
Life in the jungle: This morning I headed to the ponds to collect coconuts. I only collected 90 (to be picked up tomorrow). I went to bed early and woke up nice and early. But I am tired. On Tuesday I go on vacation. But not soon enough. I took an extended nap. When I woke up, I did a little work on my website. Before the day was over, I headed to the village for gas. I need to cut the grass at the ponds on Monday before I leave on vacation.
October 7
Life in the jungle: I am sort of in vacation mode now. No motivation and little productivity. I did attempt to get a handful of Belize blogs posted today. I got Belize blog posts Part 39, 40, and 41 posted to my website.
October 8
Life in the jungle: Sunday is my day off starting with laundry and running a quick mop through the house. Every day for the last month has had concrete dust in the air and on my clothing ultimately making its way into the house. The last few nights have had a few short rainfalls to wash away the dust covering the greenhouse floor and with a mop, I was able to wash away any indoor concrete dust in the house once and for all.
Joseph stopped by. Next week he will be watching over my chickens while I am away on vacation. I wanted to go over everything. His stopping by became a rather extended visit as a result of catching up on life. In the later part of the afternoon and evening, I continued posting Belize blog posts Part 42, 43 and 44.
Banded Garden Spider. [ Argiope trifasciata ]
October 9
Life in the jungle: I only had two jobs today, packing and cutting grass. To give time for the morning dew to dry I packed first thing. After breakfast, I headed to the ponds to cut grass. Halfway through the job, I snapped my pull cord. Technically it should have been a quick fix but I would never be so lucky. I wasted a fair bit of time but I eventually got my lawnmower running again. I was able to get a tiny bit of grass around the house cut also. I also have my chicken coops in about as good a shape as possible for being gone for the rest of the week.
October 10 to 14 – My vacation to San Pedro. Read Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE.
Being over a year behind in my blog posting I had such a good time and so many great experiences on San Pedro I wanted to post the blog posts immediately.
My YouTube channel – Safari Arie – Please Subscribe
October 15
Life in the jungle: Today is my guilt-free day off. I did laundry and just finished breakfast and Joseph showed up for a visit. He had taken a chick home while I was away who looked weak and possibly sick. He also brought me two mangoes. Joseph also wanted one of my younger chickens because he liked the look of it. I was happy to give him a chicken.
This afternoon I worked on and wrote my San Pedro blog posts. I was also very aware of the peace and quiet of home. (This awareness will make more sense if you read my San Pedro blog posts.)
October 16
Life in the jungle: First thing, I headed to the village for groceries. After breakfast, I finally got a hold of the bush-hog guy after trying the last few days. He’s coming tomorrow. My coconut field is starting to look like a mess again. Well, it looked like a mess for a while but a few weeks ago at least the field was ready for the bush-hog. I noticed today that seedlings are starting to get covered over with vines again. I spent the rest of the afternoon chopping in the coconut field in preparation for tomorrow. I didn’t get the job finished today.
Today was fairly overcast and even a little on the cool side. I still find the quietness of the farm almost deafening (in a good way) since getting home from San Pedro.
October 17
Life in the jungle: First thing, I got a call from Elton. The bush-hog had a flat tire. He will call me when it gets fixed. (Rrr.) I finished my run through (chopping) the coconut field. It’s basically finished for the bush-hog even though the field’s still a mess.
I took a nap. I think I am still in vacation mode but in all fairness, I haven’t taken a nap in a very long time. Mostly I need to figure out a few things about future projects and I don’t know where to start. This evening, I finished and posted my San Pedro vacation blog posts. PART 1 and PART 2. My allergies kicked in suddenly out of nowhere.
Crimson Patch or Janais Patch butterfly. [ Chlosyne janais ]
October 18
Life in the jungle: My original plan was to transition back to computer work now that my greenhouse floor is complete and my vacation is over. We had another day of cooler temperatures. I would be a fool for not taking advantage of the cool weather by working inside. I chopped at the ponds the whole day instead of computer work.
The ponds are looking good
During breakfast, I heard some unusual loud bird noises. Upon my investigation, I discovered a boa constrictor was wrapped around a chicken. I pulled the two apart but was too late, the chicken was dead. Crap. This is the second boa constrictor interaction with my chickens since Saturday evening. Check out my San Pedro Part 2 post link for that story.
Thanks to this boa it’s too late for this chicken
On Sunday Joeseph brought me two mangoes. As far as I knew I was never a huge fan of mangoes, but for breakfast, I had one and I really, really liked it. My allergies were really bad again today.
Mangoes – the first and only food that I am aware of that I changed my mind about liking. I know love mangoes.
Belize Part 96 (Sept 25 to Oct 3)
Belize Part 95 (Sept 10 to 24)
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.
