January 26
Life in the jungle: With Nery coming this afternoon to look at my fencing project my priority was cleaning my last fence line on my home property that runs along the road. I got a good section cleaned up but it is slow going with cleaning out the spiny bamboo. After breakfast I ended up taking a bit of a nap. Nery came as planned to look over all my future fence lines and will start helping me with my fence line Saturday morning
I attempted to pump water but something is wrong with my waterline. I never got around to getting that figured out. Perfect weather today
January 27
Life in the jungle: I had to turn my alarm off last night as had a sleepless night last night. Today was a virtual right off. I spent the morning attempting to fix my waterline with no luck. My water vat is getting very low. Derrick was supposed to come down to look at my pump but postponed until tomorrow.
Heading to the hardware store this morning for plumbing parts I was able to see that Wayne the Belizean living here on the farm is destroying the road. The road is a complete disaster.
Thanks Wayne
Besides installing an outside lock on my crawl space, I got nothing else accomplished today.
January 28
Life in the jungle: I started my morning chopping my house property fence line. I was able to get it 90% completely finished. After breakfast I spent two hours draining sitting rain water off the road. Wayne is successfully destroying the road. This afternoon I spent many hours trying to get my water pump running. The water vat is getting dangerously low on water. After many hours of trying I gave up. Derrick was supposed to come help. Hopefully he shows up tomorrow. I had just enough time before dark to finish chopping my fence line from this morning. Now I just need to salvage all the barbed wire that was part of the fence line.
Today I saw a Yucatan squirrel and a Coatimundi while working around the house.
A Coatimundi. I took this photo in 2010 at the Belize zoo
January 29
Life in the jungle: It rained heavy last night but I slept soundly through all of it. Today was probably the most hectic day on the farm yet. I started my morning removing barbed wire from the fence line I cleaned yesterday. Then Nery showed up to started working on a brand new fence line around the house property. And then Derrick showed up to help get the waterline up and running again.
I would have to bike to the hardware store twice for pvc pipe adapters for Derrick. We would end having to put in a second bleed valve right before the pump to finally get the pump running. The whole process took multiple hours to get the water flowing. Each trip to the hardware store is about an hour round trip. Very frustrating.
Nery got the posts for the front of my house in and started working down the property on the one side.
Later in the afternoon my Airbnb guest went up to the grocery/ hardware store and reported that chainsaws had arrived. They got in 4 – 18″ chainsaws for $180 USD in and they had already sold 2 of them. That was enough motivation for me to get back on my bike and get to the hardware store (third trip of the day) as quickly as possible to buy a chainsaw.
Today was overcast and might almost be considered cold but the rain did hold off all day.
January 30
Life in the jungle: Nery came over to put in more fence posts. He is close to finishing the property around the house. I started my morning finishing chopping and removing barbed wire from the far corner by the river. My afternoon was spent moving sand along the outside of my future fence line to make a walking path for Jill to use leaving her cabana. Jack her husband may have declared war on me and Jill may yell and swear at me all the time but she is still a 74 year old lady and needs a walking path to get to the main road. I hope I never get accused of being a bad neighbor. The weather was perfect working weather.
My Breadfruit tree
January 31
Life in the jungle: I started my morning doing a little chopping in the coconut field. I am doing a pretty good job at keeping the undesirable vegetation growth quite low. The morning started with drizzle and then turned to rain. I took the time to plan out a chicken coop.
Heath my Airbnb guest has decided to go to Caye Calker for the next 2 nights. We were planning to go to Ambergris Caye together but after reading a really bad review of the caye I decided it was not worth the expense. So, I get a few days to myself.
This afternoon I went to the grocery store and hardware store. The grocery store for the obvious supplies. The hardware to price out materials for a chicken coop. This evening I calculated an 8×8 chicken coop would cost me about $500 USD not including 4 small rearing coops. And not including cracked corn (chicken food). Crying out loud that’s expensive. Do you know how many chickens I need to raise to pay for a coop?
This afternoon I found a cow in my front yard. It is one of Wayne’s and has me pissed to no end. This is why I have to put my fence lines in. Other peoples escaped farm animals.
Central American Wood turtle
February 1
Life in the jungle: I started the morning chopping at the ponds. After breakfast I planted about 70 papaya seeds in seed bags. I moved some more sand to the one corner to finish Jill’s walking path around my property.
I walked Wayne’s cow back through his gate. It is strange that only this one cow is loose. I am certain that Wayne released the cow on purpose because it is ultra skinny and there is tons of feed (grass) on my side of the fence. Also, Wayne is ignorant enough to release a cow to damage someone else’s property. He has had no problem destroying the road.
Nery came late this afternoon (after his day job) to work on the fence. Perfect weather all day.
February 2
Life in the jungle: Another morning started by chopping at the ponds. The weather has been dry and I think we are about to enter “the dry.” The dry means probably little to no rain until about mid May.
Because things are drying a bit, I finally finished digging my waterline trench and even started filling in the trench to bury the pvc pipe.
Trench completed
This afternoon I went to the hardware store. I picked up 4 – 2×4’s ($36 USD – yjkes). That is about the max lumber load that I can pull on my bike trailer. The lumber is needed for my future gate in the coconut field. Nery came later in the afternoon again and worked until dark.
February 3
Life in the jungle: I started my morning with my current focus, chopping at the ponds. After breakfast I finished back filling my waterline trench. We have had no rain in many days so the ground was good for working.
Trench filled
I have also changed my mind about my gate locations in my new fence lines. I currently cross over Wayne’s property to get to my coconut field and the road. If I put in too many gates that border his property, I think he will try to say something. I have no interest in giving him that excuse. My coconut field gate will be along the main road fence line and I will also put a gate for my house property along the main road fence line.
I have been pushing hard these last few days. I am pretty exhausted. I took a few hours just to rest in my hammock. Heath returned from Caye Calker and Nery also arrived to continue working on the fence line. It gets dark at about 6:15 pm. Nery was doing some last minute cuts at 6:06 pm with a chainsaw and Jill came out of her cabana yelling and swearing that it was ignorant to be working after 6 pm??? This woman is nuts. Perfect weather today.
Glossary
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 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 house and has a few cows on his remaining 17 acres of land.
Nery – a local in the area that helps me with certain projects when needed. A very knowledgeable guy originally from El Salvador. He teaching me a lot about farming and tree.
Derrick – a local in the village that helps me with certain projects when needed. Mostly he helped early on after my arrival to Belize. He doesn’t help me so much into the future.
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 jungle. I have about 60 coconut trees (mostly mature) around the ponds. I have plans to plant a few hundred papaya trees here plus other fruit bearing trees around the ponds.
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 a ¾ acre lot. I have a second joining ¾ acre lot that allows me river frontage on the Belize River
The dry – Belize has 2 main seasons. The rainy season and the dry (no rain)
Chopping – using my machete to clear brush and unwanted trees
