December 16
Life in the jungle: This morning, I shared my Do’s and Don’ts of living in a Belize Jungle blog post to Belize Facebook Groups. I will share this post with a handful of groups every morning over the next few days.
Today was forecasting to be the first day of full sunshine in weeks, so I did laundry. I finished making seedling protection boxes for baby watermelon plants that I started on Sunday. I now have seven built. I also rehung my front gate.
After breakfast, I did my third YouTube video with Coffee and Snakes. I then turned my eyes towards the cabanas. I have been avoiding them because of the rain and mud. I’m going to focus on the one that was going to be Andy’s kitchen first, as I have no idea when I can install the windows in my newest cabana. In the kitchen cabana, I did some interior caulking and started working on the kitchen counter.
I built these boxes to hopefully protect baby watermelon and cantelope plants
December 17
Life in the jungle: I worked a bit on my A House is Not an Asset in the Jungle blog post. After breakfast, I went back to working on the (kitchen) cabana. I got the kitchen counter framed. The next step is to ceramic tile the countertop. I also finished cutting and adding a few pieces of lumber to the bunk bed for that cabana. That is finished and ready for painting. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I go back to work on the newest cabana. No rain again today.
The new kitchen counter in the (kitchen) cabana
December 18
Life in the jungle: I woke up to no internet. This kind of messes with my morning as I share a short reel to all social media platforms first thing and work on blog writing that requires internet access. It makes me think about how screwed I would be next time there is a prolonged loss of connections during a hurricane. Regardless, I wrote Belize blog Part 198 and did a little bit more work on a reptiles around my farm blog post.
After feeding the chickens, I headed to the village to drop off some eggs and deliver the last two ducks to Saul. Today, officially, there are no more ducks or chickens running loose on the farm. The only chickens I have are layers, which remain cooped up.
This morning, I also acquired some cedar tree seedlings. Cedar trees are valuable for lumber. I’m not sure if I have any on the farm, as I’m not sure I know how to identify them when they are mature. But I don’t think so. Regardless, I’m pretty happy to get these trees.
After breakfast, I started working on the newest cabana. I had a few nail holes to patch on the roof. That kept me in the mood to start installing trim on the cabana. Again, there was no rain.
December 19
Life in the jungle: I finished and posted A House Is Not an Asset in the Jungle blog post. Later in the morning, Andy showed up and spent the afternoon cleaning his apartment out. So, I spent the afternoon writing Reptiles, Amphibians, and Arachnids of Belize: A First-Hand Jungle Wildlife Guide
There were some sporadic, short rain showers today.
December 20
Life in the jungle: It rained in the night, I think all night. This is frustrating, for things to dry up and the current condition of the road. I feel frustration starting to set in. Andy showed up to continue to clean up and move the rest of his stuff. I continued working on my Reptiles, Amphibians, and Arachnids of Belize: A First-Hand Jungle Wildlife Guide. I finished it, but did not bother publishing it as I just published my A House Is Not an Asset in the Jungle post yesterday. I also did some housework and worked on my latest tree blog post.
Sporadic rain showers throughout the day.
December 21
Life in the jungle: I spent a good part of the day doing housework. With Andy’s bit of stuff that was stored in the house now gone, it was a good excuse to clean everything up. I did try to take my Sunday nap, but sleep wouldn’t come. I did a little bit of greenhouse cleanup, as his stuff is gone from there also. I also planted some Mahogany and soursop seeds. There was some short, sporadic rain today.
December 22
Life in the jungle: First thing, I worked on the Belize chapter of my memoir. After feeding the chickens, I put a coat of primer paint on the (kitchen) cabana bunk bed after breakfast. I then headed to the village for groceries and to deliver some eggs. This morning, I ordered a dozen more layer chicks for my last (empty) coop.
I have the dozen layers that lay an egg each, eight layers that should start laying anytime now, a dozen young pullets, and 12 more chicks whenever they arrive. That should someday give me 44 eggs a day. On second thought, maybe this is a bad idea.
I started preparation to build the kitchen counter for the newest cabana. Only a couple of sporadic rain showers today.
December 23
Life in the jungle: Worked on my memoir. I’m frustrated with the way the Belize chapter is going. But I’m also frustrated in general. Partly it’s the season, but mostly because of things I can’t write about, as this blog is public. So, I will simply move forward with my frustrations.
I worked on and finished my latest passion fruit trellis. Many months ago, I started building a pretty mammoth trellis for passion fruit. It does look pretty ugly, but I’m counting on the day that you can’t even see it, but it produces tons of passion fruit. It’s been a bit of a work in progress because of its size, and mostly, in the interest of priority of jobs, working on it at the same rate as vine growth.
One of my passion fruit trellises – it’s ugly, but one day it won’t be visible anymore and full of yummy passion fruits
I got a message from the village that the layer chicks I ordered yesterday arrived, two months sooner than expected. Anytime I order layer chicks, it seems that they take closer to two months for them to arrive. I never expected 24 hours. I had just picked up groceries yesterday. Because I wouldn’t need any groceries today, I biked out with an empty butane tank. In the past, Andy had always picked up the butane. It was a heavy load on the bike coming back home.
Layer chicks and a butane tank – what would I do without my tailer
I saw a fox on the road, pretty close to the house, obviously the same one from the other month. This is the only fox I have ever seen in Belize, and only the second time I have seen it.
Returning home, I painted a coat of paint on the (kitchen) cabana bunk bed. There were sporadic rain showers today.
Glossary of Terms
Glossary of words or people that may or may not be part of this particular 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 two – 30-acre parcels minus two – ¾ acre parcels for my house. In 2017, Wayne sold me 40 acres of land from the original 60 acres (one 30-acre parcel plus 10 acres from the second parcel). Wayne lives in his parents’ house and has a few cows on his remaining 18 acres of land.
Top-Gallon – The local term for when the Belize River floods its banks during the rainy season.
The ponds – I have two 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 two years of living in Belize, I also planted about 250 assorted 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 my 10-acre parcel. I have planted about 350 assorted fruit trees (lemon, starfruit, mango, soursop, cashew, lime, orange), all raised from seed since my arrival in Belize in 2021.
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. I call that my river lot.
The dry – Belize has two main seasons. The rainy season and the dry season (no rain). The wet is obviously the rainy season.
Chopping – using my machete to clear brush, vines, weeds, and unwanted trees. Generally, when I chop, I am removing unwanted vegetation around my baby fruit trees.
Andy – A fellow Canadian who rode his dirt bike from Canada to Belize at the end of 2023. When I offered Andy the use of an apartment that I recently built and the use of my greenhouse, Andy decided to stay in Belize permanently and start a hot sauce company here.
