February 24
Life in the jungle: A cool (cold) morning. I thought we were done with these temperatures. I shared my Are you interested in living in Belize? Here’s a unique opportunity blog to Belize Facebook groups.
After feeding the chickens, I mixed the last half a bag of cement for a while and made some more patio stones. The cement I have been mixing recently (for trellis footings) was from a cement order a while ago, long enough that the cement was starting to harden up. I have a few outstanding projects to finish before I make patio stones anymore. I then quickly ran up to the village to drop off eggs and pick up yesterday’s delivery of insect cloth for the seed greenhouse I framed last week.
After breakfast, I turned my attention to a job that had been waiting for me since last June or July, when I replaced a section of my house roof. I also replaced a section of exterior plycem that is the back wall of my loft (above the kitchen). Pretty much since the day I had the plycem installed, the “farm ladder” has been unavailable. Anyways, the ladder was returned this past weekend. I needed to do some caulking and painting of this wall section, which means working on top of the roof. Working on the roof is absolutely miserable, and because of the potential serious accident all by myself in the jungle, I don’t like it. I got the caulking completed and then climbed back onto the roof. The ladder slipped on the deck, and I fell 7-8 feet in an instant. The fall actually wasn’t so bad, but my hand was holding the secure rope, and I got a pretty bad rope burn on my right-hand ring finger as I fell.
My finger lost a good chunk of skin and burned a bit, but I couldn’t believe I fell off a ladder and didn’t do some serious damage. I always try to be careful and mindful. Hurting yourself by yourself in the jungle can get serious really quickly. Regardless, I won’t be working on the roof for a bit, as it’s hard to have a grip on my securing rope with a bad finger. I finished the day doing some yard work, and I cut the grass in the yard that surrounds the house. This finger is going to keep me from a few different jobs over the next little while.
Rope burn – it could have been a lot worse
February 25
Life in the jungle: Because of my finger, I worked on my Black-tailed Indigo Snake on My Farm in Belize: An Ecologically Important Snake You Want Around blog post most of the day, and was able to publish it also.
It was not the most productive day. I did a little house cleaning and a little painting of the larger cabana. It was also unseasonably cool (cold) today.
February 26
Life in the jungle: I spent the whole morning house cleaning, and after breakfast, I painted the larger cabana for the rest of the day.
February 27
Life in the jungle: I wrote and mostly completed my Papaya Benefits in the Belize Jungle: Why I’m Adding This Tropical Superfood to My Daily Routine blog post as part of my superfood series.
After feeding the chickens, I bagged 87 more Mahogany seed bags. I did a rough inventory of mahogany trees (seeds) and discovered that I have, in recent months, planted 950 Mahogany seeds, along with 100 from last year. Fingers crossed that The Community Baboon Sanctuary will receive them and arrange for them to be planted.
After breakfast, I went to the village to drop off eggs and get groceries. I then did a little painting of the larger cabana. In the last part of the day, I finished building the grape vine trellis.
My grapevine trellis
Pondorosa lemons
I tried one and didn’t care for it, and because of their size, they’re too difficult to make juice.
I didn’t even bother to keep the seeds
February 28
Life in the jungle: After feeding the chickens, I planted a bunch of papaya seeds in cups. The plan for these papaya plants is to specifically plant them around the house to attract birds, and as much as I don’t particularly care for eating papaya, I have discovered papaya to be palatable if I squeeze fresh lime juice and sprinkle salt and brown sugar on it.
After breakfast, I painted the large cabana all afternoon.
Papaya seeds planted
March 1
Life in the jungle: It was hard to do anything else this morning other than watch my phone with what’s going on in Iran. On January 20, 2025, Trump was the first world leader to say there were only 2 sexes – male and female. From that moment, I knew – borders closed, truly historic low crime, drug boats blown up, dictators removed, and regimes ended. One of the first politicians in my lifetime – promises made, promises kept. Yet one of the most hated men in history. The man never sleeps, and he has proved to everyone that there are no excuses! Making America great is making the world a better place!
I did some greenhouse work, including planting a raspberry plant that I acquired last year and one of my grape vines. I took my Sunday morning nap that resulted in a very late lunch. As it’s my prerogative to do nothing on Sundays, I basically did nothing else today.
March 2
Life in the jungle: First thing I did was my month-end clean out of my phone, removing photos and videos for this month’s blog posts. I also did a little cleaning around the chicken coops. I then worked on repairing a window (screen) I damaged last week when I fell off the ladder. When the ladder slipped, it slid over the window screen, ripping it in the process.
After breakfast, I painted the rest of the day. There was an unexpected, but fairly short, heavy rain shower that passed through. At the end of the day, I planted my second grape vine.
March 3
Life in the jungle: I shared my Are you interested in living in Belize? Here’s a unique opportunity blog post, and I did a little work on my papaya blog post.
After feeding the chickens, I put the insect netting on the seed greenhouse I started building the other week. After breakfast, I headed to the village for groceries, dropped off eggs, and picked up two broiler meat chicks, but not before discovering that I had a flat tire.
I started covering my seed greenhouse in insect netting
I found a young roadside hawk on the side of the road, so I brought it to the Baboon Sanctuary Museum in Bermudian Landing. [No one seems to know what was wrong with it, but the next day it was able to fly away on its own.] When I got home, I ended up unexpectedly with a video chat that took most of the rest of the afternoon.
I came across this Roadside hawk on my way to the village
I delivered some avocado trees to a friend in the village,
& returned with some lumber.
I’m not sure what I would do without my trailer.
🌴Belize Part 207 (Feb 16 to 23)🌴
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 Life in Belize blog post.
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 rainy season starts around June 1 and goes until the end of the year. It seems June, November, and December are the wettest times of the year.
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.
I arrived at my home on November 25, 2021, by bicycle from Canada. I have journaled my daily adventures every day since. Since I have arrived, I have built a 1,000 sq-ft shade cloth greenhouse, a tiny apartment that I refer to as my greenhouse apartment. I also started and am close to completion of two small cabanas that I refer to as my smaller cabana and my larger cabana. The apartment and cabanas are for visitors and people wishing to move to my farm. I’m also getting close to completing an additional 1,600 sq-ft shade cloth greenhouse.
