March 4
Life in the jungle: There was rain all morning. I discovered and realized that the blog post, The Key to Surviving the Jungle Lifestyle in Belize – Discipline, that I planned on sharing with Belize Facebook groups this week, was long overdue to be SEO and AI optimized.
The post is quite comprehensive, and it ended up taking most of the day to update and upgrade. I was thinking about heading outdoors after breakfast, but more rain came.
It’s been an interesting dry season with a rainy season rain day today. I need the road to dry completely so I can do some road repairs, but this rain is good for my trees. Working in front of my computer all day caused me to get a little drowsy and take a nap in the hammock.
Butterfly weed along my road
March 5
Life in the jungle: More rain this morning, all morning. The other week, I wrote a post called Belize Jungle Animals in Maya Culture: Names, Meanings & Symbolism. I had sent the post to be reviewed and edited by a Facebook friend, that is Maya. The post was returned with the required edits. I was able to publish the post.
After breakfast, I started posting Belize Part 205 (Feb 1 to 8). Usually, when we get this much rain, I write the day off to blog writing, but the weather was too nice, and I abandoned blog writing to get outside.
Being the afternoon already, I took on some odd jobs. Fixed a screen window and worked on my passion fruit trellis.
A 60 ft passion fruit trellis that I’m building to shade the side of the second greenhouse
March 6
Life in the jungle: There was at least a little rain in the night. I decided last minute to go to the city for some more paint. I figured that with more reasonable temperatures, it would make for an easier trip.
On the way home, I had an amazing experience catching a Tiger Rat snake (Spilotes pullatus). While I see this species on my road fairly regularly, they are lightning fast, and this is only the second one I have ever caught, and yes, I did get bitten on the thumb.
I did some yard work to finish out my day.
My first Tiger Rat snake
March 7
Life in the jungle: First thing I published Belize blog Part 205 (Feb 1 to 8) and started publishing Belize blog Part 206 (Feb 9 to 15).
After feeding the chickens, I chopped in the coconut. It was bushhogged recently. I wanted to do a quick run-through with the machete. I finished the coconut field, but I suspect, though, with all the rain recently, that things are going to grow back quickly.
After breakfast, I did a Snakes and Coffee show with the Tiger rat snake from yesterday. It was an interesting experience as I was certain I would get bitten, and the snake would go crazy. Neither happened; I was able to control and keep the snake quite calm.
Later in the afternoon, I finally started to install the screens and exterior window trim on the larger cabana. All this time has passed, and I’m just finally getting the windows finished now. I got about 80% complete until I ran out of trip lumber.
March 8
Life in the jungle: First thing, I posted Belize blog Part 206 (Feb 9 to 15), and I wrote Belize Part 207 (Feb 16 to 23) and Part 208 (Feb 24 to March 3).
After feeding the chickens, I installed the poly plastic covering over the new seed greenhouse I recently built. I also did a photo shoot of the Tiger Rat snake before I released him and a Narrow-bridge musk turtle.
Poly plastic covering the top of my seed greenhouse
A few days ago, Friday morning was the starting day for the La Ruta Maya canoe race from San Ignacio to Belize City. La Ruta Maya is a pretty famous race here in Belize. At about 9:15 AM, I could hear them and made it down my riverbank just in time to grab some video of the first wave going past my property. Today’s phase started in Double Head Cabbage, and they will go as far as Boom this afternoon.
I took my Sunday morning nap into the early afternoon. Very little except for some reading was accomplished for the rest of the day, as is my Sunday afternoon prerogative. I did do a video chat with my parents in the evening as my dad turned 78 today.
March 9
Life in the jungle: Waking up at 4 AM often gives me mixed emotions. It’s not exactly an enjoyable experience, and when I think about doing this for the next 20 years, it seems a little daunting to me. This morning, I woke up to no power, which meant I woke up in the dark. There is not a lot I can do in the dark. I assumed the power outage was temporary and flipped my light switch to on and went back to bed. Fully expecting to be awakened momentarily by the bedroom lights the second the power was restored. Except the power wasn’t restored, and I woke up at 6:30 AM. I received a text message from the power company sighting a vehicle accident (likely drunk driving) at 1 AM in Bermudian Landing that took out a pole.
Waking up at 6:30 AM was a little disorienting, and I very quickly became aware (internally) how much of the day I had already lost and the domino effect of waking up this late, even though a 6:30 AM wake-up is not that unreasonable for a typical person. This morning gave me a new appreciation for the necessity to continue waking up at 4 AM (and for the next 20 years).
Without power, I worked on greenhouse jobs. Power was restored just after 9 AM. After a late breakfast, I finally returned to working on my house roof that I had started last week, until I fell off the ladder and gave one of my fingers a bad rope burn. I made the appropriate modifications to ensure the ladder would not slip again. I finished my caulking and some minor modifications to what last year’s work crew had worked on that I wasn’t very pleased with. Later in the afternoon, I cut the grass in the front yard.
A couple of 4×4 blocks of wood to prevent the ladder from slipping again as I work off the roof
Over a week ago, the ladder slipped as I was about to climb onto the roof
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.
