April 5
Life in the jungle: Victor left this morning on his way to the bottom of Argentina. It was strange watching him push his bike through my gate. [Victor was a Warm Showers bike touring guest that arrived on April 3.]
This morning I planted seeds. I planted 44 jackfruit seeds, 340 soursop seeds plus 100 watermelon seeds. And of the 200 soursop seeds planted in early March 131 soursops have germinated so far. [The 100 watermelon seeds that became baby plants would all be eaten by Spiny tail iguanas.]
Lots of seeds planted
This afternoon I started digging a garbage pit for the last 10 years of accumulated garbage. I am using the dirt from the pit to level some ground for the river lot.
A new garbage pit started
April 6
Life in the jungle: A bit of a late start this morning getting to the ponds. It was a hot morning with virtually no breeze. And it only got hotter. My phone said 34C, feels like 44C. And virtually no breeze continued all day. In an effort to get something done, I had a pretty big brush pile left in the coconut field, so I burned that all afternoon.
The days have definitely gotten hotter these last few weeks.
April 7
Life in the jungle: I woke up and ended up in my hammock pretty quickly. I could tell it was going to be another hot one this morning. I came to the conclusion that I needed a break from outdoor work. I am thinking that I should start taking a regular sabbath from outside work.
I did some computer work but mostly edited all my Belize photos up to date. I also started planning a trip to Belmopan early next week to check out some aquaponic systems. If I can get my bike tuned up Saturday I may bike to Belmopan on Sunday. [That bike trip to Belmopan would never happen.]
April 8
Life in the jungle: Derrick showed up first thing this morning with his brother Bunch (the electrician) to officially remove Jack and Jill’s electrical wire off my electric meter. Hallelujah, at last 100% free from my ex-property managers. I did some chopping in the coconut field before breakfast.
After breakfast, I went to the ponds. I burned off some of the chopped vegetation along the pond’s edges. I also collected all the coconuts that had started sprouting and rooting themselves. Tomorrow I plan to plant more coconuts in the coconut field.
Burning at the ponds
Nery showed up with more cabbage wood to finish my installation of the skirting around the house. After he left, I placed all the coconuts I plan to plant in the coconut field tomorrow. An hour before dark we had a very heavy rainfall for a solid hour. A lot of rain fell.
April 9
Life in the jungle: I biked out to the village first thing to have a guy in the village look at my front derailleur to see if it was adjustable. But it needs to be replaced. At first, I figured that this would affect my trip to Belmopan. During breakfast I decided to send a Hail Mary text to my paralegal to ask him out right if he was going to get give me my business license or not. Low in behold he actually responded. Once again, he said he has been busy but he informed me that the health and fire department were coming on Wednesday for my Airbnb inspection. So, I guess my trip to Belmopan is on hold. I have no idea what to think. [No one would ever show up.]
After breakfast, I planted 33 coconuts in the coconut field and only replaced 2 coconut trees that I planted back in December. I thought I would end up replacing more but even the ones that look rough are all showing some new growth. So, I decided now that they are recovering from the shock of being transplanted, they should be given a chance to keep growing.
Yesterday’s rain is going to further delay projects as I will now have to wait for fence posts. From a weather perspective these, every 2 week downpours are great for my coconuts but are really bad for my road and having to wait an extra 2 months for fence posts. Which has delayed the completion of fencing my properties, building a chicken coop and building an outdoor kitchen fire hearth.
After planting the coconuts, I ended up in my hammock for a nap. When I finally did get moving again, I went to the grocery store. After that I went to the ponds to plant 6 coconut trees there plus, I started planting a few watermelon plants. [I had planted a bunch of watermelon weeks ago in seed bags and mostly neglected them after most of them got eaten by spiny tail iguanas.]
A click beetle. Fairly common. Locally known as cookeye, pine walley or dry weather cricket
April 10
Life in the jungle: Some mornings your just meant to lie in bed for a while and listen to the birds.
Once I got moving about, I headed to the ponds. I spent the morning at the one pond raking over the area that I burned the other day. After breakfast, I went back to the ponds to work and also finished planting my watermelon plants. I think there were about 18 plants in total. Some of them were a bit rough looking but some of the plants looked good. [All the plants would end up getting eaten by iguanas.
I got a one-day Airbnb booking for April 22 this morning.
At the end of the day, I pulled my old mountain bike from underneath the house. This was a bike that I purchased from an employee of mine back in 2001. It has been sitting in Belize untouched since 2010. The tires were flat, the chain completely rusted and the shifters probably busted. I pumped up the tires, oiled the chain and the bike was at least ridable. I have to bring my regular touring bike to the city tomorrow for repairs but I think in the near future I should bring this bike into the city for a full tune-up and replace corroded parts so that it can be available for guests.
The bike that got me back into biking. Perhaps the first seed to bike touring?
I am pretty exhausted. It felt like a full day.
April 11
Life in the jungle: Today was a trip to Belize City. I brought my bike into the city to get fixed. Which worked out really well. I had my front derailleur replaced with a used one and the front derailleur shifter fixed which I was sure to be unfixable all for $37 USD plus $4.50 USD in extra bus fares. After getting my bike fixed there wasn’t much time for anything else in the city. First day in the city with no Covid-19 masks. FINALLY!!!
After I got home, I did a little chopping work at the river lot.
April 12
Life in the jungle: I started my morning working at the ponds and went back after breakfast with the chainsaw. I didn’t get too far with the chainsaw. The chainsaw needs another tune-up. I ended up working myself to exhaustion and ended up in my hammock for a few hours. The last part of my day was spent salvaging some [unused] PVC pipe in the coconut field that was laid to the ponds many years ago.
New life. A Cottonwood tree. One of my favorites. They get huge and have awesome regenerative properties.
Belize Part 20 (March 29 to April 4)
Belize Part 19 (March 21 to 28)
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.
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 would end up stealing my business license and causing me a lot of grief. 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 teaches me a lot about farming and tree.
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). The wet is obviously the rainy season.
Chopping – using my machete to clear brush and unwanted trees
