After four years, I have finally finished writing my memoir.
July 5
Life in the jungle: My allergies were really bad this morning, bad enough that my morning was pretty much a write-off. I almost skipped my hour sitting on my riverbank, but things were okay enough by the time the chickens were fed. I then took my mandatory Sunday morning nap in the hammock. Being my day off, most of the afternoon was uneventful, but I did spend a little time editing my memoir. It almost sprinkled rain a handful of times this morning.
July 6
Life in the jungle: After feeding the chickens, I mixed half a bag of cement to make patio stones. I have some concrete left over to use up. I then headed to the village to drop off eggs.
As I was finishing breakfast, it started raining and rained quite hard all afternoon. The power went out, so I took a short nap in the hammock. Once the power came back on, I worked on my memoir. I was able to complete a full review of my Belize chapter and made some noticeable improvements.
July 7
Life in the jungle: I shared my The Key to Surviving the Jungle Lifestyle in Belize – Discipline blog post to Belize Facebook groups. The sky said rain. I did a little yard and greenhouse work till some light rain started.
I worked the rest of the day on the appendix for my memoir. I’m getting extremely close to having my memoir finished!
A Pink Cattleheart caterpillar (Parides photinus) about to and then cocoon
July 8
Life in the jungle: This morning, after four years, I finally finished the writing part of my memoir – From Scrubbing Toilets to Living in the Jungles of Belize – approximately 86,000 words!
While the weather was fine, I decided to work in front of my computer. I wrote Belize blog Part 224. I then spent the afternoon and published Belize blog Parts 220, 221, 222, and 223.
July 9
Life in the jungle: This morning, I headed to the city. I had a dentist appointment to repair a filling. He said, ” Don’t bother; there was no decay, just wait until it’s time for crowns.” That’s the one thing I like about my dentist. He’s very laid back and doesn’t try to sell me on things. He didn’t even charge me a consulting fee.
July 10
Life in the jungle: First thing, I published Belize blog Part 224. After feeding the chickens, I mixed half a bag of cement for patio stones. I have one more half bag of cement left, and then I’m done making more patio stones for the foreseeable future. I will always need more patio stones, but I’m almost out of sand/stone mix. I also chopped in the coconut field for a little bit before breakfast.
After breakfast, I did some greenhouse work for the rest of the afternoon. At the end of the day, I had a video chat with someone interested in staying on the farm.
July 11
Life in the jungle: First thing, I added some updated edits to my Jungle Safety in Belize: What You Need to Know Before Moving to the Jungle blog post.
After feeding the chickens, I cleaned up yesterday’s patio stones. The sky looked too bad to mix the last half a bag. I chopped around the house.
Coming inside, it started raining, and the power went out. That power failure and the rain lasted at least four hours. Naturally, I took a nap in the hammock.
When the power came back on, I worked on a post I had started to outline the other week – Why I Wake Up at 4 AM: The #1 Productivity Habit for Living in the Belize Jungle. The post is more than halfway posted.
July 12
Life in the jungle: There was rain in the night. First thing I finished was posting my new blog post. This morning I heard a strange bird noise. My Merlin app identified it as a Keel-billed Toucan – particularly rare in my area.
When I went to sit at the riverside, I discovered, but was not surprised, that the river had risen many, many feet. Yesterday, there was significant flooding in Belmopan, which is upriver.
The Belize River, getting very close to flooding
There have been two very heavy rainfalls in Belize recently, but somehow the rain largely passed over my area without too much rain falling here.
Took my nap. Rain regularly passed through the afternoon.
Today was one of the most frustrating afternoons I can remember in a long time.
I had been waiting an unbelievable 113 days for two pieces of paperwork needed to move forward with obtaining my land deeds. Any responsible or competent person would have been able to provide those documents in about five minutes. At worst, it should have taken a trip to the appropriate government office on someone’s next day off. Instead, I listened to 113 days of excuses.
This is probably the hardest part of living in Belize for me: the excuses. For every reason why something works the way it does, there seem to be countless excuses for why nothing gets done. I have never heard anyone take responsibility, but there is never a shortage of blame to place on someone else.
As someone who has had very little support since arriving here, I don’t have the luxury of excuses, and there is nothing I hate more than excuses. I ended up having to bike up the road to the village to meet the person, but I got my two documents.
I recently wrote a blog post about excuses and reasons, which you can read here: Excuse or Reason?
I spent much of my afternoon cleaning the kitchen. Cleaning is the only way to get my head clear.
By late afternoon, the river had risen many more feet.
My Merlin app this morning
July 13
Life in the jungle: This morning, I shared my first social media short reel in almost two and a half months. For a few years, I had shared a short reel every morning, five days a week. I needed a break and had almost tunnel vision to finish writing my memoir.
This morning I also wrote this post, Belize blog Part 225.
The Belize River is right on the edge of top-gallon (flooding).
After feeding the chickens, I mixed my last half a bag of cement for patio stones for the foreseeable future. Whenever I have a small job that requires cement, I buy a few bags and use the extra cement to make patio stones, as I have some high-traffic areas that need patio stone pathways built to prevent mud in the rainy season. The more patio stones, the less mud. In my lifetime, I will never stop making patio stones.
My growing collection of patio stones
I then headed to the village to drop off eggs. One of my customers showed me a large group of Provision trees in the jungle that are dropping their seeds right now. There is also a resident tapir with tracks everywhere. Very cool. I plan to go back and grab a couple hundred seeds.
My riverside water pump intake pipe pulled away from the pump for a few hours. The pump got hot. It appears the pressure switch may have burned out (???). Always grief.
My Ceiba tree in my yard
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 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.
