September 1
Life in the jungle: This morning I shared my YouTube video of the farm on Belize Facebook groups to possibly attract like-minded people to live here.
I then focused on my old bike touring content. With a memoir release coming in the next few months, the first 30 days on Amazon supposedly really count. I see the bike touring community as potential buyers. I need to reintroduce my “bike touring brand” back to those Facebook groups. There is no way I have the time to give my key posts a complete SEO overhaul, but I did give them all a mini overhaul over a year ago. That being said, they do need a read-through for sure, and Facebook group hooks written. I completed the first four posts for sharing and shared How to plan your bike tour route to bike groups also.
I then headed to the village again to pick up my broiler (meat) chicks.
September 2
Life in the jungle: I spent the day turning my memoir bike touring appendix into a blog post I can use to promote my memoir on bike touring Facebook groups called Bike Touring for Beginners: Everything You Should Know Before Your First Tour. In the morning, out of nowhere, exhaustion overtook me, and I did have a nap before a late breakfast.
September 3
Life in the jungle: After feeding the chickens, I did some greenhouse work. I planted some cherry tomatoes, watermelon, and cantaloupe. After breakfast, I spent the day doing a complete overhaul of my USA bike tour summary – My US Bike Touring Experience: 7,857 Kilometres Through America. The purpose of the overhaul is to use the post to use to promote my memoir.
It looked like it might rain today; I swear we are in a dry spell for sure.
September 4
Life in the jungle: There was a tiny bit of rain last night, and I woke up to a cloudy morning. While I have done very little outdoor work in some time, it would be foolish not to chop under cloudy conditions. I headed to the ponds to chop. My outdoor work continues to pile up. I continue to have tunnel vision working on my memoir.
After breakfast, I had to do a bunch of code edits on my recent bike tour blog posts I have been working on lately. It largely felt unproductive, but whatever. I did start working on the overhaul of my Mexican summary post when Saul showed up. He showed up with a couple of guys, and they pulled all the framing and forms out from inside the cement cistern (they built it a couple of weeks ago). I guess the roof is now cured. There was a little bit more rain before bed.
September 5
Life in the jungle: After feeding the chickens, I cleaned up the forms from the cistern roof and cleaned the inside of the cistern.
After breakfast, I headed to the village to drop off eggs and pick up a bag of dog food. Returning home, I cut grass around the house for the rest of the day.
I don’t know what I would do without my bike and trailer
September 6
Life in the jungle: Being Sunday, I spent an hour sitting at the riverbank. I then took my mandatory Sunday morning nap in my hammock. After breakfast, I basically continued my nap. By the afternoon, I noticed a slight improvement in my foot. For two days, the top of my foot has been swollen.
After feeding the chickens in the afternoon, I slaughtered a broiler (meat) chicken.
September 7
Life in the jungle: I started working on and finished My Mexican Bike Touring Experience: 6,020 Kilometres Through Mexico blog post, modifying it to complement my memoir promotion. For some reason, I had a hard time motivating myself to edit the post, but I pushed through.
After breakfast, I headed to the village to drop off eggs and pick up groceries. Things continue to be very hot and dry. Later in the afternoon, I worked on inserting photos into my memoir.
September 8
Life in the jungle: Shared my What I Wish I Knew Before Moving to the Jungle in Belize blog post to Belize Facebook groups and Bike touring by yourself or with a partner blog post to bike groups.
I spent some time inserting photos into the memoir, and then I spent the whole afternoon reading the memoir out loud for a second time. I got to more than halfway through the US chapter.
September 9
Life in the jungle: After feeding the chickens, I cut some grass in the yard. I then washed a small section of framing in the shade cloth greenhouse. After breakfast, I put a coat of paint on the newly washed section.
I spent the rest of the afternoon laying down patio stones alongside the house leading to the new water cistern. While building the cistern, I quickly threw patio stones down so full wheelbarrow loads of cement could be brought through to help build the cistern. But it left quite the mess. I’m now laying them level and three stones wide. I got 65 patio stones laid.
September 10
Life in the jungle: I ended up spending the entire day finishing yesterday’s patio stone walkway. I didn’t anticipate it taking the whole day. I used 200 patio stones for the job.
There has been thunder since yesterday, but no rain yet.
Walkway complete – patio stones make all the difference in the world in the jungle
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September 11
Life in the jungle: First thing, I did a quick update to How to Document your Bike Tour Adventure blog post for bike touring Facebook groups.
This morning, the bottom of the arch of my left foot all of a sudden started swelling and is sore to walk on. Earlier in the week, the top of my foot swelled up; now the swelling has moved to the bottom (in a few days the swelling will leave the bottom of my foot and move to my ankle).
Saul and his crew showed up. They worked on replacing the third post of the water tower. It looks like I’m going to replace more braces now. The base/footing for the water pump house for the new water cistern was also poured.
The water tower repairs continue
At the end of the day, I biked to Double Head Cabbage, as this evening at 7 pm was the community update on the fish die-off. Ultimately, the important numbers/readings were way off from normal. They blamed the fish die-off on hypoxia.
Hypoxia is the result of dangerously low dissolved oxygen. Because of all the flooding, the belief is that a large influx of organic material entered the river from the sugar factory and surrounding farms. When huge amounts of organic matter enter water, bacteria break it down and consume dissolved oxygen.
The part that I was frustrated about was that they say the river has normalized, and they are all proud of the fact that they can do their own testing now. But they couldn’t offer current readings and confirm the river water was safe for bathing or dishes.
By the time I got home and went to bed, it was after 11 pm.
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 completing 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.
