The house has now officially shifted into high gear. The roof is about done, the floor is going down and the siding is going on. Next week the electrician will be here to run all the outlets and switches and to run the underground power from the main breakers. We have been shopping and comparing prices for lights, appliances, doors, fans, etc and are starting to stockpile them in the garage. If all goes well, he is estimating another six weeks till completion, even if that is off by a few weeks it should still put us in there by Christmas or the end of the year. Still a lot to accomplish for them and for us, but time is flying by and we can not wait to be in a bigger house with a real kitchen and living room.

There is no big retail stores here, so any type of cabinets, vanity’s, dressers or other stuff like that has to be made. There are a few bed and dresser sets available, but the options are very slim. It is also challenging to shop for appliances, lights, fans, etc. So far we have only found one store that carries a built-in microwave, the good thing is that it was what we were looking for. And it seems that no one down here carries a dishwasher, in fact our cabinet maker has never even seen one before. We did locate a nice stainless dishwasher at one store so we are off to get it before someone else does. Not many choices on outdoor lighting or fans either, but with enough shopping around we usually find something that will work.

We had to go see the cabinet maker the other day to make sure the measurement was correct where the microwave, stove and dishwasher are going. We were very surprised to see that so much of the work had already been done on the kitchen cabinets. Kelley could almost picture herself standing in a real kitchen, cooking up some amazing food again. Jose had told us before that the framing is the part that goes pretty fast, and it’s making all the doors and draws that take time. Still it was nice to see the cabinets taking shape, and it is all hardwood, no plywood or particle board here. Plus he is making them extra strong so that they will support the weight of the granite.

We’ve been saying how it would be nice to have some more bananas in the entrance side of where we planted all the fruit trees. Ruben said that he had some that he could dig up for us if we wanted them, so of course we said yes. So first thing Saturday morning we took the truck over to his house to pick up six very big banana trees. There was a variety of plantains, apple bananas and local bananas, all of which are very good.

The little mini orchard is starting to look great with all the trees, the new grass coming up and the addition of the new bananas, it going to be a regular fruit-topia of trees once they all get established.

We are big fans of funny signs and when we see one we try to get a picture of it, which doesn’t always work when you are driving down the road. This one we just had to stop for because it was funny and because it was put out by the Department of the Environment, which even made it better. The sign reads “No Dumping of any kind, Let’s keep Belize clean”. A very good and positive message. Okay, so let’s look at the pictures and think about this. A person throwing trash, very understandable. A person sitting on the toilet, understandable, but funny. An emoji with a broken heart??? Okay, so no dumping of your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife or even your dog? I guess in order to help keep Belize clean you should not throw trash, poop in the proper receptacle and do not break up with anyone. Funny right?

And speaking of signs, I added a few more to the funny sign section on the blog.

The creature feature of the week is the White-nosed Coati or commonly called Coatimundi. There are a lot of these roaming around the property, we have captured up to twelve at a time on some of our trail cameras. The males can get up to three and a half feet in length from nose to the tip of their tail and weigh up to 27 lbs. Where as the females are a lot smaller with some only getting up to six pounds or so. Coatimundi’s are found from southern Arizona all through Mexico and through Central America, from sea level up to 9,800 feet. They are considered omnivores and will search for small vertebrates, fruits, insects, snakes and eggs during the daylight and then spend the evenings sleeping in the trees. Coatimundi’s will easily adapt to human presence and will have no problem raiding a campsite or trash can.

Usually at night we hear some sounds that we just can’t identify, but a few nights ago we must have slept right through the big trash can raid. When we got up in the morning our covered trash can that is kept under the house was drug out and spread all over the place. We are assuming that it was the work of some mischievous Coatis and not the cat that we keep hearing. Wait a minute, didn’t I just say that Coatis sleep at night. Anyway the other evening we heard a small kitten calling for it’s mother, which makes sense because a couple weeks ago we heard a bigger one making a lot of noise. We are going to assume it was a fox or a possum that got the trash and not a cat, and we’re pretty sure it wasn’t a monkey because all of our beer was still there in the morning.