Well it has now been 51 days without an active case of the covid virus in Belize. They reevaluated our State of Emergency plan on June 1st and relaxed some of the current laws. At this point, businesses are starting to open back up and we are now free to travel around the country. Of course, social distancing and wearing a mask in public are still a requirement, but at least we don’t need to wear our mask in private vehicles anymore. On Friday and Saturday nights they gave us an extra hour of curfew, so we can now be out until 9:00pm. They are really trying to promote local tourism and some of the deals at the resorts are amazing. So, it looks like this year we will be doing some mini vacations in Belize since the borders and airport are still shut down. There is talk about opening up the airport in July, but we’ll have to see how that goes. Once the airport does open, it’s unclear what carriers will be heading back here. I have heard that Southwest will not be flying here until next year, but then again that could also change. As soon as we know anything about the airport opening and who will be flying here we will let you all know.

We’ve got a few squirrels around here and they will come down and get a drink out of the birdbath every so often. The other day as the squirrel was coming down the tree, the cat that adopted us decided to take a shot at him. The squirrel was too fast and for the next 20 minutes he sat up in that tree hollering at that cat.  Speaking of hollering one night that cat must have gone into heat and would not shut up for two nights straight. Somehow it attracted another cat (we have no idea where he might have even come from). So since we do not need a bunch of stray kittens around here, we had to stop feeding the cat and started scaring it away. It’s been over a week now with no sign of it, so hopefully, it wandered over to its baby daddy’s place and is shacking up there.

The road past us through Mountain Pine Ridge that leads to Caracol (the tallest Mayan site in Belize), Rio On Pools, many waterfalls, and caves, is getting widened and paved. These are all major tourist sites and the hour-plus dirt road drive up to them gets very rough at times. So the government decided it would be better for tourism if there were a better road to the sites. Personally, I would prefer it if it stayed a rough dirt road, but I guess you can’t stop progress.

The neighbor who stopped by a few weeks ago and asked if we were interested in some beef, came through with some nice cuts for us. He came by with a bone-in rib roast, that we aged for a couple of weeks before cutting it into some nice steaks. He also had some ribs, a shoulder roast, and a brisket. The brisket and shoulder roast immediately went into a brine for a couple of weeks (using Uncle Jer’s recipe) to make corned beef. Once it came out of the brine, the roast was boiled up with some potatoes and cabbage. It was a little late for our St Patty’s day meal, but it was well worth the wait.

After the brine, the brisket got heavily seasoned, thrown in the smoker, and thin-sliced for some great tasting pastrami. We tried to round up some marbled rye bread from our local bakery, but they were out so we settled on a french roll. Still toasted in the oven with some Swiss cheese, and brown mustard, that was the best sandwich we’ve had since we’ve been here.

The rainy season has started and what a difference some rains make. During the recent rains, every plant has had a huge growth spurt. And the timing couldn’t have been better, because the day before the first rains started we’d spread fertilizer around every plant. The coffee plants have burst out with tons of blossoms on most of them. Out of the 35 or so coffee plants, 3/4 of them currently have blossoms on them and some are just loaded. We should have a decent coffee crop this year, Now we’ll just have to figure out the proper way to roast them.

All of our citrus trees have new blossoms on them as well, with the exception of the kumquat tree. On the other hand, the kumquat tree seems to be growing faster and taller than all the rest. Once all the citrus starts coming in, we are so looking forward to some fresh grapefruit, oranges, lemons, and limes.

Last year we only had one cocoa tree that got blossoms and only three of the pods took. Currently, most of the trees have blossoms on them, and if we can get even half of them to take then we should actually have enough to make some good chocolate for something good and tasty.

We are finally getting a little road time on the Jeep and working out all the bugs. We haven’t gone very far yet, but small steps at this point until I’m more comfortable with it. Overall it has been a lot of work, but I think it will be a good Jeep once it’s completely done.

Since we can now move around the country and we have some great resort deals in Hopkins, we’re ready for some beach time. Of course, we had to postpone this week’s trip for a couple of weeks due to a good tropical storm dumping water everywhere. We were hoping to get there and get in some Tarpon fishing, but the river is just too muddy at this point. Besides, if we wait a few weeks lobster season will open up and there’s a good chance we could bring back an ice chest full of lobsters.

That’s about it for now, hopefully, they will open up the airport soon so we can all get back to traveling around again.