Unlike last week, this has been a very busy week for us here in the jungle, even with all the rains.

The rainy season here started in June and is supposed to go until early November. Up to this point it has not been bad at all. The heavy rains seem to come at night and only last for a short time every few days which gives time for everything to dry up pretty well. This is great for our construction, as I think there has only been a few days that they haven’t been able to work. The big tarps that they have covering over the house and all the extra gravel around the work area have really helped keep the mud to a minimum and everything dry during construction. Everyone says that October is the month that usually gets the most amount of rain and we should be ready for it. Almost like clockwork, it has been raining every day in October so far, and when it does they are major downpours. The good thing so far is that the rain comes in spurts and there are some clear skies in between, but I think that might change. This weekend we will be setting up our weather station so we can actually see how much rain we are getting, then again maybe we really don’t want to know. Everyone keeps saying that once October is over, it’s clear and sunny days again as we enter into the dry season.

They have made some good progress on the house this week. They have the center main beam up and most of the main rafters are sanded and ready to go up next. They have also got a bunch of the tongue and grove sanded, sealed and ready for the ceiling next week. The beams around the porch are now up so you can start to see the outline of the house. Of course with all this wood there is a lot of sanding going on, which if you didn’t know better you would think there is a huge swarm of killer bees circling our house all day till five o’clock. And I don’t even want to talk about all the sand paper that we have bought, but it is all worth it because the wood is turning out beautiful.

Woo Hoo! The order has been placed for our kitchen cabinets and they should be ready in about two months. Jose is a local wood worker up the road that does amazing work, if you get a chance check out his Facebook page (Belize Exotic Arts). When we stopped and talked to him the other day we were surprised to hear that it would take two months for the cabinets to be done, but that is actually just about the time the house will be ready for them, so all is good. The wood we chose will be Santa Maria, a local hardwood that will have a beautiful finish when done. We had trouble locating the color stain that we wanted, but Jose had one that he mixes up that was the exact color we were looking for. In case you are wondering, the cabinets will be stained red with the grain showing through and then be topped with a black granite counter top.

Jose will also be making our front door out of Mahogany that will have a carving on the front. Our front door opening is 60” and we have an idea of what we want, but of course you will have to wait until it is done before you get to see it. We did luck out getting our order in, there were two other customers that also wanted kitchen cabinets done soon, but they had not finalized anything with him yet. So we got our plans to him and got him a deposit to start and now we are first in line. I guess it pays to be on top of things and have cash ready to go. Other things accomplished this week were the ordering of all the windows and the glass shower door, picking out the the tile for the shower and checking out the granite for the kitchen and bathroom. The whole thing is really starting to come together and we could not be more excited.

We finally got all of our trees planted. After the initial clearing of the area where the mini orchard was going it still took a couple months to get the area ready. Once the jungle plants were cut down they all had to dry so they could be burned. Then after that it was time to level the soil, rake everything up, clear all the stumps and burn again. This all took time in between the rains and other stuff, but now it was ready for the trees. The soil is rich and black which should be perfect for all those trees to thrive in.

 

Here is a quick rundown of what kind of trees we planted, Avocado, Mango, Starfruit, Orange, Lemon, Grapefruit, Lime, Cinnamon, Macadamia Nut, Coffee, Cocoa, Custard Apple, Wax Apple, Dragon Fruit, Bananas plus a couple of Vanilla vines. There are multiples of the Coffee and Cocoa with room for a few more of each, because you can’t have too much coffee or chocolate, can you? Over time the natural grass will eventually cover all the ground around the trees, but this could take awhile. So to help it along we bought a couple bags of grass seed and spread it all around to help speed up the process.  Eventually this will become a nice grassy area with some great producing trees. And just in case anyone is wondering this area is where a couple years ago the electric company had cut down the bigger trees to make room for the power poles, so it was just a bunch of smaller under growth that needed clearing. This section runs north and south so it should be perfect for the plants with good morning and mid day sun.

Now that all the fruit trees are in, we thought we should start planning ways to preserve some of them when the time comes. There is always making jams, preserving whole fruits and dehydrating them, but we thought we should try something a little different. This past weekend we decided to try our had at making some liqueurs. The first one is a Jamaican Lime (which is a green skinned citrus that is orange inside) mixed with sugar and Cuban Rum. The second one is a Dragon Fruit mixed with sugar and Vodka and the last one is a Wild Grape (that we picked on our road) mixed with sugar and Vodka. They should take about two months to do their thing and then they will be ready for some awesome holiday drinks. If these turn out good we can’t wait to start trying some of the other exotic fruits that are available here.

Finally we  found time to take a break from everything and get the quads out for a ride. Up till now we have only rode them a few miles and Kelley hadn’t even rode hers by herself yet. We loaded up, put our helmets on and headed off into the jungle for a little trail ride. We had hoped to stop at the Malfunction Junction for a cold beer but they haven’t been open in months so it was further up the road we went. A few miles up the road was the guard gate heading into Mountain Pine Ridge. We said hello to the guard and told him we were just on a ride, he said have a good day and we were on our way. It started to rain pretty good which we thought made the whole ride just a little more fun.

After a while the rain had stopped, and would you believe right on the side of the road was a little place that had a sign that read cold beer. Thinking that if this guy can sell beer in the middle of nowhere then we should probably stop and support his efforts. His name was Kevin and he had some of the coldest beer anywhere. After a good rest and a couple beers we decided we should probably start to head back to the house and get the grill fired up before too much more rain came. We said goodbye to Kevin and told him we would stop in any time we were up that way again. It was a great day for a trail ride and we know there will be many more to come once we really get settled in here.

We are both finally P-O’ed, post officed that is. Up in San Antonio where we are we have a general delivery Post Office, but we thought that we should have a real PO Box down in San Ignacio to make it easier for the banks, insurance and other legal stuff.  So now after all this time we have an actually place where stuff can be sent. Our address is…

Dave & Kelley Adams

PO Box 331

San Ignacio, Cayo, Belize

Central America

 

Creature Feature of the week is something right out of Jurassic Park. We were watching TV the other night and there is a loud thud on the screen door, (we’re glad we had the door shut). We assumed it was our local tree frog or maybe even a big grasshopper, but we had no idea what strange creature this might be. The first picture is of him on my flip flop so you can see that he is a very big insect. He is a very weird insect that has a head that looks like a Hippopotamus. After a little research it turns out that it is a Peanut Head Moth, which really isn’t a moth at all it’s a member of the plant hopper family

They say that they are harmless but, local legend says that if a young girl gets bit by one she has 24 hours to sleep with her boyfriend or she will die. You gotta love legends! This creature is very unique, but is not really a thing of beauty until he spreads his wings, and when he does, WOW! Besides looking like an owl he also has a spray that resembles that of a skunk. Now those are pretty good defense mechanism that should scare off just about any predator. This is just another fine example of some of the amazing creatures we have encountered in Belize.