As we get older we all start looking for things that will make our lives easier. I decided that I’m getting too old to chop firewood anymore, especially since a lot of it here is hardwood. So we recently ordered ourselves an electric 6 ton hydraulic log splitter. I know, you’re thinking why do we need firewood in a warm tropical jungle. Definitely not for a fireplace, but rather for our pizza oven and the smokehouse.

I wish we had ordered this a few years ago because it works like a dream and my back appreciates it. We split a bunch of logs into perfect size pieces in no time at all. In case you are wondering what kind of wood we use, it’s oak, allspice and craboo, which are all great for cooking. Now we are ready to fire up that smokehouse and pizza oven once again.

Last year we had a few friends over and one of them brought a friend who said she was from New Mexico. Of course, the conversation turned towards Hatch Green Chilis and how much we love and miss them. Hatch, Anaheim or any type of those green chilies are just not available down here unless you grow your own. Anyway to our surprise, on her next trip down she brought us two 5 lb. bags of frozen, roasted Hatch Green Chilis. We can’t wait to make something good.

St. Patty’s Day is coming up soon and that means green stuff and corned beef. We’ve definitely got the green part covered down here, but corned beef is about as hard to find as a leprechaun with a pot of gold. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been curing around 70 lbs. of briskets for some St. Patty’s Day corned beef. Word has gotten out, and at this point, most if not all of them are spoken for. If there are any left, we will season them up, give them a good smoke and slice them thin for pastrami.

Up in the garden we are still getting a lot of raspberries, if you want some plants, please come and dig some up. There are 30+ new pineapples on plants and at least 5 bunches of bananas that will be ready in the next month or so.

The cacao plants are loaded with fruits this year. They range in size from a couple inches up to about ten inches in length.  At this point, we are just drying all the seeds and sealing them up for later. There will be a time later this year when we will roast them and start making a bunch of chocolate.

We are even picking a few star fruit. The sun is finally out and it’s warming up, so after all that rain we had, the plants and trees all have new growth and are starting to set blossoms. It’s looking like it should be a good year for fresh fruit around here.

The other day on our little dirt road we saw a snake sitting there. We stopped the truck to get some pictures, and he took off into the bush and up a tree. Kelley did manage to get a few pictures of him so that we could identify him. It turns out that he was an Oriole or Tiger Rat Snake about 6′ long. This is the first time seeing a Tiger Rat snake around here or anywhere. From what I read this is a non-venomous snake that will get over 8′ long. I’m guessing that if you saw one that was eight feet long and you are afraid of snakes, it could be harmful, because you could either hurt yourself running away or just have a heart attack right there on the spot. Seriously though, we rarely see snakes around here.

Every night for the past few weeks we’ve had a Kinkajou in the tree above the back patio. It’s always been too dark to get a decent picture of him, but that changed the other day. We were out back grilling, the sun was just setting and here he comes from up inside the palm tree just 6′ from our house and climbs over to the tree above the patio. He stayed directly above us for a good hour just going from branch to branch eating the berries on the tree. It didn’t bother him that there were five of us grilling, talking and listening to music, he just went about his business.

After about an hour I guess he’d eaten enough because he crawled back over to the palm tree for the night. The locals here call them nightwalkers and they are rarely seen during the day, so this was very exciting for us to see him up close when it was light out and get some good pictures.

When the big tree over the patio out back is full of berries it attracts all kinds of animals. At any given time there is an assortment of different birds out there, including toucans eating and dropping berries. It also attracts squirrels, kinkajous and who knows what else is up there in the middle of the night. That’s all great, but the mess they leave on the deck is huge. Every day during “berry season” I have to wash the deck down and scrub it with a stiff broom to remove all their droppings. It’s great seeing all the animals up there, but at this point, I can’t wait till all the berries are gone and they move on to a different tree.

After the holiday season, Belize saw a spike in covid cases that pushed the total for the entire country up towards 10,000 active cases. As of this posting, the total cases have dropped down to 1,451 and dropping more every day. With only around 400,000 people in the entire country and everyone being so spread out, Belize is a safe travel destination. Now is the time to start planning a trip down to Belize, I know you’ll have an unbelizeable good time.

After seeing Mike Nash play a couple of great shows at The Bluff, we invited him and Melissa up to our place for a BBQ. Great food, lots of cold drinks and even a game of darts. Mike kept saying how he is just blown away by everything in this side of Belize. So much that he is planning a big songwriters get-together up here next year, plus it looks like he will be back up our way again in March. If you haven’t checked out his music yet, you definitely should. He has some excellent beach and drinking songs as well as some very good country songs. I guarantee he will become part of your playlist.

We have been seeing a lot more critters moving around here lately, it must be that time of year or because the rains have lightened up. The Aracari Toucans have been around here quite a bit lately, most likely eating whatever is ripe in the trees. Last week there were at least five of them in the trees above the garage. Then a couple days ago there were 12-15 around the back patio. There’s a real good chance that a couple of these are the ones that were living in the power pole a couple of months ago. We have also been seeing some big Keel-Billed Toucans flying around, but nothing worth taking pictures of yet.

The same night that all the toucans were out back an agouti was also out wandering around. Then a little while later two Kinkajous were in the trees above the patio. Kelley tried to get a picture of them, but it was too dark and they didn’t turn out. In case you need a refresher on what a Kinkajou looks like here’s a picture I pulled off the web.

Since we’ve been here, we’ve seen probably at least a dozen different types of lizards around here, but not a Green Tree Anole. Well, the other day that changed when I saw one run across the yard and jump up on the trash can. I tried to get him off the trash can, but instead, he jumped on my arm and ran up to my shoulder. He stayed there long enough for Kelley to get her camera and get some pictures.

When we tried to take him off my arm, he jumped up on my head and sat there for a while. Finally, he ended up jumping off my head and onto a tree. I know this would have freaked a lot of people out, but it’s all part of the fun of living in the jungle.

Another lizard that we have around here is the Turnip-Tail Gecko. We only seem to see them on the outside of the house and in the garage. As you can see they have big sticky feet and can climb just about anything. These guys are fun to watch when they move because they have a great wiggle when they walk.

Around here there’s always some kind of critter to take a picture of. The other day Kelley spotted this translucent, Green Lynx Spider eating what looks to be some kind of flying ant or wasp. These spiders are usually hard to spot because of how well they blend in with the green plants. The Green Lynx is a hunting spider that does not make use of a web for capturing its prey.

I was checking the trail cams the other day to see if there was anything interesting on them. There were three different dogs, a domestic cat, an agouti, lots of possums and a bunch of different birds. And then there was a big surprise, an anteater walking by with another one on its back. After reading a little more about these, it says that a mother will carry a young on its back for about the first year before they go out on their own.

Our raspberry plants are at the peak of production right now. We are picking a least a half-gallon jug full every few days. The other day we pulled some mangos from the freezer and Kelley made a raspberry mango crumble. I love a good apple or peach crumble, but the raspberry mango combo was out of this world. The only thing that could have made this any better would have been a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of that hot crumble.

Over the past few years, we have seen a lot of different types of mushrooms around here, but this is one that we’ve never seen before. It looks like a flower, but it is actually a Rounded Earthstar mushroom. Like most of them around here, it’s an inedible mushroom, the only ones that we know are good to eat are the oyster and the wood ear. I’m sure there are other mushrooms that are edible, but we just don’t know what they are yet.

Just thought I’d share a picture of this giant fern we have growing next to the house. We have no idea where it came from and we have seen no others like it around here. We assume a bird or some other creature dropped a seed at some point and it just started to grow. It’s a big beautiful fern and it just keeps getting bigger. Maybe we’ll collect some of the seeds and see if we can get more to grow.

For a couple of days, the rain stopped, the sun came out and the cool weather went away.  So we took this as a sign to escape to the beach for a little vitamin-sea. We headed over to our favorite beach town of Hopkins. It was a short 2 1/2 drive from our place and that included a stop at Bertha’s Tamales. It was just a quick overnight stay, but that was still plenty of time to hit our favorite beach bar and even a little time in the swim-up bar at Jaguar Reef. It was great seeing some of our friends down there and a good chance to work on our mid-winter tans.

In all my postings I like to reflect on all the positive and good things happening in our lives. But just like everyone else, there is a lot of other things going on that no one wants to hear about. Almost daily around here something breaks, needs repair or maintained. I don’t know how many times our water is shut off because of a pipe break or the internet goes out or we lose power. We are constantly cutting the jungle back so it doesn’t take over the yard. The garden and all the plants around here need tending to almost daily. During the rainy season, there is a lot of mud everywhere! Recently Kelley broke a tooth that had to be fixed and I fell off a ladder and messed up my back. Plus a lot more other things that we all deal with in everyday life. Granted we love living in the jungle where every day is a new adventure, but everything is not always rainbows and toucans.

I just want everyone to know that we prefer to post all of the fun and interesting things around here and not all the other shit that nobody really cares about. I mean seriously, do you want to hear about how it took us two days to weed the garden or how we spent all day in the mud repairing a broken water pipe. I don’t either, so I’m mostly going to keep posting all the fun and interesting things around here that make us happy and I hope you will continue to follow along.

Hope to see you in Belize soon!

Darren is back down for a visit and to check on the construction of his house. There has been a lot accomplished since last time he was here. He’d hadn’t seen it since it was just a block and cement shell of a house.

Now the roof is on, the floors are tiled, all windows and doors are in, lights and fans are all working, completely painted inside and out and the wrap around porch has been started. It’s looking great and I think he is very happy with it. The next step will be to order all the kitchen cabinets and then start on furniture and appliances. Pretty soon he’ll be enjoying his own house in the jungle.

A few months ago when we were out on Ambergris for some Jim Dalton shows, we ran into Mike Nash in the crowd. Mike Nash is a great musician who plays everywhere including Belize and Puerto Peñasco. After talking to him and his wife awhile we suggested that he should come up to The Bluff near us and play. He said that they had never been to mainland Belize, only out on the island and said it sounded like fun.

Arrangements were made for him to play two nights at The Bluff. Mike said he was blown away by all the beauty and people up here and it reminded him of his home in Tennessee.  In his post the next day he said “I just finished what might literally be the greatest mind blowing night ever.” He had no idea about this part of the country and really fell in love with everything about it.  If he would have known he said he would have brought his hat, boots and shit kickers instead of shorts and flip flops. He’s already talking about next time and bringing other musicians up here. It was definitely an awesome night at The Bluff.

Our neighbor Dan has been raising sheep for about a year now. So when he told us that he needed to thin the herd down a little, we jumped on the chance to buy one. Kelley and I love lamb and it’s always one of the meats that we include in our meals. We had really hoped to cook it whole in our Caja China box or hang it whole in the smoker and see how that turned out. Either one of those methods would involve having a bunch of people over for a big BBQ, but we are still under covid rules and that means no gatherings of 10 or more. So we ended up taking it to our local butcher and had him cut it up into all the good chops, ribs and such. Earlier in the week, Kelley did a flyer for our friendly butcher so it was a perfect trade out for services.

We finally found time to make some more sausage. This time we started with a 20lb. pork hind leg. The goal this time was to make some more Italian sausage and breakfast sausage. Italian and breakfast sausage are available here, but they seem to lack some of the flavors and spices that we like. It was pretty straightforward sausage-making this time as we choose not to put either one in casings. The breakfast sausage was just formed into patties and the Italian will mostly be used in Italian dishes and to top pizzas.

Recently one of the hydraulic lines on the tractor developed a small leak. No problem, it just needed a couple new copper crush washers on the fitting and the leak should stop. Well, the leak didn’t stop and I got a little torque happy and ended up snapping the banjo bolt that holds the hydraulic line in place.

That should not be a problem locating a new bolt as there are tractors everywhere here in Belize. After checking all the possible shops around and coming up empty, I was starting to get discouraged. Then one of the shops suggested just having one made. So off to a machine shop to see if I could get one made. The guy said no problem and it will take him a day or so before he’ll have it ready. The locals here, especially the Mennonites out in Spanish Lookout are so skilled and resourceful that they can make or fix just about anything you need.

We were driving home the other day and there was a police checkpoint in the middle of the road up near our village. These are common along the highway where they are usually just checking your insurance and registration, but not up near our village. Anyway, he stops us and then tells me to pull over to the side. Then he ask if I have a permit for the LED light bar on my truck. Of course, I don’t have a permit, so he gives me a $50 ticket and says I need a permit. I tried to explain to him that we live way up in the bush and I need it when I’m not on the main road. It didn’t matter, have a nice day.

For the past few weeks, a Red-Vented Woodpecker has been pounding away on the Cohune Palm just a few feet off our front porch. He would pound away on it for a while, then the female would fly over and look at it then fly away.

Finally, he must have got it to where she approved because she jumped in and stuck her head out, and was ready to start a family. I assume in a short while we will have baby woodpeckers sticking their heads out and hopefully, we can get some good pictures.

Once again Kelley captured another great wildlife photo. This time it was a mama Rufous-Tail Hummingbird feeding her young. About a month ago we noticed a small nest in the mango tree. Every so often we would see mama bird sitting on that nest. Then one day Kelley walked by and up popped a tiny head. At this point, it looks like the baby is about ready to fly away. Soon it will be out on its own enjoying all of the flowers and feeders we have around here.

We have lots of different types of orchids growing on our property and whenever we find one, we relocate it closer to our house. That way we can enjoy them and take pictures when they bloom. The one blooming this week is an octopus bromeliad. It is an interesting looking orchid with a big ball and then arms that make it almost look like an octopus. It gets these beautiful red shoots that purple flowers with white tips come out of.

Hope everyone is doing well and thinking about a tropical getaway this year.

The new year has started off cool and wet at our place, so there’s really not that much happening. Of course, there’s always food happening so here are a few food highlights of the year so far.

There’s no better way to start the new year than with some traditional local food. New Year’s morning Ruben brought us down some warm tamales. They were absolutely delicious, moist tamales wrapped in banana leaves. But the real kicker was that instead of chicken this year they were made with Gibnut. What a great way to start the new year.

Speaking of Gibnut, a while ago a friend brought us over a hind quarter of one. We waited for a good rainy day and Kelley made a pot roast with all the fixings in the crockpot. Chicken, beef, and pork are great, but it’s always special when we get a chance to have a local delicacy. And Gibnut is the best wild game out there, after all, that’s the meal they served to the Queen of England when she visited Belize.

Another great meal that Kelley made was French onion soup and roasted bone marrow. Roasted bone marrow is one of those things I bet only a few of you have ever tried. Once you do try it, you’re like, how come nobody has ever told me about this before?

We have made corned beef from scratch many times in the past and it has always turned out great. Recently we picked up 30lbs. of beef brisket that will go in the brine for a couple of weeks. These will be for us just to see if the recipe needs any adjustments, which I doubt it will. After that, we will be taking orders for corned beef so all our friends can celebrate St. Patty’s Day come March. Corned beef is something you can not get here in Belize and most of the locals have no idea what it even is. But if you’re Irish or even pretend to be then come St. Patty’s Day corned beef is a must-have.

While I’m still on the subject of food, a friend of ours called the other day and asked if we needed any tomatoes. We’d just got back from the market and stocked up on veggies for the week, and of course, we bought some tomatoes. He told us that he was just starting to harvest his tomato crop and was selling them for $8 BZ a bucket, that’s $4 US for a 5 gallon bucket. Of course, we bought some, we couldn’t turn down fresh vine ripe Roma tomatoes.

Kelley’s got a bunch of whole tomatoes and tomato sauce canned, so it looks like we’ll be firing up the pizza oven for a pizza party pretty soon. At that price, it’s not worth it for us to even grow them.

This past week a local kid has been coming by on his bike selling radishes. I’m not a fan of radishes but Kelley loves them. They are beautiful looking radishes, and are all the size of golf balls and bigger. Since there was more than Kelley could eat raw, we decided to dehydrate the rest and see what happens. We did a couple different seasonings, garlic salt & pepper, and habanero sea salt. I’ve got to say, they really turned out surprisingly good. They are a good crunchy snack that goes great with a cold Belikin beer.

Since this new year has started we have harvested a nice stalk of apple bananas, a couple of pineapples, and some raspberries. So far our breakfasts for the year have consisted of fresh fruit and homemade bacon. It’s not a fast-food McMuffin, but sure is a lot healthier. One of the great things down here is that it doesn’t matter what time of year it is, there are always fresh local fruits and veggies available.

Okay, a little more editable stuff from the yard. Kelley was making Chinese food the other night and needed some ginger, not a problem. We have ginger growing, so we went out and picked a small piece for some lettuce wraps. We also looked around and found some wood ear mushrooms growing on some logs, so sweet and sour soup it was. It’s great to have all these fresh items available to us.

Remember the 6 foot tall marigolds we posted a few months ago. They finally died back so we got them all pulled out. Well, I guess while they were dying back they decided to spread their seeds everywhere.  A 40′ parameter around those original plants was a forest of marigolds coming up. At first, we thought it would be great to let them all bloom and have a beautiful orange yard. Then we thought of how big the patch might be next year. So I got the lawnmower out and cut them all down, I got a lot of them but they are still everywhere. Between the raspberry plants and the marigolds, I don’t know which one would be the first to take over this whole place. I never thought I’d be mowing down a field of marigolds.

We’ve got a whole new year in front of us now and hopefully, it will be better than the last two. People are starting to travel again and we are seeing a lot more tourists down here in Belize. Most of the major airlines such as American, Delta, United, Southwest, Alaska, and Frontier all have daily flights here. If you are flexible on your travel dates I have seen round trip flights from Phoenix for under $300. Most of the time though the flights are around $500-$700 round trip from many cities. A lot of the flights from the west coast stop in Dallas or Houston for a plane change. After that, it’s just a short 2 hour flight down to Belize.

The current requirements for getting to Belize are that you need a negative covid test prior to arrival or a recovery note, whether you are vaccinated or not. If that doesn’t work for you, then you can have a test at the airport when you arrive in Belize for a fee of $50. You will also need another test a day prior to leaving Belize. Everything is open and operating, so you can check out the Mayan ruins, go cave tubing, relax on a sandy beach, head out to one of the islands, or anything else that Belize has to offer. We hope to see you down here in 2022!

Because Belize is so culturally diverse, there are a lot of different Christmas customs that go on. Such as the Mayan Deer Dance, the Garifuna Jankuna Dance, Christmas Bram and more. Some of these celebrations involve very elaborate costumes that are a sight to see. Of course, being on the Caribbean shores you know there will also be some boat parades at some of the coastal towns. And most Belizeans will also celebrate Christmas the traditional American way by decorating a tree and waiting around for Santa to arrive.

All of the small villages and bigger towns usually put up a community Christmas tree in their town square or park. The trees range from simple to very big and elaborate. It doesn’t matter the size or amount of decorations on the tree, every community takes great pride in their tree.

In our village of San Antonio, they put up a real pine tree in the town square this year. And if you are wondering, yes Belize does have pine trees. After all, our main road is called Pine Ridge Road that leads up to Mountain Pine Ridge.

Everyone here really gets into the Christmas spirit and decorates their houses with lights and other decorations. Almost every store and business has some type of Christmas decorations and you can usually hear Christmas music playing in the background.

We are no exception, we’ve got our Christmas lights up on the house and the back patio, the tree is decorated inside and the monkeys are once again helping with the garland. Of course, we are also watching some of the classic animated Christmas specials as well as some of the movies. Some of our favorite Christmas shows are Charlie Brown, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Christmas Vacation, and A Christmas Story. What are some of your favorite holiday shows?

Of course, Kelley is making Christmas cookies again this year that we will take around to some of our friends. This year’s assortment consists of ginger snaps, peanut brittle, chocolate-caramel covered pretzels, red velvet white chocolate chip cookies, almond crescents, heath bars with almonds, and some oatmeal raisin cookies with a white chocolate drizzle.

We will also be keeping up our tradition of Prime rib on Christmas eve and eggs benedict and mimosas on Christmas morning. Later on Christmas Day, I will be making cioppino (an Italian fish stew) with fish, lobster, conch and shrimp to finish off the Christmas day feasting. When it’s all over I’m sure we will have had too many cocktails and too much food, but what the hey, it’s Christmas. Amanda will be joining us as well as Ron and Rhonda who will be back down here for a few days over Christmas. After all, we’ll still have another week or so before the diet and exercise begins, Right!

The holidays are a great time to have a few friends over for some tasty food and holiday cheer. So we broke out the ole disco and cooked up some of that fish we scored a few weeks ago when we were over on the coast. The fish turned out absolutely delicious, I think the Jacks we got just might be my new favorite type of fish. Everyone brought something to go with the fish, we had hush puppies, fries, chips & salsa, pasta salad, coleslaw and even some cookies. It was a great sunny afternoon with good friends, music, cold beer and some great food.

In case you are wondering what a disco is, it’s a plow disk from a tractor. The hole in the middle of the disk gets welded up, a rim and some handles are added then it’s good to go. We use ours on top of a turkey fryer burner and it works out great. Because the disk is such a heavy metal, it retains the heat and is perfect for cooking. We learned about these when we were living in Mexico and have been using one for at least 30 years now.

We have been seeing lots of small animals and birds moving around here lately. The other day Kelley got a picture of Tananger. He was bright red as if he was all dressed up for the Christmas season.

Another critter we have seen around here in the past, but have yet to get a picture of is an armadillo. That changed when this cute little guy started coming around during the day. He was right in front of the house and didn’t even mind that Kelley was up close taking pictures. The armadillo was rooting around for insects and came within a foot of her while she was taking pictures. Then the next day he was back again and that time Kelley managed to get some video of him.

Our December weather here has been all over the board. There have been sunny days where we’re pushing 90° and it feels like summer. Then there were days where the fog set in so thick and we couldn’t see the end of the driveway. Then to mix it up a little, it rained for a week straight which gave up a total of 5″. That rain really got our creek behind the casita flowing, which doesn’t happen too often. Now as we are approaching Christmas the nighttime temps are in the mid 50°s.  This time of year we just don’t know what to expect, but one thing for sure is that there will be no snow.

This is for all our friends up in the cold country. Hope you are staying warm!

Here’s wishing everyone a Merry Christmas from Belize! We hope everyone is healthy and all your Christmas wishes come true.

We’ve gotten quite a few pictures of birds in their nests with babies, but this one is really cool. One of our power poles has a hole in it near the top, and we assumed it must be a woodpecker. The other day we looked up at it and to our surprise, there were toucans sticking their heads out of the hole. These are the Aracari Toucans, which is a medium-size toucan and not as big as the Keel Billed Toucan. There was a total of four birds, so not sure which were babies and which were the adults. This was very cool to see, but I still worry about the big hole in our power pole.

Okay, so here’s what else has been happening around here the past few weeks. A couple days after we got back from the states it started raining, not a heavy rain, in fact only a couple inches in ten days or so. This was the perfect time to get the cooler weather veggies planted up in the garden. Besides that, there was a full moon thrown in there too. The locals here really stress about how important it is to plant everything around the full moon. So if all goes well, we should have a great crop of broccoli, romaine lettuce, and kale within a few months. The wet season is supposed to be over by December 1st, so I guess mother nature was giving us one last hurrah for the season.

We were back to making more healthy snacks again. This time we made purple cabbage chips with habanero sea salt. Once the cabbage is dehydrated and seasoned it’s a great crunchy alternative to potato chips. Besides tasting very good, we are also getting all the vitamins and health benefits that purple cabbage has to offer.

We had a good run of chili peppers this year, but at this point, the plants are about done. Although we did just get a bunch more habaneros seedlings in the ground that should be ready in a few months. This last batch of peppers all went in the dehydrator so we can make more spicy seasoned salt that everyone just can’t get enough of. We dried somewhere between 300-400 red & green jalapeños, orange habaneros, and cayenne peppers. We have learned that the dehydrator has to be in the garage when drying peppers because the fumes coming off it will really get to you.

Since the holidays are upon us, it was time to make some more summer sausage. Sausage like this is hard to find down here, so we resort to making our own. In the past, we have taken it to many gatherings and even the bars, where everyone raves about it and has offered to buy some. A few of the sticks we took to The Bluff restaurant for their big Thanksgiving Day gathering. The rest will be available to everyone who has been requesting it since the last time we made it. At this point, most of them are already spoken for.

This was one of the first times in 35+ years that Kelley did not cook a turkey on Thanksgiving Day. This year we were invited to spend it at The Bluff (our favorite hangout). They closed the restaurant on Thanksgiving Day and had a private party for friends and family. Of course, there were all the traditional Thanksgiving foods, from turkey to pumpkin pie and everything in between. There were at least 100 people there and everybody brought something delicious to share. It was a great day with wonderful food and friends, plus to make it even better it was a warm sunny day and the drinks were ice cold.

Our friends Ron & Rhonda flew down over the Thanksgiving weekend to spend a few days at the beach in Placencia. Since it’s only a few hour drive for us, we decided to meet them over there and also spend the long weekend on the beach. While we were on the coast, it was the perfect opportunity for us to see if we could round up some fresh fish to take back. We sat around the shore BS’n and enjoying a few beers waiting for the boats to come in. When the boats came in you’d have to be quick to claim the fish you want before someone else does. We did manage to get 6 nice Jacks that we had filleted for a future fish fry or two back home. Last time we got fish here we got Snapper, Jacks and some Barracuda. We decided that the Jacks were a much better tasting fish and after talking to the fishermen they all agreed.

The highlight of our weekend was a trip out to a small island to spend the day doing whatever we wanted. The island was Ranguana Caye, a small 2-acre island about twenty miles off the coast of Placencia.

The day we went, there were only 9 of us on the boat heading to the island. It was Ron, Rhonda, us, a couple from Holland, a couple from Canada, and a guy from D.C (who might just never go home). As the boat pulled up to the island the bartender greeted us with a tray of fresh coconuts with a straw in each one. There’s a small bar on the island along with 3 small cabanas that are available for overnight stays. They have snorkel gear, kayaks, paddleboards and of course some nice chairs right on the sandy beach.

The boat took some of the people out snorkeling on the reef while we stayed behind to just relax on the beach and enjoy this little piece of paradise. After all, we can snorkel, kayak or paddleboard anywhere, but a little island like this doesn’t come around every day.

Of course there has to be a dog on an island like this. As we got off the boat Kelley got a big ear licking from Shadow the resident dog. Shadow made sure no birds landed on the island, rolled in the sand, played with coconuts, swam out to chase away the pelicans, and even sat on the beach as if to guard us when we were in the water. This is the happiest dog I think I’ve ever seen, but then again what dog wouldn’t be, living on a tropical island where new people show up all the time and play with him.

The beers and cocktails were chilled perfectly, and around noon they cooked up a great lunch of chicken, rice-n-beans, coleslaw and fried plantains. Of course everything was great, we were barefoot on a little island in the middle of nowhere.

We really hated to leave this island paradise, but as we were leaving the island, dolphins showed up by the boat as if on cue. We have been to quite a few different islands around here and this is by far our favorite one yet. Maybe next time we’ll bring some fishing gear and spend the night, this island is truly a piece of paradise.

We hope to see you down here soon.

It’s been a year since we’ve been up to the states and we were well overdue. We stayed at the kid’s house, catching up with them and spending some great time with the grandkids. We also caught up with a bunch of friends and of course, we pigged out at all our favorite restaurants. After all, it was a vacation.

We just saw the grandkids this past summer when they came down to Belize, but we can’t get too much of them.

While we were there, their shop out in the back yard got finished and it’s a monster. Plenty of room to work on all their vehicles and any others they might acquire in the future.

The latest vehicle addition is Stacy’s pride and joy, a 1959 flat-top Cadillac that she has named violet. It’s a beautiful car done in a lavender and white finish. We were lucky enough to go for a short cruise with the whole family (and yes the whole family fit in there without a problem).

One day we were out in the new shop when the neighbor decided to remove a beehive from his yard. We assume they must have been killer bees because they just randomly started attacking us. Randy got stung a couple times, I got it a few times and Kelley got stung a few times. We ran towards the house and got in before they really started to swarm. Kelley got the worst of it and had a bad reaction causing her face to swell up. It lasted a few days before the swelling finally went down. We were just thankful that none of the kids got stung.

After a great visit with the kids, it was time to make our way back to Belize. As we get to the airport drop-off we notice it was really dark with a big line of people outside. We went in to find a ton of people in a dark airport. It turns out that there was a major power outage at the airport. Lots and lots of canceled flights and to make it worse NASCAR was in town over the weekend, so there were an extra amount of people there. We checked the flight board and for some lucky reason, our flight to Houston said on time not canceled. We made our way to the ticket counter and checked in and gave them our bags. Everything was handwritten since the computers were out. Most of the extra seats onboard our flight were taken up by pilots and flight attends heading to where their plane would have been going if it wasn’t canceled. Overall considering no power at the airport, a ton of canceled flights, and a mass amount of people, we were very lucky it went well for us and we were only an hour late getting into Houston.

Once we got home and got the house all opened up it was time to sit down with a cold beer and relax. We knew it was supposed to be a cool night so we closed up the windows before going to bed. By the time we got up in the morning, the temp had dropped to 54 degrees outside. The lowest we’ve seen it since we’ve been here is 58 degrees last year. 54° with the wetness in the air and no heater in the house made for a cold morning. By the afternoon the temp was in the 80°’s and all was good again.

Our cacao trees are really starting to produce. We currently have nine trees that are all loaded with cacao pods and new flowers. Usually, they all ripen at different times and that is what is happening now. The other day we harvested 16 cacao pods from just one of the trees. After getting the seeds out of the pods, it’s time to ferment them, then dry them, roast them and then grind them. Once we grind them and add a little sweetener we’ll end up with some delicious chocolate.

When we got back from the states we picked up a small 4×4 diesel Kubota tractor that should be very useful around here. Amanda (next to Darren’s) will be starting her build in a few months, Darren who is still working on his place, and we all went in on it together. We will all have a need for this at some point, but not enough to justify one of us buying it outright. This will also work out great for maintaining our road.

Recently we had a possum trying to make a home inside our BBQ grill. I finally got tired of it and just lit the grill to see what would happen. Just kidding! The kids found us a Halloween armadillo skeleton when we were up in the states. He will make a great addition to the Toucan Hideaway and maybe scare the other animals away from the BBQ.

Our friend stopped by the other day and surprised us with a nice hind quarter of a Gibnut.  Gibnuts are a wild game animal down here that is absolutely delicious, in fact, it is so delicious that it was served to the Queen of England when she visited Belize. We have cooked Gibnut a few different ways in the past and it has always turned out delicious, now we just need to decide how we want to cook it this time.

No matter where you live in the states, chances are you have probably seen a deer or elk crossing sign on the highway. Here in Belize, we do have deer, but I have never seen a deer crossing sign on the highway. What we do have though is Tapir crossing signs on the roads. Tapirs are the national animal of Belize and are protected by law. They can get up to 600 lbs. and have a lifespan of 30 years. We have been lucky enough to see a couple Tapirs in the wild. If you’d like to see one close-up for yourself, stop by the Belize zoo when you visit. They are actually very cute and gentle animals.

Hope to see you soon!

Since Halloween is just around the corner, I thought I’d share some of the folklore and legends that are told around Belize. There are a lot of different versions of these stories that have been told over generations, here are a few examples.

La X’tabai

One legend tells us of two women fighting over the same man. One of them, determined to win him, gave the other girl a potion that awakened her erotic desires so she shamelessly went into the arms of countless men. She eventually fled into the forest and took the form of the X’tabai who seduces men and sometimes kills them if they cannot satisfy her heightened sexual desires. So if you are ever seduced by X’tabai, you better hope you brought your “A” game.

La Llorona

From a Spanish word meaning “The Crying Woman”, La Llorona is described as being a slender, tall and very beautiful woman with very long black hair. Her face is always shrouded although it is believed to be misshapen and rather ugly.

La Llorona is said to be the spirit of a woman named Maria who drowned her children in the river as a sort of lover’s revenge. After realizing that her children were dead she drowned herself. Maria was challenged on the whereabouts of her children at the gates of heaven and was denied entry until she could locate them. Since then La Llorona wanders the river banks at night mourning the loss of her children by weeping and asking them for forgiveness. But that’s not all, she’s also looking for other children to drown in the river to take their place. The tale of the La Llorona is used by parents in Latin America to discourage their children from wandering out at night.

The Scary Sisemite

Legend has it that hairy male Sisemitos and female Sisemitas live deep in the caves of Belize. Their short, hairy figures made them appear closer to apes than modern men. They ate fruits and leaves just like apes, but they preferred the taste of human flesh.

A man would usually die within a month of looking a Sisemito in the eye. However, women were much luckier, as a Sisemito’s gaze would prolong her life if only she could escape. The male Sisemitos were known to abduct and rape women, while the female Sisemitas would molest and kill the men.

The Sisemito and Sisemita weren’t without weakness though. They were petrified of water and dogs. Smart Belizeans knew they could escape an attack by walking near a river or with a canine companion.

Tata Duende

One of the most popular folklore characters in Belize is Tata Duende. Tata is the Mayan word for “old man” or “grandfather” and Duende, Spanish for “dwarf.”

He is described as a short man, three feet in height, with an ugly old face, wearing a large red hat, often carrying a machete or knotted stick. He is also missing both thumbs, and his feet face backward to throw people off his trail

Most all Tata sightings occur at night when it is raining. When Tata is getting close, a whistling sound can be heard. If the sound is loud and close, have no fear, Tata is a trickster. It is time to worry only when the whistle is distant because that means he is actually close by.

Tata does not have thumbs, and this fuels his strong desire to steal anyone’s thumbs he encounters. The only way to stop him is to hide your thumbs in the palms of your hands as soon as you see him. If you are quick and hide your thumbs, Tata takes an immediate liking to you.

When Tata is irritated or annoyed, he can make anyone who sees him or is seen by him immobile, speechless, and fever-ridden for many days after their encounter. Tata’s mean streak comes out when anyone attempts to imitate his whistle.  He is also feared by hunters because if Tata sees them carrying a gun or a shovel in the forest on Fridays, he will chop off their heads and use them to decorate his own home.

So next time you hear a whistle in the jungle, we suggest hiding your thumbs and definitely don’t go hunting or carry a shovel on a Friday.

Happy Halloween!

After recently being over on the island for a few days, we got a hankering for some seafood. So we managed to round up a couple octopus to throw on the grill plus we made some lobster rolls. We couldn’t find any avocado that day for the lobster rolls, so we used lobster with a strip of red bell pepper and some wasabi. The octopus got cooked the same way we always do. Boil for a couple hours until tender, then brush with a spicy red chili sauce and toss on the grill for a little char. It was delicious.

Our Jamaican-Sorrel plants are flowering big time. Jamaican-Sorrel is a type of edible hibiscus that has many health benefits. Such as antioxidants, lowering cholesterol, boosting the immune system, lowering blood pressure, anti-inflammatory, and a bunch more. It can be used to make jellies, wines and my favorite, a wonderful refreshing beverage. If you have ever been to a Mexican restaurant and seen a dispenser on the counter with a bright red drink called Jamaica (pronounced “ha-mike-ah”) that’s what this is.

The plants will flower in the morning and then the flower will be gone by that evening. Then in 2-3 weeks the red fruit will be ready to harvest. Ours will be dried and saved to make a Jamaica Tea, plus we will dry the seeds for the next planting since the plants only live for about a year. You can usually find bags of dried Jamaica in your produce section at the store. If you don’t want to make this at home then look for it next time you are at your favorite Mexican restaurant, you won’t be disappointed.

A couple weeks ago we picked a stalk of about 90 apple bananas and hung them on the porch to ripen. Usually they will slowly ripen, but not this bunch. Over night they all got ripe and turned yellow. At least these are the small delicious apple bananas, so eating a few at a time is not a problem.

We had to do something quick with all those ripe bananas, so Kelley made 13 small loaves of banana-raspberry bread (that used up 26 of them). Next was some chocolate covered frozen bananas (there went another 20). Eat as many as we can and give some away, because there are three more big bunches on the plants that will be ready fairly soon.

It was time to trim the Moringa tree again. Some of you might know what it is and even take supplements, for those that don’t know, it’s called the miracle tree. There are many health benefits to this plant and the leaves can be eaten in salads, rice, pasta or any other dish. Kelley will put it in soups and on salads, but the most common way we eat is in a tea form. Here’s a link for more information on Moringa and some of the health benefits of this wonderful tree. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319916

The new hot tub is finally up and going! The water is clear and we got the chemicals where they need to be. After working around the yard all day it feels sooo good to relax in the tub with a cold beer or a glass of wine. The evenings have been getting down to the upper 60’s, and it feels great!

Okay, so the other night I go out to grill like we do every few days. I open the lid to the BBQ and get ready to light it. To my surprise, it was full of leaves with a big, pissed-off possum sitting on the grates. Needless to say, I quickly shut the lid and waited for my heart rate to return to normal. Then I went in and got Kelley and a camera so we could get this thing off the grill. It looked like she was nesting up and possibly getting ready to have babies. She was the only one in the BBQ, so we chased her back into the bush. It looked like she got in through the vent holes on the back of the BBQ, so I guess it’s time to put a little wire mesh over those vents.

Other animal sightings around here recently have been an armadillo. We were sitting out back on the deck and here comes this armadillo strolling by just a few feet from us like we weren’t even there. The next one was a jaguarundi (wild cat). We were sitting in the garage one evening and he walked by the front gate and paused for a second. Of course, there wasn’t a chance of getting a picture of either one of those. Although a few years ago we did get a picture of a black jaguarundi with three babies walking on the property. The one picture we did get was a turtle, and Kelley had to chase him down because he was moving pretty quick.

When we bought our property six years ago the road getting to it was a rough dirt road that took at least 45 minutes off the main highway to get here. They have been working on the road for the past two years and it is now mostly paved and takes us about 15 minutes to get to the main highway. I still have mixed feelings about the road being paved, but what can I do? At least our place is still a good 3/4 mile off the pavement.

Speaking of roads, our property entrance was where our road ended. There are two lots beyond us but the owners have never done anything with them. One of the lot owners from the states came down and is ready to start building next year. So now the road goes about 100 yards past us. They had to install a big culvert where the water used to flow across the road. They’ve brought in lots of gravel for the road and have a small clearing done on the opposite side from us, back on a hill. We have met the new neighbors and they will be a great addition to our little hood.

On September 30th, 2015 we sent out our very first blog of our new adventures in Belize. Here it is six years later and we are sending out our 200th post. A lot has happened in the past six years and it has turned out to be the biggest adventure of our lives. I hope you’ve enjoyed following us along on this crazy little adventure. Hopefully, it might have inspired some of you to get out of your comfort zone and try something new. And when you’re ready, we have the guest house waiting for you.

Happy Halloween!

The Toucans are back! It’s been a few months since we’ve seen or heard any Toucans around here. The wild fruits in the trees are starting to ripen so hopefully, they will be around for a while. It’s always exciting when you hear their call and then you look up and see a big colorful Toucan hopping around in the trees. Usually, there are at least two of them, and a couple of times we’ve seen 6-8 in the same tree.

The garden is still constantly providing bananas and pineapples. The plums, okra, coffee, and cacao are also starting to ripen. Then there’s the habaneros that just keep giving and giving. We just keep drying them and making a spicy salt that we seem to put on everything.

We have had quite a few dragon fruits this year and should have a lot more next year with all the new plants we put in. Up to this point, all our dragon fruit has been the beautiful deep purple ones. But I guess one of the plants produces white dragon fruit. The white one was very good, but I think the purple one was a little sweeter.

Darren made a quick trip down here to check on the progress of his jungle home. It’s coming along quite nicely. The beautiful wood ceiling is up and the outside has all the insulation and zinc roof in place. The whole house is also completely wired and waiting for lights and outlets.

Next step is the final smooth plaster coat and to get some paint on the walls. After that, it’s time to get the tile down and install some doors and windows. Of course, there will still be a lot of other things such as a deck out front, cabinets, furniture and appliances, but by sometime next year he should be enjoying his new home.

Darren wasn’t here just to check on his house, he was also here for a little island time out in San Pedro. The main reason we were going to San Pedro was to see Jim Dalton of the Railbenders and the lead guitarist for Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. Along with Jim Dalton, another great band from Arizona (The Jons) were there. Also, Mike Nash was at the show but didn’t play because he’d been busy at other venues.

They played three great nights at the new 303 dock bar. 303 is the area code for the Denver Colorado area, so the bar is ski-themed with snow skis and ski paraphernalia everywhere. Some of the tables are even made to look like ski lifts. It was a perfect venue for Jim since he’s from Colorado.

The crowd there was great, most people we talked to were big fans of Jim and Roger Clyne plus a lot were from Arizona and go to Cholla Bay, Mexico where we used to live. It was great being at a beach bar in Belize talking to so many people that had so much in common. This was Jim’s first trip here and he said that he loved Belize and will definitely be back and the Jons said the same thing.

After talking to everyone about how we had been following Roger since the beginning and his house was around the corner from us in Mexico, the rep for Roger’s Cancion Tequila came over and gave me a bottle to take home, you can’t beat that!

Of course the shows weren’t the only things to do while we were on the island. There was plenty of time to be in the water, bar hopping, and of course enjoying all the good food.

We also caught up with Coconut Leo for a picture. Leo is island-famous for climbing coconut trees and getting coconuts for tourists, plus he never fails to put on a show. Sometimes he will even climb up a tourist.

Leo wanted to put on a show for us, so he climbed the tallest tree around, picked some coconuts and then slid back down the tree upside down. But the show wasn’t over yet. He proceeded to put on a blindfold and hack the coconuts open for us with a big machete. Leo has muscles upon muscles and is very agile for a 57 year old guy. No wonder he’s famous out on the island.

It was an awesome weekend with our friends Paul, Kathy, Amanda, Darren, and Michael. Plus we met a lot of new friends that follow all that great music and I’m sure we will see them again somewhere.

Jim Dalton, The Jons, and Mike Nash have all been to Puerto  Peñasco and Cholla Bay many times. Maybe they will start putting Belize on their list as a place they want to regularly play. If that happens, then hopefully we’ll see some of you down here for a Caribbean beach show with some of the best musicians around.

The new antenna tower is up, but not without a few setbacks. The ordering and shipping down from the states were flawless, it was the prepping here where we had a few problems. First, we started cutting some trees down where we thought it might go. Then after having some trouble with the trees we saw a better spot where no trees would have to be taken out. Then it was time for the boys to come in and dig a 5x5x4′ hole for the base of the mount. About 3′ down they ran into some big rocks. They managed to get them out just as it started raining. In about 2 hours the hole had about 5″ of water in it. Of course that meant everything was a muddy mess and had to be delayed another day.

Then with the ground being soft and rain-soaked, I ran over and broke the main water pipe with my truck loaded with sand and gravel. I had the workers dig the pipe out and repair it, but it still leaked so we ended up doing it ourselves. Anyway, the cement finally got poured and the new antenna tower is up and should make everything run a lot smoother around here.

The hot tub finally made it here, but not after a few shipping mishaps along the way. Anyway, we got it all set up on the deck and we began filling it when we noticed the water was dirty. With all the road work they are doing around here they keep digging up the water pipe and dirt keeps getting in the lines. Even with new filters on the house, fine dirt gets through and really makes the water look dirty. So at this point, we are just waiting for the water to clear up before we try filling it again. Hopefully soon we will be sitting in it relaxing and enjoying a cool beverage.

We’ve had quite a bit of rain lately, which is fine with us because the garden loves it. That also means that the mushrooms are starting to show up again. Right now there are a lot of wood ear mushrooms, which are used in hot and sour soup, stir fry, and many other dishes. We like to use them fresh, but if we find an abundance of them we will dehydrate some for later use. There are a lot of health benefits from these mushrooms such as fighting bacteria, heart health, blocking cancer cell growth, and a bunch more benefits. Hopefully, in the next week or so the oyster mushrooms will start to show up because they are our favorites and they are delicious.

Well the habaneros had finally soaked long enough and were ready to be made into some hot sauce. We thought we would make this batch a sweet and spicy habanero-mango sauce. So we mixed up a little at a 50/50 ratio to give it a try. I like hot and spicy and can pretty much eat fire, but this was the hottest thing I’d ever tasted, plus the burn seemed to last forever. So we ended up mixing about a pint of mango puree with a spoon or two of habanero and that made it sweet and spicy enough where we think it could be enjoyed. We gave it a try on some chicken wings the other night and it was pretty good. I’m not sure what we are going to do with all the straight habanero sauce we still have, but at this point we’re just glad it hasn’t melted the jars yet.

Still making use of the lobsters we have in the freezer. This time it was lobster bisque and some Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits. We were lucky enough to find a box of the biscuit mix down here. You never know what you will find when you start looking around the stores.

A while back we planted some marigolds in the yard. All the marigolds we’ve ever planted have grown to maybe two feet tall (if we were lucky). Well, we know everything grows great in Belize, but our marigolds are 7-8 feet tall now and are just starting to bloom. They were planted from a package of seeds we got down here, has anyone ever seen marigolds get this big?

We are still seeing a lot of animals around here, just nothing that I haven’t posted pictures of before. The agoutis that had the two little babies a while back are still around and they are getting big. A lot of times we just don’t have the camera handy or they are gone before Kelley can get a good shot of them. Such as a couple of weeks ago when this big armadillo walked right in front of us across the driveway. Kelley gave chase through the bush with a camera, but it was just too hard to get a good picture.

Just a few tidbits from the past few weeks.

One morning there was a dead mouse on the hood of the truck. We assume that maybe an owl dropped it. Or maybe he just thought it would be a great final resting spot.

A couple of weeks ago I pulled the sheets back to get in bed and I felt a sharp poke on my ass. Yes, I laid down on a small scorpion that was under the sheets. We didn’t see anymore, but I still laid there a while thinking there could be more.

I came in from the yard to check my laptop when I felt a rumble. It wasn’t my stomach and I didn’t see anything moving in the house. Growing up in California I knew what an earthquake felt like so I thought maybe that’s what that was. Later Kelley told me that there was an earthquake not far from us.

This is the rainy season down here and we do get a bunch of rain, but there is also a lot of sunny days. The weather report is usually partially sunny with some clouds and a chance of rain. I think this picture pretty much sums up what they are talking about.

That’s about what’s happening around here. In a couple weeks we will be heading out to San Pedro to see Jim Dalton for a few shows on the beach. Darren will be joining us there for the shows and some beach time. After a few days, we will head back up to our place where he can check on the progress of his house. It should be a nice break after all the work we’ve been doing around here.

You know by now that we like food and are always trying something new. Well, this week we made cabbage chips in the dehydrator. We sprinkled half with our homegrown habanero salt and the other with garlic salt and pepper. They were crispy, spicy and didn’t at all taste like cabbage. We try to eat healthy with all the fresh fruit and veggies around here and this is a great alternative to potato chips. Besides a small bag of Lay’s potato chips down here is around $10 BZ.

We’ve been doing everything with our variety of chili peppers, from eating them fresh, roasting them, and dehydrating them. Recently we fermented a bunch of cayenne’s and made a red chili sauce with salt and garlic. It turned out pretty good, plus we ended up with a bottle of spicy chili vinegar from what was leftover from the fermentation. The jar in the middle of the picture has orange habaneros and a few carrots in it. They are still fermenting for a few more weeks before they become a very spicy habanero hot sauce.

Speaking of peppers, we made some lobster-filled jalapeño poppers, along with some portabella mushroom, swiss cheeseburgers.  It was a test run for the new griddle we had made, and it worked out great! And by the way, lobster-filled jalapeños were excellent! Since we are on a roll preparing lobster in different ways, we also made some lobster rolls on a grilled buttered bun. When life gives you lobsters, you need to enjoy them in as many ways as you can.

This week we experimented making deli-ham, the kind you would get in the deli section sliced for sandwiches. First of all, it’s very different from the smoked ham that we’ve made before. Deli meats such as ham, roast beef and turkey don’t come straight from the animal in the size and shape you see in the deli counter. All those meats are manufactured to the same size by using a Transglutaminase (Meat Glue). It’s an enzyme that bonds proteins. It is used on all types of meats, such as making sure your bacon stays wrapped on that filet to bonding scallops together before slicing for portion control.

So here’s how the ham experiment went. First of all the “Meat Glue” worked like magic, bonding the pieces together to form a single piece of meat. Of course, this has our minds spinning on what else we can use it for. After the brining, poaching and then soaking in water before being sliced, we thought it was just a little drier than deli ham. It was still very good and tastes like ham, but next time I think we will try injecting it to see if it comes out a little more moist. Overall the experiment was a success and once we eat all this we’ll give it another go.

Well, the new outdoor shower is done, the deck has been stripped and refinished, the AC has been moved and some new electrical circuits have been added all in preparation for our new arrival. Six months ago we placed an order in the states for a 6 person spa. It was back ordered (due to everything) so we had to wait for them to manufacture it. So it finally left the factory in Florida headed for the shipping company in South Florida that would bring it to Belize. Somewhere between the factory and the shipping company it disappeared. The factory said it left over a month ago, but the shipping company never received it. After a lot of calls from everyone, it was finally tracked down to the warehouse of the trucking company that picked it up from the manufacturer. Anyway, it finally got delivered to the shipper and is on the boat headed our way. Hopefully, we should be soaking in it by the end of the month.

This will be a great addition to Toucan Hideaway. From soaking those sore muscles after a hard day’s work to just chill’n out with an ice cold beverage. Granted the heat will not always be on, but there are plenty of times where it will be needed and appreciated.

Another big item we ordered from the states was a 60′ free-standing base antenna for our internet and phone. Up to this point, we have just had a 35-40′ piece of pipe mounted on the shipping container for the antennas to mount on. It will be nice to have a real antenna mount that will be permanent and not have to worry about it coming down. Plus getting it up higher should give us much better reception. It was actually cheaper to order this from the states than to have one made here or even try to round up a used one.

We are having more Green Iguana sightings around here. There was one up in the garden by the coffee plants and another one in a tree just off the front porch. The one in the tree was at least two feet long, so pretty sure he was not the small one we saw a few weeks ago in the driveway. The ones we are seeing are true Green Iguanas and not the gray Wish Willies that you see more commonly around Belize. In fact, we have only seen Green Iguanas around our property and no Wish Willies. Which we think is awesome!

We have seen lots of different critters around our place, but this is the first time we have seen a Red-Eyed Tree Frog in the wild. We have seen pictures of them and we even have a few paintings with them in it. They are not exaggerating with the colors in the paintings. They are really that bright and colorful if not maybe more in real life.

This is one reason why we love Belize so much, is that every day is a new adventure and you never know what you’re going to see. Seeing this frog was very exciting for both of us and he was just 10′ off the front porch.

Well, that’s about what’s going on around here for now. I’ll leave you with a few other critter pictures that Kelley recently took.

We don’t know what was going on the other day, but it seemed that about 100 or so big green parrots all landed in the big tree over the casita. They were so loud it was deafening, reminded me of the movie The Birds. Anyway, they hung out there for ten minutes or so and then all at once flew away. Usually, we see small groups of them every evening flying over, but never this many at once and stopping in the tree. We believe these were the Red-Lord Parrots according to our guidebook.

Our peach tree in front of the garage has a tiny nest in it. It turns out that it’s from a White Collared Seedeater. The male is a tiny black and white bird that is no bigger than my thumb.

The other day Kelley went over to take a peek in the nest and up popped a tiny bird with his mouth wide open looking to be fed. Kelley quickly snapped a picture and got back out of the way so mama could get back to feeding.

As we were opening the gate the other day there was a baby iguana sitting on the culvert. Since iguanas can have up to 70 offspring, I’m sure there are more around here somewhere. There was also a bat on the porch the other day and Ruben said that he saw a deer on the property right next to ours. There seems to be lots of critters moving around here lately.

Another great picture that Kelley got was this snake trying to eat a lizard. We were over by the potted plants near the garage, when this three foot long pencil-thin snake came out and grabbed a lizard. It was a harmless Mexican Vine snake, well harmless to us anyway. They resemble vines (as you can see) and have a diet of frogs and lizards.

Our starfruit tree was loaded with blossoms earlier this year, but it seemed that most of them didn’t take or fell off before they were ripe. We did see one up in the tree that looked like it was ripe. So I shook the tree and three fell off. Maybe there are more up there that we just can’t see. Starfruit is a tasty fruit, you can eat the skin and all and they make a wonderful juice. If you have never tried one, look for one next time you’re in the produce section and give it a try. It’s not a delicious peach or a mango, but you might just be surprised.

Other garden picks this week were peppers of course, pineapple, dragon fruit, guava, raspberries and the coffee is starting to ripen. Plus we won a raffle for 100 lbs. of oranges which we will be juicing this next week. Screwdrivers anyone?

Of course, we’ve still got lobster in the freezer, so it was time to get a little creative. How about mini lobster kabobs with a spicy chili sauce. Or what about lobster cream cheese stuffed mushroom caps. And my favorite, homemade lobster ravioli deep-fried in bread crumbs. These were all very delicious and I can’t wait to see what the next round of lobster treats are.

We just got back from Hopkins for a fundraiser for our friend who has cancer. He is up in the states for treatment while his wife and daughter are still in Belize running their restaurant. Since we were in Hopkins we had planned on doing a little fishing out on the islands. But once again the weather didn’t want to cooperate. I guess there’s always next time.

A couple years ago Jim Dalton was coming to San Pedro to do a few shows. That was canceled by a bomb cyclone blizzard in Colorado where he got snowed in. Well, Jim is scheduled to come to Belize in late September for three shows out on the island in San Pedro. We will be going, any other takers? We could meet you in San Pedro for the shows and then you could come up to our place for a few days. If anyone is interested let us know ASAP. It should be a lot of fun!

We had a great time with Randy, Stacy and the grandkids. From exploring the jungle to fun on the beach, every day was a new adventure. But, vacations do have to end. Everyone made it home safely and are settling back into their normal routine. Same goes for us, back to working, tending the garden, trimming the plants and working on all the projects around here.

We always seem to have a steady supply of bananas around here and we try to make good use of them. Of course, banana bread is always one of the favorites and when you add raspberries or pineapple it makes it extra special. The pineapple banana bread and the raspberry banana bread are both delicious, and even better is the fact that they were straight from the garden.

Since the pineapples are all starting to ripen and we recently picked two big bunches of bananas, it was time for Kelley to make some more of her jungle jam. Kelley’s Jungle Jam is made with pineapples, bananas and some coconut. It’s a tropical fruit spread that’s delicious on toast, pancakes, waffles, banana bread, and even peanut butter sandwiches.

When we planted the pineapples we had no idea what we were doing. We just planted them real close and made a big pineapple patch. Well once it came time to pick them we could hardly get to them without getting all cut up because of the very sharp leaves on the plants. So I came up with this pineapple picker. It’s a piece of PVC with a rope through it that forms a loop. Sorta like they use to catch dogs and other animals. This works great, all you do is place the loop around the top of the pineapple and pull. Since that was a lesson learned, we now plant all of our pineapples in rows of not more than two wide so we can actually get to them when it’s time to pick them.

All of our pepper plants are producing pretty well (especially the habaneros) considering they’re not full grown yet. At this point, we have Bells, Banana Peppers, Jalapenos, Habaneros, Cayenne, Bird Peppers and a few more misc.

Besides using them for just everyday cooking we are also dehydrating them to make different seasonings and also fermenting some to make hot sauce. It looks like they should grow till the end of the year, so we should be set on peppers for a while.

There are a lot of beautiful wild tropical plants growing around our property, most of which we have yet to discover. When we find ones we like such as orchids or birds of paradise we will relocate them closer to our house and yard.  One of the plants that we find is a Pheasant Tail that gets up to at least three feet tall. It’s a beautiful big leaf plant that I know I’ve seen in the garden departments in the states.

To our surprise, the Pheasant Tail got a big red bloom that resembles a hummingbird sticking right up the middle. After a quick search on Google, it turns out that these are very easy to propagate from their seeds on the bloom. So in the future, we might just have a lot of these around, because you know we’ve already planted some of the seeds.

Lobster season opened back up on July 1st, and since we were over on the coast with the kids we thought we would take advantage of it. We managed to round up ten pounds of lobster tails to bring back home with us. The ones we got are a little on the small side, which is perfect for a little surf and turf combo.

Speaking of surf and turf combos, our first meal with these lobsters was some beef kabobs with bacon-wrapped lobster and fresh veggies. They turned out just as you would expect, delicious, but way too rich. Lobster season in Belize is open until the end of February, so if you want in on some lobsters, plan your trip here accordingly.

When we lived in Mexico we always had a couple of nice griddles to use on the bbq. Somehow we forgot to pack them when we made the big move. So I drew up plans to make one, a nice piece of 3/16 plate steel with the sides bent up and a couple of handles. So out to Spanish Lookout to Midwest Steel. I was going to get the plate and have them bend up the sides for me. Then I was going to weld up the corners and make some handles for it. I told them what it was going to be and they said that they could weld up the corners and put a couple of handles on it for me. They told me to come back in a half-hour and the cost would be $43 US. It would have taken me longer to get the welder all set up than it did for them to make the whole thing. We’ve had Midwest Steel make a bunch of things for us including some plasma cutting, they are awesome!

Recently we have seen a few green tree snakes around here, or maybe it’s the same one. Anyway, they are our favorite snake because of their beauty, they’re harmless and they will let you get up close for a few photos. They say they will get up to 6′ in length, and I think this one is very close to it.

This past week we have had an Agouti around here every day. It’s not uncommon to see them, but this time it was a mama with two little babies right in the driveway. By the time Kelley got the camera out the mama and one of the babies had gone back into the bush. Kelley did manage to get a picture of one of the babies. Hopefully, we can get a picture of all of them together.

We’ve been wanting to build an outdoor shower for quite a while now. It’s not a big fancy one like the ones I have saved on Pinterest, but a simple one right next to the house. This will be great to rinse off after a hot day of working in the yard. Or just to get wet and sit down on the deck with a cold beer.

Since the shower is a few steps off the deck we thought we needed a few stepping stones between the deck and the shower. Stepping stones are hard to find here so we decided to make our own. We found a big round plastic tub at the store, we already had a bag of cement, chicken wire and we borrowed a few buckets of sand from the neighbor (don’t tell him). You know we couldn’t just make them plain, so we placed a few leaves in the tub and cast on top of them. Then we pealed the leaves off and with a little paint and a sealer, it looked like they should work.

I’m sure a lot of you have seen all the fun and exciting pictures that the kids have been posting about their trip to Belize. At this point, we have no one scheduled to visit us until December. Currently American, United, Alaska and Delta are all flying down from the states and Southwest will resume service in November along with Frontier starting in December. What are you waiting for?

The past few weeks we have been busy trimming, cleaning, planting, finishing up projects, and just overall tidying up around here. Besides all this stuff just needing to get done, Randy, Stacy, and our three grandkids were coming for a visit. The last time they were here was about five years ago and we had just cut an opening into the property. I’m sure at that point they were really beginning to questioning our sanity.

They arrived here safely just before the sun went down. After unpacking and settling in we gave them the quick tour. I think they were impressed with what we had done with the place since the last time there was absolutely nothing here but trees.

After a good night’s sleep, it was time to show them around the property and pick some fresh fruit. We ended up picking 11 pineapples and a bunch with over 100 bananas. The kids loved the fresh pineapple and ate them just about every day.

Besides exploring all the trails around our place there were a lot more adventures for the kids to have.

We went to see the Iguanas at the Iguana Project where they raise them for release and also care for the injured ones. There you can handle them and feed them. The kids seemed to really like handling all the iguanas.

Then there was some zip-lining for the kids at The Bluff where they got to run around and play with other kids while we enjoyed lunch and a couple cold ones.

We took a walk over a suspension bridge where the Mopan and the Macal rivers come together to form the Belize River. Kelley will still not go on this bridge.

We got the boys some nets so they could catch butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, and other insects. There were a lot of big insects around here, but the biggest was a huge walking stick that Luke let crawl on his head.

They enjoyed looking for birds and trying to catch lizards, frogs, and toads. One night Luke ended up catching a huge toad all by himself.

Besides all this, we also visited a butterfly farm, the Belize Zoo, and a Mayan ruin. We kept an eye on the kids one day while mom and dad went with our friends to explore a cave. Of course, grandparents watching the kids something is bound to happen. Yes, Tyler came out of the garage too fast and flipped his jeep. No injuries, just a little scare.

After about a week up at our place, we headed over to Hopkins for a little bit of beach time.

The first full day in Hopkins we went on a river cruise up the Sittee River. Right off the start, we saw a big Crocodile by the dock where they were cleaning some fish.

After that, we continued up the river where there were lots of birds, big iguanas, and even a Coatimundi up in the trees. Luke turned out to be the best spotter, pointing out many of the iguanas.

We didn’t get to see any manatees, but it was still a great cruise up the Sittee River.

There was a storm passing through while we were there so the water was a little rough. Randy and Luke did manage to go snorkeling a little, but the visibility was bad because of the churned-up water.

Out on the second story of the Dock Bar, you can jump into the water if you dare. Randy decided that he would do it, he hesitated for a moment and then jumped. Then with no hesitation, Luke walks up and just goes for it. It was a big jump and probably the biggest adrenalin rush of Luke’s life so far.

Even Allison had a great time just hanging out. I’m sure she was thinking I can’t wait till I can come back and do some of the stuff that my brothers are doing. And we can’t wait for her either.

There was also a side trip down to Placencia so they could check it out and to stop for a lobster grilled cheese sandwich. Since we were in Placencia we also had to stop for some delicious pineapple fritters. And of course, being in the Caribbean you know there had to be a few tropical cocktails.

I think everyone had a great time and a lot of new adventures, I know we did and can’t wait till next time!

The dry season is over and all the plants and trees are greening up and growing once again. Which also makes all the wildlife a lot more active around here. Over the past month we have seen and heard a lot more animals moving around. Here’s just a few of the things happening around here.

Kelley did manage to get a few pictures of the coatimundis that have been hanging around here. There seems to be at least 15 or so in their group. They come in the late afternoon, climb the tree, feed for a little while and then all come down and leave before dark. They must have eaten everything on that tree, because they seem to have moved on for now.

We’ve had a couple bird nests real close to the house this year. This is the second year that the Black-cowled Oriole has woven a nest in the bay palm just 10′ off our porch. After a while we finally saw three little beaks sticking out of the nest. As far as we know they have not come out of the nest yet.

Another bird that has had it’s nest in the peak of the garage for a couple years is the Social Flycatcher. We have watched the parent birds fly in and out of that nest every few minutes to feed the little ones.

Finally, one day they seemed to stop flying into the nest so much. That is when we noticed that the babies were out of the nest, stretching their wings and learning to fly. We knew it was them because the two parent birds were high up in the trees watching them as the young ones were doing short little flights between small trees.

There are over 600 types of birds in Belize, so we are always seeing new ones that we have never seen before. This time in front of the house there was a Squirrel Cuckoo. This was the first time we have seen one and Kelley was luckily enough to get a few pictures. He was a beautiful bird and pretty good size, maybe 18″ or so.

We did see a small snake the other day, a totally harmless Mexican Parrot snake. He had found himself a nice meal of a frog. The frog was puffed up as big as he could, making it look impossible for the snake to swallow.

The snake took his prized catch off into the bushes, so we don’t know if the frogs strategy to puff up was enough to get the snake to release him. Chances are that the snake just enjoyed a nice frog meal.

We have seen at least 15 different types of lizards around here, and I know there are more. They range in size from a few inches up to some big 5-6′ iguanas. The Basilisk lizards (like the one below) like to sit on tree stumps and fence posts.  They are known for being able to run on water, earning them the name Jesus Lizard. The males can get up to 36″ long, with most of that being their tail. They are a lot of fun to watch when they run across the yard on their two back legs.

The other day we were walking between the house and the garage when we looked up and noticed these beautiful purple flowers. They were in the top of a tree that was 60-70′ tall. We couldn’t tell if they were part of the tree or a vine, we’d never noticed them before. They were only there for a couple of days and then they were gone. I can’t imagine how many plants that only bloom for one or two days that we have yet to see. Same goes for the animals, who knows how many roam around here without us ever seeing them.

The Bluffs, one of our closest and favorite restaurants, has just gotten better. It’s an old open-air barn that overlooks the beautiful Belizean countryside down towards the Macal river. They have darts, cornhole, great food, ice cold beverages and sometimes live music. Recently they have added a palapa down on the rivers edge where you can take food, drinks and enjoy a nice cool dip in the river.

We headed over to The Bluffs for lunch the other day and decided that we should head down to the river and check it out. We didn’t have our swimsuits with us, but that didn’t stop us from being knee deep in the river and enjoying a couple cold ones. Next time we are bringing our floating ice chest and make a whole day of it. They are also renting kayaks, or bring your own and you can float a few hours down stream to another bar and arrange for pickup. How cool is that!

As we were leaving the river and heading home, there was something we’ve never seen before. There in the middle of the road was a crock! We thought they were usually only around water, but this one was a good few miles from any river or body of water. We slowly approached it, got some pictures and then drove around it. All I could think was, where there’s one, there’s got to be another.

Belize is an amazing place with all the plants, animals and things to see. I know we will never see all the things down here, which is why when we do see something we’ve never seen before it’s so exciting for us.

It’s that time of year again when the first real rain of the season comes. And when that first rain comes, that evening is the invasion of the flood flies. Flood flies are flying termites out looking for a new home. When they start, it looks like the movie The Birds outside, as far as you can see it’s dense with flying bugs. We usually have to shut off all the lights and close the doors, windows, place towels under the door, and even run a strip of tape around the door to try to keep them out.  Once they shed their wings, then they just seem to disappear. The next day is usually clean-up day, wings are everywhere. The wings are not the easiest to sweep up because they are so light they just swirl up everywhere. The good thing is that it usually only happens once a year and our house is made of hardwood so termites don’t bother it. No matter how much we clean there will still be wings floating around here for a while.

Last month we had pictures of a single Coatimundi that we thought was eating our pineapples. They are very social animals except when the female goes off to give birth before returning to the group. We assumed that since she was alone that this must have been the case. Well, I think we assumed correctly. Because this morning about 30′ from the back patio I counted 14 of them coming down a tree. And the cool part was that at least half of them were babies.  Sorry, we didn’t get a chance for any photos, but hopefully, they will hang around and we will get some pictures next time. Oh, and since we put up a chicken wire fence around the pineapples we have had no problems with critters eating them.

Cohune palms are one of the largest and most majestic of all the palms. We literally have 1,000’s of them around the property of all sizes. The mature cohunes can get up to 90′ tall and we have measured some fronds we cut at 40′ and I’m sure they get even bigger than that. Right now they all seem to be busting their pod open exposing their flowers to be pollinated. When this happens it attracts a lot of bees and insects to take advantage of the pollen.

Soon after that, the cohune nuts will start to form. When fully formed a bunch of cohune nuts will weigh around 100lbs. These nuts have many uses such as extracting the oil for cooking, making soap and lamp oil. The hard outside shell is used in carvings and also for charcoal. The palm fronds are used in thatched roofing (and why not they’re huge) and the heart of the palm is supposed to be a delicacy. I wish we could utilize the nuts, but they have a very hard shell and are too difficult and time-consuming to crack open. On the plus side, cohune trees are a sign of good rich soil and when the nuts fall off the tree the animals seem to love them.

We have a wide variety of philodendrons and other plants around here that will usually produce a flower. At some point, we bought a Red Emerald Philodendron, just because we liked the red vine it had. Well, it finally bloomed and what a beautiful flower it was. Brilliant red with a very white cone in the middle. The flowers around here never cease to amaze us.

Our friend Darren comes down here twice a year and when he does we usually head over to the coast for a few days. This time when he arrived he caught a puddle jumper over to Dangriga and then a short taxi ride to Hopkins. Kelley, our friend Amanda and myself were already there waiting for him for a little fun and sun at the beach.

We were hoping to go out to an island for a little snorkeling or to do a little fishing, but the weather did not want to cooperate with us. It’s a good thing that the pool bar did not have a problem with the weather because that’s where we ended up spending a lot of our time.

While we were down near the coast we did get a chance to tour the old Serpon Sugar Mill that’s just outside of Hopkins along the Sittee River. It was established in 1865 with the first steam-powered device in the country, which started the industrial era here. Prior to this, all the sugar cane was ground by hand in a very laborious process.

There is lots of equipment on display including the crusher, boilers, steam engine, and other components. After 155 years of sitting out in the jungle, a lot of it is still in remarkable condition.

There is even the steam locomotive that they used to go along the river and get water to run the sugar mill. The locomotive was a two cylinder compound steam engine that drove one axle and in turn, drove the other making it four-wheel drive. One interesting thing about this engine was that the smokestack was hinged so that it could be lowered to pass under low bridges or buildings.

By 1910 the sugar plant was abandoned as they found the northern part of the country better for growing sugar cane.

After a few days on the coast, it was time to head back up to the jungle so Darren could check on the progress of his new home build. He is building a 2 bedroom house on the five acres next to us. It’s coming along quite nicely, but there is still a lot of things to figure out and line up before it will be done. Hopefully in the not too far off future Darren will be coming down to his own jungle home in Belize.

Since Darren was here it seemed like a good time to fire up the pizza oven and invite a few friends over. We usually don’t fire up the pizza oven for just the two of us, as it takes a few hours to heat up and that seems like a waste just to make a single pizza for us. On the occasions we do fire it up, it does make some good pizzas. Well, maybe Kelley and I have a little to do with that also.

Time really flies when there is something new and exciting happening all the time. It’s hard to believe that it’s been three years ago yesterday since we made the big move to the jungles of Belize. Besides all the amazing sights, animals, plants and people, we love that our property was a blank canvas to do and design whatever we wanted with it. We feel like it’s a painting of our life, add a little here, take a little away there, then add a little more until we are comfortable enough to put our name on it. The past three years have been an amazing ride for us and we are enjoying every minute of it.

Oh and great news this week… Southwest Airlines resumes flights to Belize on November 7th!!!!!! Hope to see you soon!

We finally got around to having a fish fry with all that fish we brought back from the coast last month. So we invited a few friends over and fired up the ole disco. We have only used the disco once here and that was a year ago for whole fish.  This time we had fillets and that delicious batter mix that our son shipped down to us. The Capeador batter mixed with a Belikin beer was perfect, and everyone loved it. We supplied the fish and some smoked barracuda dip and everyone else brought something to go along with it. Besides the fish, there were fries, clam chowder, potato salad, coleslaw, shrimp on the barbie, mac salad, cookies, creme brulee, and of course some tequila. It was a 3 day late Cinco de Mayo party.

Since we had oil in the disco, the next day we tried our hand at some more chicharrones (pork skins). Last time we made them we boiled them and then baked them in the oven. This time we threw them in the smoker for a few hours to dry them out and then into some hot oil. They turned out much better this way especially with a little salt and hot chili powder.

A few weeks ago a friend of ours was ordering a bunch of crawfish from Louisiana for a big beach party. Since we love crawfish, we couldn’t let this go without placing an order for ourselves. So boil up time it was. Crawfish from Louisiana, homemade hot link sausage, corn, potatoes, and a bunch of Marie Sharps habanero pepper sauce. Not quite the meal you think of when you think of the jungle, but boy was it a special treat. There never seems to be a lack of good food around here.

Last summer our worker found a baby owl next to its dead mother at his farm. So he contacted us and we called the raptor center to rescue it. The raptor center raised it until it was able to be re-released. They released it on our property and said that it should stay real close to where it was released.

For the past few weeks, we have heard an owl and have even seen one in the tree in front of our house a few times. We talked to the gal at the raptor center and she said that it was probably him and he was looking for a mate.

When we bought our property there were 2 different roads that led to us and both were about 12 miles of very rough dirt road. They have been working on the roads over this past year and now they are mostly paved and very wide. This week they were working on the section that goes past the road heading down to our place. Of course, when you get a big piece of machinery digging up the road you just know they’re going to dig up the main water line. The good thing was that they had it repaired in a few hours.

Update: They dug up the water pipe again a few days later. All the water pipes along the road have been clearly marked with bright pink paint. Maybe the equipment operator is color blind.

Another update: You guessed it, the water pipe again.

Another update: No water. I assume this will continue to happen almost daily until they finish the road.

The coffee plants are loaded with blossoms this year. The plants grew quite a bit last year and they seem to have a lot more flowers this year. If everything goes right it looks like we should get some pretty good coffee later this year. The last harvest of coffee we dried and then stored for later use. When someone comes down that likes coffee we’ll get the roaster out and make a fresh pot for them to try.

This past week we had visitors for a few days. Ron was down again looking for some property over on the coast and brought his buddy Mike along with him. I don’t think he really found anything yet, but he’s still looking. It sounds like they had a great time over on the beach and I’m pretty sure they had a great time up here in the jungle. It’s great to have visitors again and in a couple weeks, Darren will be here.

I try to get a blog out every couple of weeks or so to keep everyone updated on our jungle life and as a reference for us to look back on.  It seems like sometimes there is really nothing worth sharing or writing about, but as those couple of weeks go by I manage to fill it up with stuff. Since we are working in the yard and garden every day there is always something new happening there. Then there are all the fun things we are doing with food. Other times we go to the coast or explore caves or ruins around here. Plus we never know what animals or other creatures we might see. Hopefully, you are enjoying our blog and it encourages you to come visit sometime. Hope to see you soon.

If you got a notification for a new post this morning it was an accident. I hit the wrong button by mistake. That post won’t be ready for another week or so.

The new pathways are really starting to shape up. We’ve got them lined with logs and have wood shavings down the middle. We’ve also started lining the border with different types of colorful plants. Inside the open areas, we have some grass planted that is starting to take off. In a few months after we get some more plants in and the grass fills in, it should be looking pretty good.

The best part is that this isn’t costing anything. The trees for the paths were ones we cut down, the plants are ones we’ve grown from cuttings, the grass is from the yard and the wood shavings are free at the lumbermills. All that was needed was our labor, and there was a lot of that.

In the beginning, we did frequent the plant nurseries quite a bit, but not anymore. Just about every landscape plant around here propagates very well. We are constantly cutting or trimming the plants and rooting them. At any given time there are 50-75 plants in pots around here waiting to be planted or traded for others we don’t already have. There are times when it actually does looks like a nursery around here.

A couple years ago we bought a Brazilian Torch that gets these big, beautiful red flowers. At this point, we have gotten at least a couple dozen more plants from cuttings off this one plant. The same goes for our Lobster Claw plants, we started with only a couple and now they are everywhere.

We are excited to see that our peach trees are getting blossoms and new leaves. Peaches don’t do well in this sub-tropical environment, but we thought we would give them a go anyway. It really doesn’t get cold enough here for the trees to lose its leaves and go dormant. Ours was full of buds for the past three months, but they just wouldn’t open. Finally, I just stripped the tree of all its old leaves just to see what would happen. In about a week all the buds started to open with new leaves and flowers. Now if the flowers get pollinated, hopefully we might get some peaches.

We still have some scrap lumber left over from the house build that I am constantly using for different projects around here. We decided that where the two new trails come together there should be a milepost sign. You know, in case you get lost or want to know how far away from home you are.

At this point, there are 19 places on there, mostly relating to places we’ve been to or have a connection with. I have another 13 blank signs ready to be painted, we just haven’t decided where to put on them yet.

Okay, so we still had some bananas left from the last bunch, plus about a gallon bag of raspberries. I’m sure they would make a wonderful tropical rum drink, but we just don’t really drink rum. So it was time for some more banana raspberry bread. It’s so moist and delicious that we will definitely have to make some more when visitors come. Banana raspberry bread and a cup of coffee, all fresh from the garden. Take that Starbucks!

It seems that everyone here grows something and it’s really common to share their harvests. The other day at the bar, a woman came in with a bunch of beautiful red habaneros and asked if anyone wanted some. We said we would love to have a few of them. It turns out that no one else there wanted any, so she ended up giving us the whole bag of 155 beautiful habaneros. We will dehydrate them and make a spicy habanero salt mix that I love so much.

At this point, we had about 40 pineapples on plants. We know that critters will eat some and hopefully leave some for us. But in two days something has chewed on eleven of them. Usually, the critters will wait until they are ripe, so we pick them just prior to that. This time they are taking bites out of the small ones that aren’t ripe yet and at this rate there won’t be any left for us. So it was off to get a roll of chicken wire to put around the pineapples to try to deter them a little. As we pulled into the drive with the wire there was the culprit, just standing there, a coatimundi. We assume it was him because I think I saw pineapple dripping from his cheeks. So time to get our little fence up around the pineapple patch and see if we can salvage a few for us.

Last week our neighbor stopped by again with some more fresh pork. Of course, we had to buy some (60 lbs.) so we could make some more sausage and ribs. We love to experiment with food and try new recipes, so this is what we did this time. We put the ribs in the same brine that we do for the ham, and when ready, into the smoker they went. Ham ribs,  just another way to enjoy pork!

Since we had both full sides of the ribs, we thought we would try one more way of making them. These were cut into individual ribs and seasoned with brown sugar, sriracha salt, and a little smoked habanero powder. After they sat in the fridge for a day, they were then wrapped in homemade bacon and slow smoked. Pork on pork lollipops, what can I say.

Three years ago on Cinco de Mayo, we left Bedrock (our home of 24 years in Mexico). This Cinco de Mayo we raised a glass of tequila to all our friends, good times, and great memories we had in Cholla Bay, Mexico. ¡Salud!

To celebrate our 37th wedding anniversary, we decided to head over to the beach in Placencia for a few days. Usually, we like to travel somewhere for our anniversary, but with all the travel restrictions right now we decided to stay in-country. Even though we didn’t catch a flight to some new destination, there is nothing wrong with sitting on a Caribbean beach in Belize.

As we pulled into our resort parking lot there was a young couple who had just buried their car in the sand. So as Kelley was checking in, I got the winch out and drug them up to solid ground. After we settled into the room for a while, we decided to go grab some lunch and a cold beer. As we were walking to the truck there he was stuck again, and totally embarrassed. So I pulled him out once again, and this time he parked right next to me in the parking lot for the rest of the weekend. At least I got to use the winch a couple of times, which doesn’t happen too often.

On the beach, we met a guy they call “Plastic Man”. His real name is William and every morning he walks the beach collecting plastic trash bags. What he does is, he turns this so-called garbage into these wonderful bracelets. He uses different colors, yellow represents peace and love, white represents light and life, and black represents humanity. He is a very happy soul and really seems to enjoy what he is doing. It’s so wonderful to see someone who can take nothing and make something out of it. He told us that the day before he sold 40 of his bracelets to a wedding party on the beach. And yes, Kelley did buy one from him.

Since fresh fish is a little hard to find up in the jungle, we wanted to bring some back for a fish fry. It took us two days down at the dock, but we finally rounded up some good fish to bring back. We ended up with a couple of nice snappers, barracuda, jack, and some mackerel. Some of this will go into the smoker and the rest will make for a great fish fry, especially with the Capeador batter that our son got in Mexico and shipped down to us.

This was one of the few times that we didn’t plan on any fishing, boat trips, or tours of any kind. It was pretty much just a few days relaxing on the beach, meeting new people, eating, drinking, and soaking up the sun. All those fishing and snorkeling trips are a lot of fun, but sometimes it’s good to just do nothing.

You never know what you will see traveling the roads around here. As we were headed over to the coast we spotted a lion, giraffe, and an armadillo out in this orchard. After turning the truck around to get a closer look and some pictures we discovered that they were all made out of old tires. They looked great out in that orchard and really make you question what you think you just saw. Whoever did this is a great artist and has a great sense of humor. I mean really, a giraffe in an orchard in Belize!

While we were over on the coast there was some very strange weather back at our place. It hailed! I guess there were 1/2-3/4″ chunks of hail falling all over the place. Ruben who has lived here all his life said that it has only happened one other time. I wish we could have been there to see it.

A few weeks ago we harvested 130+ bananas, well another bunch of around 150 bananas was ready this past week. We gave about 120 away and kept the rest for ourselves. The last bunch Kelley made banana bread, banana snickerdoodles, and banana blondies. This time we made chocolate covered, peanut butter filled frozen banana bites. We sliced the bananas into coin size pieces and then put peanut butter between two of them, froze them and dipped them in chocolate. They are delicious, and the best part is that we grew everything. Homegrown chocolate, homegrown peanut butter, and of course bananas. The garden is really starting to provide us with lots of delicious things to eat.

We decided that we might as well go and get our covid vaccination. The clinic in our village was offering it, all we had to do was make an appointment and show up. We had an 8:00 am appointment and we were out of there by 8:45. Our second shot will be in 12 weeks. I guess Belize was told to wait 8-12 weeks before giving the second shot. We assume that’s when more vaccines will be available. This will really help when traveling since we will not have to do a covid test as long as we have proof of being vaccinated.

That’s about all this time, hope everyone is doing well.

Ham and Easter go together like colored eggs and chocolate bunnies. Of course, hams are sometimes hard to come by down here so we thought we would try to cure one for ourselves. This was our first attempt at curing our own ham (not counting the watermelon ham). By the time we cut the bone down a little (so it would fit in the brine container) and removed all the fat and skin, we ended up with about an 18 lb. ham. After a couple of weeks in the cure, then some time in the smoker with some cherry and hickory wood chips, it was looking good. All that was left was a little taste test to see if it would be good enough to serve for an Easter dinner with friends. For a first attempt it turned out pretty good, but there is always room for improvement. Update on the ham….. We finished it off with a brown sugar, mustard, apple whisky glaze, and everyone thought it was one of the best hams they’ve had. I guess it really was pretty good.

There were some beautiful sunny days here last week, so we decided to head up the hill and find a spot in the river to soak for a few hours. A couple of the spots we usually go to had other people there with the same idea. No problem, we’ll just keep driving and look for a new spot. We found a nice place on the river that was easy to get to, had a small waterfall, and was plenty deep. It was a great spot to cool off, get some sun and enjoy a few cold beers. Especially in the middle of the week. And yes, those are pine trees in the distance.

Some of the people who visit us have trouble turning their vehicles around in our driveway. Since we have been clearing a little more out front we decided that it would be best to make a semi-circular drive where people could turn around easily. It took a few weeks for us to remove some trees and get the ground smooth, and now we are really close to being done. They have been working on the roads around here and when they grade them, all the big rocks get pushed to the side. We asked one of our workers if he could bring us a load of the big rocks so we could make a border around the new drive. It worked out perfectly and now all we need is a load of gravel to put down and it will be ready to drive on.

We had a couple colorful creatures visit us recently. There was a flock of maybe 50 or so of these beautiful blue birds that we have never seen here before. We think they were Indigo Buntings, at least according to our bird chart. Either that or they were the bluebirds of happiness.

Another colorful creature to visit us was a beautiful green vine snake. He was about as thick as my finger and at least 6′ long. He hung around long enough for Kelley to get a few pictures before heading back into the bush. Vine snakes help to control the rodent, frog, and lizard populations and are harmless to humans. Plus they are a beautiful snake that you don’t have to worry about getting too close to.

There’s not a whole lot happening in the garden at this point. A lot of the fruit trees are just starting to set blossoms and we have been busy planting a few hundred miscellaneous pepper plants. But with all the different things we have growing around here, there’s always going to be something ready to pick. This week we have been picking raspberries almost every day, plus using their leaves to make a refreshing raspberry iced tea (which is delicious). We have also picked a few Surinam cherries, Bok Choy, and of course another stalk of 132 bananas. Breakfast this week has consisting of fresh raspberry banana bread and a glass of raspberry leaf tea. You can’t beat that!

Just when we thought we had enough plants around here a neighbor brought over a few more for us. So now we have roselle or sometimes called sorrel plants growing which is a type of hibiscus plant that they use to make wine and jellies. The part that I’m excited about is that when you dry the buds on them you can make Jamaica. In case you don’t know what Jamaica is, it’s that wonderful deep red drink you can usually find at Mexican restaurants or taco stands. It’s one of my favorites beverages. I’ve been buying the dried stuff and making it at home for a long time and can’t wait to try some that we’ve grown ourselves.

It’s been a couple of weeks now that we have been drinking our ginger tea to see if it helps in weight loss. We really haven’t noticed a big difference, but I guess there are still other health benefits from drinking it. And truthfully I’ve just been sitting around and taking it easy for the past week and a half. Over a week ago I tripped and landed really hard on my shoulder. Luckily no major damage. I am slowly getting movement back in my shoulder and arm, plus there’s a big nasty bruise to go along with it. We have both tripped a few times on stumps and stuff around here without much injury, but this one really set me back.

In fact, you can see by the size of the banana how big my hand is swollen up. Okay, not really. This is just a tiny banana off the last bunch that didn’t fully mature.

The Belize airport is open for travelers and has been since October.  Belize is one of only a few countries that allow you to enter without a current covid test as long as you show proof that you’ve gotten a covid vaccination. Also, it was just announced that you don’t need a test before re-entering the states as long as you can show proof of a vaccination.  We have guests coming down in June and possibly in early July, but other than that, the Toucan Hideaway is waiting for you. Hope to see you soon!

Who doesn’t like free beer? Belikin has been having a promotion called “Pop A Stappa” where you can win prizes of a free beer, $20, $100 and $1,000. If you find a symbol under your bottle cap you win. So far we have got 14 caps,  worth a free beer each, plus one at a bar that they gave us on the spot. It’s not $1,000, but a free beer is a free beer.

The other day our neighbor came by again offering more fresh pork, so of course, we had to get some. How can you say no when you know it’s fresh and it’s delivered right to your door. So we picked up a 23 lb. hind leg, which will become our Easter ham, more ribs, and a pork belly. Kelley thought she would try something different with the belly this time, so she made porchetta. It’s an Italian dish where you put a lot of herbs and spices on the inside of the belly and then roll it up, tie it and cook it for 7-8 hours. It turned out savory, fatty, and rich, but how could it not, after all, it was a pork belly.

The porchetta was our Italian meal of the week, but now it was time for our Irish St. Patty’s Day corned beef which had been in the brine since the first of March. Homemade corned beef is so much better than store-bought and very easy to make. Besides, our only option for corned beef here is to make it ourselves. It just wouldn’t be St. Patty’s day without corned beef, cabbage, and red potatoes, Irish we could have shared with you.

While going through the garden the other day we noticed that a bunch of our pineapple plants were all trampled over like something big had run through the middle of them.  None of the pineapples were eaten or anything, just something big had gone through there. We haven’t seen any evidence of cow or any other footprints around anywhere. But it does let your imagination run wild, was it a Tipar, a heard of peccaries, or a jaguar chasing something. I guess we will never know.

Speaking of the garden, (you know I was going to), we finally got some veggie seeds to grow and are ready to start planting. This is the third time we’ve planted the seed trays in the past few months. The first couple times very few sprouted, because of too much rain, cold weather, and no sunshine to warm them up. This time there was little rain and nice sunny days plus I made a small plastic cover for them and it seems everything sprouted. So at this point, we now have 40 nice yellow squash plants in the ground, and in a couple of weeks, we will be putting in 300-400 pepper plants. There are green bells, colored bells, cayenne, jalapeños, and a few other varieties. Hopefully, they will do good and we will be set for peppers this year.

Our ginger plant finally died back so it was time to dig up the ginger roots. We will go ahead and use these as needed and then in a couple of months plant some more for later on. I didn’t realize there are so many health benefits from eating ginger, I mostly thought it was just used in Asian cooking. One of the benefits that caught my eye was to make a tea out of it and it’s supposed to really aid in weight loss, especially around the waist area. The tea is pretty strong and spicy, but we are giving this a try for a few weeks and see what happens.

Where’s Kelley? Our cacao plants are really growing great. There are a couple that are now almost twice as tall as Kelley. There should be a lot of chocolate in our future.

There have been a couple trees next to our house that have been needing to come down for quite a while. The trees really swayed a lot in the wind and we didn’t want them to fall on the house if there was a big storm. We’ve taken down quite a few trees around here ourselves, but these were now growing right over the house and were getting pretty big. So it was time to call in a professional or at least someone who could do it without damaging the house.

A friend of ours knows a guy (Julio) who is an expert and can climb a tree like nobody’s business. So Julio gets here and looks at the trees, then he gets a ladder, rope, and a machete and up the tree he goes. Mind you that he takes off his rubber boots and puts on a pair of crocks, plus he is about the same age as me. Once up the tree, he ties his rope onto a branch and then whacks away with his machete and then we lower it down to the ground. Once all the branches are off the tree then a rope is tied up near the top and he cuts the base of the tree with a chainsaw while we pull the rope to guide the trunk where we want it to fall. Overall, seven trees were cut down that day and there are a few more up in the garden that will need to be removed later. Julio definitely knows what he is doing when it comes to taking down trees, and I’m sure we will be calling him again in the future.

Over the past month or so we have been doing some more clearing around the back and side of the house. Mostly just getting rid of all the undergrowth and leaving the big trees. We like the way this is shaping up because you can now see more than ten feet out into the jungle. We have already been seeing more animals and birds moving around out there in the cleared areas.

We also made another trail with the downed trees that goes from the front of the house to the back trails. Eventually, the grass will grow in the cleared areas and the trails will be lined with some colorful tropical plants. It should look great once everything is grown in.

Earlier this month Belize started vaccinating for covid. It seems to be going smoothly and there are a lot of people getting the shots. Currently, Belize only has 51 active cases in the entire country, so that’s doing pretty good. Up until recently, you had to provide a negative covid test taken 72 hours prior to arriving here in Belize. That has now changed and all you have to do now is show proof that you have had a vaccination and you are good to go. Travel here is really pretty easy and safe, so come on down and see us sometime.

This posting is mostly for all our friends who love to garden but live in an area where tropical plants won’t grow. Or for those who are just interested in how some of your favorite foods grow. Anyway, we love to garden and have always had a garden, but we have mostly lived in a desert climate where the weather or soil was not the best. So moving to Belize with its great climate and rich soil was a dream for us. Now we can grow things we never even considered growing before.

Everyone loves bananas, but have you ever thought about how they grow? Banana plants might look like a tree but they’ve actually classified as an herb. This is because the trunks are made up of leaves, not bark like a tree. A banana plant will take about 10 months or so until it produces a flower. Once the flower is there it will take another 3 months or so until the bananas are ripe. The bud will have both the male and female flowers in it so that it can self-pollinate.

Once the plant produces a bunch of bananas and they ripen, it will be done and die. Not to worry though, because while the plant is growing, it’s producing more stalks around it’s base that will each produce bananas in the order at which they grew.

They say that the average American eats 27 lbs. of bananas a year. I’m not sure we ever ate that many before, but now that we are growing our own, we are way above that. Currently, 3 of our plants have bananas on them and two bunches are about to ripen at the same time. And just in case you didn’t know, each banana is called a finger, each cluster is called a hand, and the whole stalk is called a bunch. We just call them, free breakfast.

Coffee is something a lot of us can’t live without. It just happens to grow great where we are and is very easy to grow. Our plants went from about 1′ to 5-6′ in just over 2 years. They start by getting flower buds on most of the main branches. After a few months, the green berries will start to turn red in color, that’s the time to start picking them. Usually every few days we will need to go and pick the red ones as they don’t all ripen at the same time.

Once we pick them, we need to peel off the skin or fruit from the berry. Then they are soaked in water overnight to remove what is still left on them. After that, they are placed in the sun for a few days to dry. Once thoroughly dry then they can be roasted. Prior to roasting a thin parchment skin must be removed from the bean. After roasting then they get ground up and used as coffee. We have been drying the beans and then vacuum sealing them until we want to roast them. Unroasted beans will last a couple years whereas roasted will lose their flavor after a couple months.

I’m sure at some point everyone has cut the top of a pineapple and tried to get it to grow. That’s how we started out here and after two years they are finally producing pineapples. But there is a quicker way.

As the pineapple fruit is starting to mature it starts to produce slips around its base. Once the slips get big enough you just pick them off and plant them in the ground. Doing it this way can produce a pineapple in eight months or so, as opposed to two years rooting the top. At this point we have around 150 plants going and there are at least 30 pineapples on them currently.

Cacao or ‘chocolate once it’s processed’ grows quite well here also. Someone told us that it wouldn’t grow in this area, but we planted it anyway and it’s thriving. The cacao pods grow on the trunk and branches of the plant, not around the leaves. The blossoms that do survive will turn into this big, dark chocolate-colored pod. Once the pod starts to change colors toward red and yellow it’s time to pick them.

Now the fun starts. You cut the pod open to reveal the big white seeds that are covered in a fluffy white sweet flesh which is very tasty. After the seeds are collected, they must ferment for about a week or so. Then the fermented seeds must dry in the sun for a few days, where they will start to turn light brown in color. Once dried they can then be roasted and peeled. Finally, they are ready to be ground into chocolate and enjoyed. While grinding they will first turn into a powder and then the oils will start to come out and turn it all liquidy. This is where (if you choose) to add some sugar and make it into some great-tasting chocolate.

Starfruit is something that maybe you’ve seen in the produce section of your favorite grocery store but have never actually tried. It’s a really good fruit that has the flavor between an apple and a pear with a little sour undertone. Our tree was 18″ tall two years ago and is well over 15′ tall now. In the spring is when the little pink and white blossoms start to appear.

The blossoms that do get pollinated will develop into these wonderful fruits. When you slice them they are a perfect five-point star shape which is where the name Starfruit comes from. They say that a mature tree could produce between 200-400 lbs. of fruit each year.

Macadamia nuts, a favorite treat from Hawaii. Our tree is 9′ tall now and seems to be growing great. We have no idea yet as to how the nuts grow or even how to prepare them to eat. As soon as we see some blossoms or nuts we will let you know how all that goes.

I know it might seem that processing the coffee or cacao is a lot of work, but we love it! Hope you enjoyed this little insight into our tropical garden.

The past couple of weeks seem to be all about food around here, so here is a taste (haha) of what we’ve been doing.

With a hundred bananas ripe all at once we had to figure out something to do with them really quick. I mean seriously, you can only eat so many fresh bananas. So out came the dehydrator and we did about 70 or so bananas. What we have been doing is soaking the sliced bananas in fruit juice before they get dehydrated and they turn out great. In the past, we have used mango and orange juice, but this time we had some peach juice on hand. They always turn out good and end up tasting like a sweet chewy all-natural candy. Oh and by the way, an avocado slicer works great on bananas.

With so many bananas,  we also made frozen chocolate-covered bananas sprinkled with coconut. The chocolate was a little thick so we thinned it out with a little coconut oil so it would cover better. Talk about a tropical treat, chocolate, coconut frozen bananas, oh yah!

Well, it’s bacon time again. This time we are making two bellies for us, one for a neighbor and one for another friend. We have mostly been making a black pepper bacon, smoked with hickory. This seems to work best for us because it is great on BLT’s, breakfast, and even in chowders.

The pork bellies have cured and they were ready to go in the smoker. I was all set to use our small electric smoker since there wasn’t that much going in there. But just as I was loading it up there were a lot of big sparks and the breaker popped. Something had shorted across the heating element. I could tell because there was a big weld-like mark on it. I assume it was some type of small critter, remember the cat on Christmas Vacation? So plan “B”… fire up the big smoker, and since it was going we might as well throw on a couple racks of rib.

With St. Patty’s day quickly approaching, it was time to get some briskets in the brine so we could have some corned beef ready for that day when everybody’s Irish. There are a couple company’s here that sell packaged cuts of meat, but we like to go directly to the local butcher. When we order briskets they usually come with the bones and a bunch of other meat still attached. The butcher will trim up the briskets and give you all the bones and grind up the extra trimmings for burger.  With the two nice briskets, we also got about 6 lbs. of burger and a whole bag of bones for making some great stock. Plus we also ended up with a couple pounds of meat that were taken off the roasted bones that will make something good. If we want corned beef, we need to make it ourselves because they don’t sell it here. Well actually they do, but it comes in a little can next to the Vienna sausages, and we all know how good that stuff is.

That hogfish we got a couple weeks ago was ready for the grill so we invited a few friends over for a little beach party in the jungle. Kelley made up a pineapple, red pepper, habanero salsa with a little sour orange juice, and cilantro. That made for some great fish tacos along with some conch ceviche, jalapeño poppers, a cheesy spinach dip, corn salad, and of course margaritas.

Since we were having fish tacos and margaritas, we might as well keep up the theme with the desserts. We made these before in Mexico and they were a big hit, so why not make them again? They are personal key lime pies with a beachy theme to them.

Usually, when we make these beach desserts we buy some fruit roll-ups to use as little beach towels, but we couldn’t find any down here. So we puréed some mangos, poured them on some parchment paper, and put them in the dehydrator. Instant fruit roll-ups, can’t wait for the grandkids to get here and make some for them.

Ok, we saw this and thought we had to try it. A watermelon ham. I guess some chef in New York did it a few years ago and it was an internet sensation. So you peel the watermelon and then brine it for a few days with a bunch of herbs and spices, then rub it with olive oil and smoke it. I know at this point you’re probably wondering what I’ve been smoking. Anyway, it comes out looking like a ham. The first bite really messes with your mind, you don’t know what to think.  It was very savory with all the herbs and spices and really no flavor of the watermelon.  I’m sure vegans and vegetarians would love this, but as for me, I’m sticking to the real thing.

Just a few afterthoughts

If you plan on moving here and growing any fruits or veggies, a dehydrator is a must. From drying fruits and veggies when you have an abundance, to making your own herb and spice mixes. Unlike the states, not all fruits and veggies are available here year-round.

If you have ever grown zucchini then you know, once they start producing you can’t give them away fast enough. Well, we have decided that bananas are our new zucchini.

Since we had a big pile of banana peels we threw them in a bucket of water to make a compost tea for the garden. I’ve heard this is great for plants and I’ve also heard that it really doesn’t do much. Either way, we had a lot of peels so why not give it a try.

And just to let everyone know that we did make the 3-day challenge of not drinking beer on February 29, 30 and 31. I hope some of you did the same, but now it’s time for a cold beer…Cheers!

This past weekend we headed over to Hopkins for a little fishing, beach time, and some Valentine’s Day relaxing. The weather could not have been more perfect with the days in the 80’s and the nights in the low 70’s, plus no wind at all.

This was great, as we had a day planned out on the water to do a little tarpon fishing. We did find the tarpon, we could see them everywhere, but they just wouldn’t bite. After trying unsuccessfully all morning we decided that we had better just go and catch a few small snappers so at least we would have something to eat for lunch.

There is a whole string of small islands 12 miles or so off Hopkins, some are resorts, some are private islands and some are uninhabited. We ended up on Bread & Butter (a small, maybe 1 or 2 acre island) where you can pay a small fee to use their grill and palapa to cook up your fresh catch.

Our captain, while diving for conch and lobster, speared a big hogfish for us. We had caught enough other fish for lunch, so this delicious fish was taken back to the resort and put in their freezer for us to take home. Actually, we’re surprised we got the fish back, as everyone at the resort wanted it. In a couple of weeks, he will get put on our grill whole with a pineapple-habanero salsa and then stuffed into tortillas for some awesome fish tacos. Hogfish are highly sought after by spearfishermen and are highly regarded as a delicacy. They say they are the perfect combination of texture and flavor. Sweeter than grouper, flakier than Mahi, and richer than scallops. Of course, there will be some margaritas flowing with those tacos, now we just have to decide who to invite over for this special treat.

Out on the reef, there is a place they call bird island, actually, most of it has washed away and is now just some trees sticking out of the water. Anyway, the trees that are there, are full of frigates and I mean hundreds of them. The male frigates puff up their red throat during the breeding season. A couple of interesting things about frigates is that they have a wingspan up to 7′ 5″ and can actually sleep while flying.

One of the afternoons while we were in Hopkins, we headed over to the river to do a little bait fishing. I backed the truck down to the river’s edge, cast out the lines, plopped ourselves down on the tailgate and we enjoyed a couple cold Belikins. We didn’t catch anything, but right in front of us in the middle of the river, a big manatee came up and flipped his tail. Seeing that, was much better than catching any fish.

It was a great Valentine’s Day getaway for us. We finished up the weekend with an incredible three-hour, 7-course meal at The Odyssea restaurant in Hopkins. If you are in Hopkins be sure to check them out, great food, cold drinks, and wonderful people.

Meanwhile back at the old homestead

In the past, we’ve had some animals steal pineapples from us, but at least they’ve been nice enough to replant the tops when they were done with them. We’re doing a little more clearing out behind the house and there in the bush are some pineapple plants growing. Actually, we found five growing so far, we didn’t even know we lost that many. I’ve mentioned before that all you have to do is throw something out there and it will grow, and here’s proof.

Of course, we have more bananas. This bunch came from in front of the casita and had 102 of the local bananas on it. We left them hanging outside on the porch to ripen while we were gone for the weekend. Nothing has ever bothered them in the past, but these all ripened at once while we were gone and some critters got into them. After checking the security camera we found it was possums coming up on the porch and helping themselves. So now the bananas are in the house being eaten and processed in different ways.

Our cacao are starting to ripen and we should end up with enough to make a good batch of chocolate real soon.

We are very excited to eat our first grapefruit. We did not know what type it was until we cut into it. Once we did, it was just what we were hoping for, a nice pink grapefruit. Grapefruit are sometimes hard to find down here, especially the pink ones. So hopefully we will have an abundance of them in the future.

There are a lot of different types of orchids that we have around the house that we have relocated from other parts of the property. We have yet to find a Black Orchid (the official orchid of Belize), but our friend just brought over a couple for us from her place. With 300 or so native species of orchids in Belize, we are always on the lookout for more.

One of our neighbor’s sheep gave birth the other day, but the mother’s milk was not flowing. So he came down and got us to give him a hand, and in no time at all everything was good.

That’s about what’s happening around here the past couple of weeks. Hope everyone is doing well.

The 2021 garden is starting off good so far, as it just gave us a perfect pineapple. It was ripened on the plant and we managed to get to it before the critters did. Besides this pineapple looking so great, it set the standard of what a pineapple should be. It was the sweetest, juiciest pineapple we’ve ever tasted.

Last year we planted some dragon fruit from cuttings and it produced a few very nice fruits. The big surprise was how big and fast the plants grew in just a year, considering it’s a cactus. The plant got so big that it outgrew the trellis we built for it and we had to build a new, much bigger one. We took 24 good-sized cuttings off the original plant and set them around the new trellis. If they grow like the original ones did, starting next year we should have a great continual harvest of dragon fruit. Besides being healthy and delicious, dragon fruit makes an awesome margarita!

You know we love to experiment with making different types of foods. Well, our neighbor came by the other day with some fresh pork that he had just processed. So of course we had to get some ribs and a front shoulder. The ribs still had the skin and some belly on them so we thought, why not try and make some chicharrones (pork rinds). We found two recipes, one with just the skin and another where you leave a little of the fat on the skin. We did them both ways and they turned out good for our first time, of course, we coated them with some salt and some spicy chili powder.

As for the ribs, they will get some smoke and then a slow cook on the grill with some of our homemade BBQ sauce. The belly pieces have been cured as bacon and will then be diced into chunks with brown sugar and chili powder for some Super Bowl snacks. And the shoulder we will eventually cure for a ham, we’ll let you know how that turns out in a month or so.

A couple of days prior to our neighbor showing up with the fresh pork we had been to the butcher in town and bought a bunch of pork to make sausage. So the day before he showed up we had just finished making 20 lbs. of Italian and breakfast sausage. At this point, we are set on pork for a while.

I mentioned last time that we go looking for wild oyster mushrooms that grow around the property. Well, this time we didn’t even have to go looking for them, they were growing right in our driveway. A while back we lined our driveway with some trees we cut down, and our favorite mushrooms decided to take a hold on them. Hopefully, they will continue to grow on this log as they are delicious mushrooms, especially when sautéed on top of a steak.

We love seeing all the different wildlife we have around here, but sometimes…ugh. We expect the animals to get in the garden and eat the veggies and the sweet fruits, that’s just what they do. But lately, the trees above the back deck have ripe berries of some type that the kinkajous can’t resist. For the last couple of weeks or so they have been up there every night eating and dropping the hard peas sized berries on the deck. That’s not a problem, as we can sweep them off and all is good. But they are craping from 40′ up and it makes a big 2′ splatter when it hits the deck and the tables. If we don’t get it cleaned up first thing in the morning it dries and needs a lot of scrubbing.  Plus they don’t seem to mind that we are out there in the evenings. I can’t imaging sitting out there for a nice dinner and have a kinkajou do a major drop on one of us. So until they eat all the stuff off of those trees and move on, we’ve been eating our meals inside.

I think the toucans are figuring out that we are the “Toucan Hideaway” because they have been showing up quite a bit lately. It could just be that all the trees are full of all the stuff they like to eat, or maybe it’s the two big giant toucan decoys we have in the yard. Either way, it’s great to have these big beautiful birds around here.

I know we are all tired of this covid crap and can’t wait to get back to some sort of normalcy and traveling again. Of course, here like everywhere, masks, social distance, and constant washing of hands are a must. For the past month and a half, we have been on an 8:00 pm curfew and no alcohol sales after 6:00 pm. They just revised our curfew the other day to 10:00 pm. This means we can actually go out to dinner and have a couple of drinks and still make it back to the house before we get fined. Our borders are still closed for land and sea travel, but the airport is open. With the new rules, you must have a negative test when flying into Belize and another test before you enter back into the states. I guess all this must be working because the active cases are going down. As of today, there are 259 active cases for the entire country. Hopefully, it keeps on this downward trend and we will see some of you down here soon.

They say if you haven’t grown up by the time you turn 60, then you don’t have to! Next week we are heading over to the coast to do a little fishing for my birthday and Valentine’s Day getaway. Besides that, February 14th is the close of lobster season, so we need to get our fill of those delicious crustaceans until the season reopens again in June.

Last year was our second full year here and the garden did pretty well. The fruit trees were just starting to produce, and this year is looking to be even better with lots of new growth and blossoms. We had some trouble with some of the veggies last year, but I think we have it figured out now. Anyway here are a few of the things we harvested last year.

Bananas. Apple bananas, local bananas, and plantains. We started with 5 plants and now there must be at least 25. Plus you have to cut the plant down once you harvest the bananas and we have given a few plants to friends. It looks like we will always have bananas.

Cacao. We only harvested a handful of pods last year, but it was enough to make our own chocolate. This year the plants are doing much better.

Pineapples. If they last on the plant until they fully ripen then they are soooo sweet. We currently have about 150 plants.

Star Fruit. Last year we only got a few off the tree, but currently, the tree is loaded with new blossoms.

Coffee. The plants supplied us with enough to make about 25 pots of coffee. Right now the plants are starting to flower and it is looking good for this season.

Raspberries. Considering we just planted it 9 months ago, it still gave us enough to snack on. Now the plant is out of control and we are having to keep chopping it back even though it is loaded with fruit.

Guava. We had a few last year, but the tree is getting bigger and is already starting to set more fruit.

Calamansi Limes. Last year we got a dozen or so off the plant. There was a lot of growth last year so hopefully this year we will have a lot more.

Dragon Fruit. We only had a few last year and I think they were maybe the best thing in the garden. We are currently building a lot bigger trellis for them, as they are growing like crazy.

Golden Plum. This tree grew big and fast last year and was loaded with fruit. Unfortunately, it dropped most of them, but the ones that did ripen were great, sort of the texture of an apple and a slight taste of a pear.

Peanuts. Our first time growing them and they did great. We’re not sure we will plant more this year we just have to see how the space in the garden goes.

Cantaloupe. We actually did manage to harvest a few of them before the critters got to them, and they were very good.

Kale. The kale crop grew for the entire year and never stopped producing. We ate as much as we could and were giving some away to friends.

Tomatoes. They didn’t grow as we were hoping they would, but we did still get some nice tomatoes. Considering all the plants were from an old tomato that Kelley threw out in the yard.

Romaine Lettuce. We got a few nice heads, but then again insects, rains, and who knows what else got to a lot of them.

Okra.  The okra grew great here last year. Kelley breaded a bunch and froze for later and pickled a whole lot more. I think we might skip planting it this year.

Hatch Green Chiles. The plants did well last year, giving us enough to roast and save in the freezer until needed. The first harvest off of the plants was very good and hot, but the second round on the same plants were almost too hot to eat. Can’t figure that one out.

Other peppers. Habanero, cayenne, and pequin peppers. They all did pretty well which allowed us to dry, grind and make some very good extra-spicy chili salt.

Turmeric. We haven’t really used it too much, but it did grow well and is supposed to be good for you.

Mushrooms. We actually aren’t growing these we just forage for them around the property. And why not when you have wild oyster mushrooms out there.

Besides eating all this good stuff straight from the garden we also preserved them in different ways. The peanuts we made into peanut butter with a little salt and coconut oil.

There were spicy kale chips and plantain chips. Dehydrated pineapples and bananas. Pesto from the basil and peanuts. Chocolate covered peanuts. Different teas from the coffee skins, lemongrass, raspberry leaves, and moringa.

This year we are hoping that some of the other trees will start producing. There are still mango, avocado, 5 types of citrus, 3 types of apples, peaches, papaya, and macadamia nut that we are waiting patiently for. We know in the future that all these trees will be producing more than we will ever use, but I’m sure we will come up with something to do with it all.

That’s some of the harvests from 2020. There were a lot of veggies that just didn’t work out for some reason, but we will keep planting and trying until we figure out what really works here. In the meantime, we are looking forward to seeing what the garden provides for us in 2021.

We hope everyone had a great holiday season and are healthy and well. Over the last couple of months, we have gone to the states and had a few friends come down here for visits. Besides taking a little longer to get through the airport in Belize, everything went smoothly. You can still travel around the country and do and see most everything that Belize has to offer. There is currently a curfew in place, but that really doesn’t affect us as we are never out that late in the evenings. Of course, when you are out in public during the day, you still need to wear a mask.

Over the holidays we made our Rum-Popo (Belizean eggnog) like we have done for the past few years. Because we could not have social gatherings this year, we had a couple of bottles left over. So what did we do with it…we put it in the ice-cream maker and added some shaved chocolate. Let me tell you, Rum-Popo ice cream is pretty darn good!

We have not had anything in the vegetable garden in a few months now because of all the rain, (well over 30″ in the past two months).  We should be starting the dry season soon. So the seed trays are all recently planted with lots of types of peppers and squash, and we just planted broccoli, lettuce, bok-choy, kale, and some radishes in the garden. Hopefully, they will all do good and we will have a good harvest in a few months. All of the permanent plants and trees in the garden are love’n all this rain and are having major growth spurts. Last year we planted a very small raspberry plant and now it has taken over like the blob in an old sci-fi movie. There is no way to harvest the raspberries in the middle, so some major chopping and digging has to be done. Anybody want some raspberry plants?

Our small coffee harvest for this season is coming to an end. It looks like we have enough to brew about 25 pots of coffee. At this point, we are just cleaning and drying the beans and then vacuum packing them in one cup packages, which is enough for about 2-3 pots of coffee. Once we are ready to use them we will roast and grind them as needed.

Our friends Ron & Rhonda were here to try the first pot and they gave it the thumbs-up, and they drink a lot more coffee than I do. There were only a few plants that had the percentage of the coffee on them this year, but hopefully in the future when all 40 plants start really producing, we will have an abundance to start sharing.

The other day we were dropping a couple of things off at Ruben’s house and he asked us if we wanted some fresh coconuts. Of course, we said yes, we love coconuts. I’m sure Kelley will come up with something delicious to make with them.

A while back Ruben gave us a couple of poinsettias. We had them on the porch until they outgrew their pots so we planted them in the ground. They were getting about 4′ tall and then the rains came and drowned them. They were just bare sticks with no sign of life. Then around Christmas, one of them decided to get a little growth on it and it turned out to be the smallest poinsettia bloom we have ever seen. I guess it really is hard to kill plants around here.

I’ve mentioned before that we have a neighbor who lets us know when he has beef ready and another neighbor who has pork. Well, our closest neighbor Dan is now raising lambs. I can definitely see some lamb chops in our future, in fact, we might need to get a bigger freezer. This is like the trifecta of meats all within our little hood.

The Cohune nuts are starting to fall off our palm trees and that is attracting a few animals. We have been seeing squirrels jumping across the driveway or running through the trees with Cohune nuts in their mouth.

We have also been seeing agoutis right next to the house. They will just slowly walk around the yard looking for nuts and then just sit there and eat it. In case you are wondering what type of animal an agouti is, they are related to the guinea pig and will weigh up to about 8 lbs. or so. They also have a good life span and will live up to 20 years.

I guess there were a few people who did not think this was as funny as I did. A while back we found a dried vine that was wrapped around a tree trunk. I had this great idea to paint it like a green vine snake and put it on a tree in our yard. A  few people saw it and didn’t think too much about it, but then there were a couple that just wouldn’t go anywhere near it. I guess now it’s time to just move it to a different spot in the yard, I gotta keep people on their toes, don’t I?

Okay, I was not going to post this, but living in the jungle is not all happy toucans, parrots, and monkeys. There are a lot of dangerous things out here, from plants, insects, animals, and yes even snakes. The other night Kelley was walking from the garage to the house and there was a big snake stretched out right in the walkway in front of her that would not move. When we have seen snakes before they will usually quickly move out of the way never to be seen again, but this one just stood its ground. After determining what type of snake it was and that he was not going to move I had to make a decision on how to handle it. So I got the gun and it was one quick shot to the head. It was a 7′ 2″ Fer-de-Lance, one of the most venomous snakes there is. And this one here is about as big as they get. I am currently processing the skin and will mount it to a board so that everyone will be able to see it up close and be able to identify one out in the wild if they ever came across one. And if anything was to ever happen we do have 3 doses of antivenom in the fridge.

No matter where you live there are always dangers of insect bites, snakes, wild animals, or even random gunfire, it just depends on how you choose to accept it. Hopefully, this did not scare you off from coming down for a visit, as there are a lot more toucans, monkeys, and other beautiful animals to see than there are snakes around here. Hopefully, we will see you soon.

One of our favorite local artists (Walter Castillo) posted another painting that he had just completed. We saw it and fell in love with it! The painting is of a festival in Placencia, which we have been to a few times, so we really related to the subject matter. Plus it was the perfect size we had been looking for to fill an empty space over the front door. This was an early Christmas gift to us and it was perfect!

Being the Christmas season we thought we would try our hand at making some summer sausage. We looked at a bunch of recipes and spice options and put together one we thought would suit us. After grinding and seasoning the beef, it got stuffed into the casings and then into the smoker. It turned out very tasty, with great color, texture, and the flavor was better than anything we could buy here. Now we just need to test it out on some friends during the holidays and see what they think.

Our cacao is doing great and they are starting to ripen. Soon we should have enough to start processing and turning it into some delicious chocolate.

Of course, we still have a steady supply of pineapples and bananas. This bunch is the small apple bananas that are sweet, delicious, and our favorites. There are 120 on this stalk, now we are just waiting for them to finish ripening. Maybe there will be some chocolate-covered frozen bananas in our future.

We have lots of parrots that fly over all the time and some groups are quiet and some are very noisy. Now that we actually got some pictures of the noisy ones we discovered that they are Olive Throated Parakeets. We didn’t even know there were parakeets here. I think the locals call them all parrots because they all look sorta the same. Remember when you went to a pet store and all the parakeets would start squawking, that’s what it sounds like when they fly over.

We finally found Rio Frio Cave! Last year when Darren was here we searched for it, but Google maps lied and we never got to it. This time we had better information and found it without any problem. It is the largest cave opening in Belize with an entrance of 65 feet tall. I know… how could we not find it last year.

There is a rough set of stairs leading up to the entrance and a small trail that will take you into and through the cave. Once inside the dark cave, there were waterfalls, stalactites, stalagmites, and even a sandy beach.

A little farther in, the cave turned a little and you could see the opening at the other end. There is a trail that takes you through the cave and hikes you up around in the jungle and back around towards the entrance. Overall the cave is only about a 1/4 mile long but very impressive.

As we were heading into the cave Kelley spotted some Howler monkeys up in the trees above us. There were at least four of them and one of them was even holding a baby. Once we got into the cave they all started howling, like they didn’t want us in there, which made for a very eerie sound inside the cave. Overall, it took us about an hour each way on a dirt road from our place to get to the cave. Definitely worth checking out when you visit.

For the last few days of Darren’s trip, we decided to head over to the beach in Placencia. There were no real plans on doing anything, just hanging out at the beach. We did try to get a day charter out to this two-acre island for some relaxing and a beach BBQ, but the weather did not cooperate with us.

Since the weather was not being too cooperative, we ended up doing a lot of walking around. The good thing is that there are some good bars scattered up and down the beach. And with names like Tipsy Tuna, Barefoot, Pickled Parrot, and Toucan Jacks, how could you not stop.

So we spent a couple of days on the beach staring out into the Caribbean, listening to reggae music and day drinking. I guess someone had to do it, and it was our turn.

We did all get our lobster grilled cheese sandwich fix at Barefoot bar, and that made us very happy.  Plus Darren managed to get some Big Titty Rum. We called the guy who makes the rum and he was in the process of bottling, so once he was done he delivered it right to us.

Well, that’s about it for now, Darren is back home and I’m sure thinking about his next trip. Kelley is in the kitchen making Christmas cookies and I’m thinking about all my projects for this week. More friends will be here over the holidays, so I’m sure there will be a lot more fun to be had.

Take care and Merry Christmas!

After a month of heavy rains, it is starting to dry out around here. The sun keeps sneaking out and the temps are back to the 70’s – 80’s and all the plants are loving it. There are still light showers predicted every day for another week or so, but that just means we don’t need to water the garden.

With all the rains we had last month it brought out a couple creatures we’ve never seen here before. We have seen a lot of different types of frogs and toads around here but this one was a little different.

It’s a Mexican burrowing toad. It has a very small head with tiny eyes and red, yellow, or orange coloring on its back. They live most of the time underground and only come out after a heavy rain. An interesting fact about this toad is that their tongue projects straight out of their mouths, unlike all others that roll out.

Another creature that the rains brought out was this little turtle. We think he is a White-lipped mud turtle, which makes sense because right now we have a lot of mud around here. Kelley picked him up for a picture and when she set him down he scurried away pretty quickly (for a turtle anyway).

All the animals seem to be getting a lot more active around here. We are seeing a bunch of wood rails, toucans, and other colorful birds and we even had a big green iguana ( about 30″) stop and sit up on a log by the garage.

Every morning and evening flocks and flocks of parrots fly over the house. You can hear them coming a mile away squawking as they fly by.

Another rare sight was 3 king vultures flying over the house. King vultures are predominantly white with a colorful head of red, yellow, orange, and purple and have a wingspan of up to 7 feet. We have only seen them one other time and that was way up in the hills.

Also, there are a lot of different colorful butterflies around right now. At least a few times a day we are seeing the blue morphos, which are our favorites butterflies with their iridescent blue color.

Hopefully, we will start seeing some bigger animals around here and maybe they will even pose for some pictures.

Now that it’s drying up, there is lots of yard work and projects to get done. First of all, was to get some more veggies in the ground. This time we planted, broccoli, bok choy, lettuce, radishes, and more kale. There will be more types of veggies going in as soon as we get more of the garden cleaned up and back in shape.

All the plants and fruit trees have tons of new growth on them. There are currently four big bunches of bananas that will be ready very soon, we have pineapples sitting on the counter and the coffee plants are still producing like crazy. This next season the garden should supply us with a lot of fruits and veggies.

Besides all the fruits and veggies we have growing around here, we also have some nice flowering plants. Most of them usually have colorful flowers year-round. Which means we can usually put together a nice arrangement just about any time.

Next on the list is to get our little jungle home looking like Christmas. Lights on the house, a new bigger Christmas tree this year, and of course the monkeys were helping to hang the garland again.

Then it was time to freshen up the casita and get ready for our first guest since February. A little bit of new paint, a new table for the porch, and a smart tv that has a flash drive loaded with a bunch of different tv shows, so no more dvd player to mess with. Darren will be here soon for 10 days, and then Ron & Rhonda will be here over Christmas and New Years. It will be great to have friends coming back down once again. If you are up for a visit, just let us know and we will put you on the calendar. We look forward to seeing you soon.

After about 9 months of the country being locked down, they finally opened the airport back up. So we decided to take advantage of this and fly to the states to see some friends, family, grandkids, and our new granddaughter.  Of course, this almost didn’t happen.

A few days before we were supposed to leave, a Cat 4 hurricane (Eta) with 150 mph winds was bearing down on Nicaragua to the south of us. Luckily Belize was spared the big winds but received massive amounts of rain. In some places, the river rose more than 35′ above the normal water line causing some devastating flooding.

The day we left for the airport it was raining heavily, but there was no report of our flight being canceled so we continued on. Later that day we had reports of the highway being washed out and the river had now spilled onto the highway. Plus there was so much water on the runway that they had to close the airport. We were lucky to be a few hours ahead of all that was happening, otherwise, we wouldn’t have made it out.

We finally made it to Arizona after spending a night in Houston (because of flight schedules). We haven’t seen the grandkids in about a year and they are looking good and growing fast. The real excitement for us was getting to meet our new granddaughter for the first time, and she is a cutie.

While we were there we had a chance to catch up with a bunch of friends, get in some shopping and give Amazon a good workout. Of course, we had to hit all of our favorite restaurants and cook up some of our favorites foods that we just can’t get in Belize, such as snow crab, artichokes, and good Mexican food.

Since you can’t get good hard dry salami in Belize, I decided to bring one back in my backpack. Well, the airport scanner in Phoenix did not like that and thought it was a liquid of some sort, but after a thorough inspection, they let it go through. Then as we went through Houston it was pulled aside again, inspected, and even x-rayed this time. I guess if you want to bring salami on the plane you need to pack it in your checked baggage unless you really want to confuse the TSA.

While we were up in the states there was another hurricane forming (Iota) in the Caribbean and it was once again set on hitting Nicaragua. This one quickly built up to a Cat 5 with 160 mph winds and gusts up to 200 mph. These two hurricanes hit Nicaragua within two weeks of each other and made landfall within 15 miles of each other, causing mass destruction and loss of lives. Once again Belize was spared the winds, but not the massive amounts of rain. So just as the rivers in Belize were receding back to normal, everything changed and they were on the rise once again.

The Atlantic usually has an average of 12 named storms per season, using the alphabet to name them. This year is the most named storms on record with 30 so far. They have gone through the alphabet and are now halfway through the Greek alphabet. The hurricane season supposedly ends in November, let sure hope so.

We are fine where we are, everything held up great. Lots of rain still coming down, but it’s all going where it is supposed to go. At this point, we have recorded close to 20″ of rain out of the two storms. A few of the plants didn’t make it, but most of them are looking good and I’m sure they will have a major growth spurt in the near future. I’m also sure there are a few trees down somewhere on the property, we just haven’t looked for them yet. This is by far the most rain we have ever experienced. If you are planning on coming down for a visit, everything should be exceptionally green, even more so than normal, if you can believe that.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering how getting into Belize through the airport went. It took a little longer because of distancing and safety precautions, but overall it went just fine. We did a free rapid Covid test at a CVS pharmacy in AZ, 72 hours prior to landing in Belize so all was a go for us once we landed.

Good news… at this point, the regulations on quarantine and where you can stay when you arrive through the airport in Belize has lightened up. I believe that all that is required now is a negative Covid test 72 hours prior to arriving here or a rapid test once you arrive here at the airport. If you choose to do the test here (and it is Negative) it will take about 30 minutes and cost you $50 usd. Of course, masks and hand washing are still required anywhere out in public, but at least the country is open back up to tourists.

Just in time for Halloween, there have been a couple bats hanging on the house and the garage. Halloween is all about vampire bats, big scary spiders, and things that creep around in the dark. Well, we do have a lot of things that creep around in the dark, big scary spiders and yes we even have real vampire bats here. So no need for fake store-bought Halloween decorations, we have the real things out here. Happy Halloween!

Since our coffee is ripening at a steady rate now, we need to pick it every few days. Last year we got just enough for me to make a couple cups of coffee and try it. This year we should get at least a few pounds once we process it. In a few years when all 40 plants are producing well, we might just need a burro with some baskets to help carry it all.

Some of the locals here roast their coffee in a pan on top of the stove. We tried that last year (since we only had a small amount) and it was a pain in the ass, so we recently ordered a small coffee roaster. This way we can control the heat and figure out how to get a constant roast the way we want it. Plus the roaster can also be used to roast our cocoa, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and other stuff from the garden. Obviously, if all the coffee plants really start producing we’ll have to have it roasted by someone who actually knows what they are doing.

Okay, so we finally got around to making a tea out of the dried coffee skins called cherry tea or cascara. I guess Starbucks even makes a latte with cascara syrup.  We brewed it up and tried it cold, as we are not real big on hot tea. It was really good with a bit of fruitiness to it, and then we added a squirt of Calamansi lime from the garden and it was even better. I guess we can now say we are growing cascara along with our coffee. So if you are staying at the Toucan Hideaway in the near future there’s a good chance you can sample some of our homegrown coffee or some cascara tea.

A few weeks ago when we were over on the coast we decided to stop in a chocolate factory and buy 10 lbs. of bulk dark chocolate that is grown and made right here in Belize. Our plan is to start playing with it so that when we start getting a lot of cocoa on our plants we will have an idea of what we are doing.  Some of our cocoa plants are 7-8 feet tall now and starting to produce, so we just want to be ready when it’s time to start making our own chocolate, plus who doesn’t want 10lbs. of chocolate.

A couple years ago we were driving around our village and saw a big tree with baggies all over it, and yes we thought that was a little strange, but at that point, everything was new to us. Well now that we know what it was, we have our own baggie tree. I guess when guava gets the size of a small baseball you need to put a baggie over them to keep the bugs from burrowing in. Once the guava starts to smell sweet or fill up the baggie they are ready to pick, so we’ve been told. We assume that the animals know they are getting ripe judging by the broken tree branches and the missing baggies of fruit.

Last week we got our small electric smoker out and smoked some snapper and barracuda that we picked up on the coast. We love smoked fish and haven’t smoked any since we use to live at the beach in Mexico, and it was delicious!

While the smoker was out we also make 5lbs. of spicy, finger-size beef snack sticks and we smoked a big pork roast for some pulled pork with homemade BBQ sauce. Of course, we wanted to share this deliciousness, so we had a few friends over for a sampling of the smoked fish and some pulled pork sandwiches. There was also corn on the cob, some fried okra from the garden, and ice cold beer. Who needs restaurants anyway?

We recently sold our two Polaris 800 4×4 quads. We didn’t use them as much as we thought we would, plus now we have a Jeep and knew they would end up just sitting in the garage. So now there is a lot more room in the garage for more toys or another project. Who knows, maybe a boat over on the coast, then we could have a lot more fish to smoke.

It’s looking like there will be a new option for shopping down in the town of Santa Elena. We don’t know if they are associated with Sam’s in the states, but we will definitely check them out once they open.

Stay safe and we will see you soon.

Recently Ruben brought over 15 Mahogany trees for us that were about 6 months old. We were concerned about how they would grow under the cover of all the other trees on the property, or if we would have to clear an area for them. He said that it would be perfect under the other trees because they will grow tall and straight in search of sunlight and we would end up with nice trees. Since that is the case, as soon as the farmers have more seeds we will get more started and hopefully, by next year we will have a few hundred mahogany trees growing on the property. I have read that they can be harvested in as little as 10 years or wait 25 years till they are fully mature. At any rate, this will be great for our son or our grandkids in the future and hopefully, they can harvest them and build something really awesome.

There are some things that you just can’t find here such as stone-ground mustard. Having all that pastrami we just made, we knew it needed a good mustard. So after looking around for quite a while we found some mustard seeds and decided that we could make our own. Kelley looked up a recipe and ended up making some good spicy mustard that goes great with the pastrami.

Other things that are hard to find here, but not impossible are pepperoncinis which also go great with a pastrami sandwich. So we ordered in some seeds and now we have about 50 plants growing. If all goes well, within a few months we should have some nice pickled pepperoncinis.

We only have a couple habanero and bird pepper plants (which is about all you really need) and they produce quite a few peppers. We usually just dry them and grind them up for later use, but we had quite a bit of ground peppers so we decided to make some hot sauces. The combinations of different spices and peppers gave each one a distinct flavor, now we just have to narrow it down to which ones we like the best. Oh…and they are all very hot!

Our coffee is starting to ripen and at this point, we are getting a small handful every other week or so. The other day Kelley was peeling the skins off the beans and asked if you could do anything with them. So a quick google search and it turns out you can make a tea with them called Cherry Skin tea or Cascara. I guess it’s a common tea in coffee-growing nations and is just catching on in the states, fetching more price per pound than the actual coffee bean itself. I’ll give it a try and let you know what I think, who knows maybe we are onto something here?

When we were initially buying all of our fruit trees we bought one called a Chinese Plum. We had no idea what it was, but we were curious to see and taste the fruit that would come off it. Well, it started to bear fruit and after a little more research we found out that a more common name is the Jujube fruit. It’s a small fruit between the size of a cherry and a plum. When green it has the texture of an apple and taste pretty good. And I guess when it turns brown it takes on more of a date flavor. It has a wide variety of culinary uses from soups to jams to wines. It’s a good thing there are a lot of different uses for this Jujube as the tree is loaded with new fruit right now and this is only the first year.

All restaurants here are still closed with the exception of takeout or delivery and that really doesn’t work for us since we are quite a ways from them. Cooking at home has been great, but the percentage of the time we usually end up making the same things over and over. So we started getting a little more creative and thinking, if we saw this on a menu would we order it? So this week we came up with a grilled lobster stuffed Portobello mushroom. Olive oil the mushroom, add some Italian seasoning, a little mozzarella cheese, topped with lobster and a few scallions on top of that. Surprisingly it was very light and it was pretty tasty too. We think it could be a keeper.

Kelley also recently made some pesto with the peanuts and basil from the garden, so we decided to fire up the pizza oven and make a lobster, artichoke heart, and pesto pizza. Of course, there were also some basic pepperoni and homemade sausage pizzas. Since we’re not going out to any restaurants we are definitely trying some new recipes and hopefully the good ones we can share with you sometime when you are down here.

Since the pizza oven was fired up, it was a great time to try out my new pizza peel that I recently made. It’s made out of scrap tongue and groove Nargosta hardwood, leftover from the house build, so it should hold up very well.

We are having a lot of fun growing and trying things here that we never thought we could grow or even knew that they existed. Plus making from scratch all the different things that we used to just run to the store and buy. We are seriously in a foodies paradise, and we are loving it!

The Egg Update

The picture of the little eggs we found in the garage a few weeks ago finally hatched. They were just what we thought they were, geckos. We let them go outside, but I think they found their way back into the garage. There are a few geckos, other lizards, and usually a toad that lives in there. I assume by all their turds around that they are eating a lot of the bugs, otherwise they probably wouldn’t be living in the garage.

The airport has been closed since March (192 days), but next week it opens back up for tourists and travel. We also just got word that restaurants can open back up to dine-in customers with reservations, but limited to ten at a time. We’ll keep you updated on how this all goes so that we can all start making plans once again.

We recently posted pictures of our elephant ear plants and how big the leaves are getting. Little did we know that they were going to bloom with a few lily type flowers. So besides the plant having these very big beautiful leaves they also get flowers. The plants down here are constantly amazing us.

Another plant that grows wild around the property is passion fruit. In my opinion, the fruit is so-so to eat, but the star of the plant is the beautiful flowers that it produces. There are a lot of flowering plants down here, but the passion fruit flower is by far my favorite. If you are ever down here visiting and there are some blooming we will definitely point them out so you can get some pictures.

Kelley saves or throws out in the yard every seed from everything, and usually, they grow. Recently she planted some papaya seeds and you guessed it, they grew. She just planted about 20 papaya trees that should produce within a year or so since their lifespan is only a few years. It might sound like a lot of plants, but once they get bigger and we determine the males from the females then we’ll thin them out. We are not big fans of fresh papaya, but dehydrated they are pretty good, plus they will be great on the bird feeders.

We’re gonna need some more monkeys! We just harvested another bunch of the small sweet apple bananas. We knew they would be ready soon and I estimated about 120 or so on this bunch. Well, I was way off…there were 183 bananas on this stalk, our biggest one so far. The last big bunch we ate as many as we could and then Kelley sliced the rest, soaked them in mango juice, and then dehydrated them. Currently, we have dehydrated mangos, pineapple, and the mango soaked bananas in the fridge and the bananas are my favorite. Looks like more banana-everything.

Outside Kelley’s office window we set up a bird feeder so she can watch all the different types of birds and get some good pictures. Well, the other day there was a big surprise when a Collared Forest Falcon landed there just 20′ outside her window. It was the biggest bird that has been on the feeder so far and being a falcon we know he wasn’t there for the fruits.

As you know we love all types of food and especially Mexican food. The problem is that a lot of the ingredients for Mexican food like we are used to are not available down here. For instance, we had to grow our own Hatch (Anaheim) green chilies, make chorizo from scratch, and hominy is impossible to find. We’ve really been craving a big pot of posole, but the main ingredient is hominy. So along with the last Amazon order, we ordered a couple of bags of dried hominy so we could finally get our posole fix. Wouldn’t you know that the very next time we were at the grocery store they had cans of hominy, and we look for it every single time we go to the store. Oh well, we finally got our fix of posole and it was soooooo good.

Recently we were sitting out back and the sun was beating down on us and we thought that it would be great if we had an umbrella on one of the tables. We found a few at the local stores, but they were very expensive. So we thought why not ask the beer distributor if they had any, after all, they are quite common at restaurants. The distributor didn’t have any and didn’t even know where we could get one. So I asked at one of the restaurants and he said he has a guy and could get me one. About a month later he called and there it was, a brand new, in the box, Belikin table umbrella, and the price was excellent! So now when you are hanging out here having a couple cold Belikins while we’re grilling something up, we’ve got you covered.

It seems that everywhere you go down here they are taking your temp before you are allowed to go inside.  At our place, we are adopting that same policy and making sure our beer is the right temp before it enters our system. So far we have had no problems with the beer and everything is good. If everyone adopted this policy then the world would be a better place, well, except for those countries where they like their beer the same temp as they are.

Just before we moved here we were sitting at a restaurant in Mexico having some pizza and beer, when a guy walked up selling old road maps. At first, I said no thank you, then I decided to take a look anyway. Turns out he had a map of the Caribbean, and since we were moving there I bought it for $5.  Once we got it home I discovered that it was a Nat Geo map from 1947. It was very cool as Belize wasn’t a country yet, it was still British Honduras. Puerto Peñasco, MX where we lived was on the map, but San Carlos, MX was not.  Anyway, we finally got it mounted to a board and hung up in the garage. It’s great to look at this 73-year-old map and see everything that has changed over the years.

Speaking of change, the Toucan Hideaway has changed a lot this year. From the new deck, pizza oven, smoker, and tables out back, to getting reliable internet. The fruit trees are starting to mature, all the landscaping plants around the house are filling in and the grass is starting to fill in over the rocks in the driveway. Whether you’ve been here before or it will be your first time, you’ll love what we’ve done.

Hope to see you soon.

Hurricane Nana passed through Belize in the middle of the night. At least up here where we are there was very little wind and even less rain. We never lost power and it pretty much seemed like any other night, with the exception of waiting for what could happen. We woke up this morning to calm, blue, semi cloudy skies. The birds were out making noises and everything around here looked great!

We have slowly been taking down some trees that we thought were too close to the house. This storm was sort of a wake up call that we really need to get the rest of them down soon. We feel like we got lucky this time, so it looks like this Labor Day weekend we will be thinning out some more trees.

It looks like Belize is going to take a direct hit tomorrow from hurricane Nana, and I’m not talking about Kelley. It is currently a tropical storm, but it’s expected to become a hurricane later today. I guess this is the earliest “N” named storm ever recorded. I think we are prepared for it.  Everything is fuled up, extra water, lots of food, flashlights everywhere, generator and chainsaws are working, all butane tanks are full and a good supply of beer. We’ll keep everyone posted on how it all goes.

Well, the so-called second wave of this Covid virus has hit Belize and hit it hard. The country has gone from 40 total cases a month ago to close to 1,000 now. So at this point, we are back on a two week lock-down, no social gatherings, curfews in place, plus a lot of businesses closed. So we are just laying low and trying to be as safe as possible. We had big hopes that the country had this under control and we were starting to get back to a normal routine, but that changed when everyone let their guard down and carried on like nothing had ever happened. The Prime Minister announced that October 1st the airport will open back up and a couple of airlines have schedules in place. Let’s hope this works.

Back in May, Antonio (who built our house) was out at his farm when he came across a baby owl who was sitting on the ground by its dead mother.  He called us about it and we passed on information to him about the Belize Raptor Center. They said they would come out and pick it up. So Antonio carefully took the owl home until they could get there.

The center cared for this tiny Mottled Owl for 3 months until it was finally old enough and ready to be released back into the wild. It was a long way back to the farm where they found her, so we suggested that they could release her on our property. They liked that idea, so one evening as the sun was setting, Antonio and his family gathered at our place to watch the release. The cage was opened and the owl looked around for a minute and then took off up into the trees. If it wasn’t for everyone’s efforts this baby owl never would have had a chance to survive on its own. The Raptor Center told us that the owl should not venture too far from our property, so maybe we’ll get to see her again sometime.

The Belize Raptor Center rescues and rehabilitates injured and orphaned birds of prey, while they inspire the conservation and education of these magnificent creatures. The Raptor Center should definitely be on your list of things to visit when you are in Belize.

The other day while moving a light-up sign in the garage, we noticed some of these round white things the size of peas. At first, we thought they were some type of spider eggs until one rolled off the table and broke just like a regular egg. Since there are a lot of geckos in the garage we suspect that’s what they are. So at this point, they are in a jar and once they hatch we’ll let you know what they really are.

Well, the iguanas are still hanging around and this one seems to have taken up residence in our moringa tree. With all the healthy benefits of the moringa, he should be one healthy iguana. By the way, our moringa tree we planted just two years ago from seed is already well over 20′ tall. We mostly use the leaves for tea even though there are many other ways to get all the healthy benefits from this “Tree of Life”.

Bananas! We usually pick our bananas when they are green and then hang them on the porch for a few days where they will start to ripen. Usually, a few will ripen every day, well not this time, all 70 on the bunch decided to ripen at the same time. The good thing is that these are small apple bananas and are about half the size and twice as sweet as a regular banana.

Since they were all ready at once we had to get busy using them up. So first thing on the list was some banana daiquiris. Then there was some banana strawberry ice cream, banana cream pie, and some banana honey jam. We are still going to have to find some more recipes because our next stalk of bananas has over 120 on it and they will be ready to pick in a couple weeks or so.

Our pineapple crop all started with cutting the tops off and planting them and then waiting two years for them to produce. Now that we have pineapples we can take the slips (small shoots that grow under the fruit) and plant them. These will only take about a year before they start to produce as opposed to 2 years from the top. At this point, we have about 100 plants, and every time we pick one, we plant 3-7 more slips.

The garden just keeps on giving and this time it was dragon fruit! I know they always say that the fruits or veggies you grow yourself are better than any you could ever buy. That was definitely the case with these dragon fruits. They are sweet, juicy, and oh so good.

This being the wet season we have been getting a little bit of rain almost daily, just enough that we don’t have to water the garden. The other day started out with clear blue skies ( I even washed the truck) until about noon when the rain started. It rained heavily for about an hour then clear skies for an hour and then more rain for another hour. In that short amount of time, we recorded over five inches of rain. All the water was flowing where it was supposed, so everything here was good.

Before we moved here, a client of ours gave us a grinding mill that in the future we could use for coffee and other things. The other day Ruben brought over a sack of dried corn that needed to be ground for chicken feed. We ran it through the mill once and it was perfect. He told us that usually, he would have to pay and send it by bus somewhere to be ground because there isn’t a machine anywhere around here.

In exchange for grinding the corn, Ruben chopped down a tree that had fallen on the casita after the big rains.  We try to keep the trees cut back from the buildings, but this one broke a good 20′ up and had to fall somewhere.

Recently we picked up a couple more slabs of wood. The round one will go on a tree stump out back as a tabletop. As for the other one, no plans yet, but I’m sure we will think of something.

A LITTLE OF THIS AND A LITTLE OF THAT

Recently a gas station in town was selling margaritas when you purchased gas. I guess everyone is getting a little creative in their marketing.

Our friend at the beer distributor sells slices of cake once a week that his wife makes. Beer and cake in one stop, you can’t beat that. The chocolate cake was fantastic!

We just traded our old tires off the truck for some fresh beef and vegetables. Not too bad considering we were just going to dispose of the tires anyway.

There was never a shortage of TP down here, but now there are no canning jars. We were told that since everyone in the states is now doing home canning there are none available to ship to Belize.

There is a company here that all they do is shipping, so when you order something you send it to their warehouse in Texas, and in a couple of weeks, it’s here ready for pickup. On the back of their shirts is says “It’s just like Christmas”. It makes sense because sometimes you just forget what you ordered on Amazon.

That’s about what’s happening here, hopefully, within the next couple of months, we will be able to make a trip up to the states to meet our new granddaughter.

There’s not much happening around here in the way of new adventures or excitement lately, even the animals seem to be laying low. The things that are keeping us busy around here is tending to the garden and making some good food. So here is a little update on the food situation at the Toucan Hideaway.

Up in the garden, it was time to get the old tomato plants pulled out and get something new in there. Since we already had some good trellis set up where the tomatoes were, we decided to plant cucumbers for pickling. Prior to the tomatoes that same area is where we previously had planted peanuts. Of course, when you pull up the peanuts there are always a few that are left in the ground, and of course, they grew. So as we pulled out the dead tomatoes we also had some peanuts that were ready to dig up and be roasted.

Besides the new pickle plants, we also just put in some bush beans, romaine lettuce, and yellow squash. The okra is still doing good and the sweet corn is starting to get a bunch of ears on them. Good sweet corn is sometimes hard to find here or it’s pretty expensive, so we are excited to hopefully have some good corn.

We also still have a variety of peppers growing and a few artichoke plants that we have big hopes for. And of course, there is a handful of pineapples that are just about ready to be picked. There are also a few cilantro plants that Kelley loves, me not so much.

The one thing we are really excited about is our 12 or so asparagus plants, where some of the shoots are already starting to get as thick as a pencil. Hopefully, by next year we will have a constant crop of asparagus, especially since it’s very expensive here, about $1 a stalk at the market.

Well, this was our first time making chocolate out of cacao that we actually grew. It was quite a process, we had to ferment all the seeds for a while, then dry them in the sun and then roast and peel them until we had cacao nibs. After that, we put them in a food processor and ground them until they turned into a powder and then eventually a creamy texture where some sugar was added. After that, it was into a double boiler to temper it so it will harden correctly. I really had doubts about this whole process, but considering it was our first time making chocolate from scratch it turned out amazing. We ended up pouring the chocolate over some of our homegrown peanuts and some of them even got topped with a fresh raspberry from the garden. Everything except the sugar was grown in our garden and who knows maybe we just need to grow some sugar cane. Anyway who would have thought you could grow chocolate candy, I thought you could only grow veggies in the garden.

After making all the chocolate treats there were some peanuts leftover. Instead of just eating them, Kelley went out and picked a bunch of basil and made some pesto. Usually, Kelley uses pine nuts to make pesto, but they are hard to find down here. In the past she has made pesto using cashews, almonds, peanuts, pine nuts and they all have their own very unique flavor.

Currently, four of our banana plants have bunches on them. There are the local bananas which are just like regular bananas, the apple bananas that are small and sweet, then there are the plantains that are good for cooking or to make chips with. Our biggest bunch to date is the apple bananas and there are at least 120+ bananas on the stalk. It looks like more banana-everything is in our future.

This season our coffee plants are doing quite well and we know that as time goes on they will do even better. Only a couple of plants are loaded like the one in this picture, but most of them do have berries on them.

Good fresh deli-style meats pretty much do not exist down here. So for the past couple of weeks, we have been curing nine beef briskets that were finally ready to be processed. Three of the briskets will be saved for corned beef; one for corned beef and cabbage and the other two sliced up for some reuben sandwiches.

The other six will be seasoned, smoked, and steamed for pastrami. As for the pastrami…well, it’s getting sliced, vacuum-sealed, and ready to be made into some of the best sandwiches in Belize.

Oh, and our little restaurant outback finally opened up again and this time it opened as a Jerked Chicken Shack. They served jerked chicken, fry jacks, and grilled sweet corn. Of course, a meal like that would not be complete without a couple cold Belikin’s and some Marie Sharp’s pepper sauce. The sweet corn actually came from the field next to us and was some of the best corn we have had down here. Our sweet corn that we planted a while back should be ready in about a month and we can’t wait to try it.

We have no shortage of good fresh food down here and hopefully someday when you come for a visit we can share it with you.

We get asked all the time about what kind of animals we have seen down here. I’ve already posted pictures of some of the birds, lizards, and colorful insects we have around here, so this time I will tell you about the other animals we have seen on the property. Birds are easy to get a picture of, but the animals on the ground will take off as soon as they see you. So most of these pictures are pulled from the web as we don’t always have a camera ready when we do see something.  Anyway, these are the animals we’ve seen on the property so far, we have seen other animals in our travels around Belize, but these are there ones around the house.

Margay Cat

The Margay is a small cat that rarely gets bigger than about 8 lbs. It’s a nocturnal hunter that spends most of its life in the treetops. A Margay’s ankles can rotate 180 degrees allowing him to climb down a tree headfirst.

Tayra or Bush Dog

The Tayra is a member of the weasel family and can get up to 48″ long including its tail. They do most of their hunting by scent since they have relatively poor eyesight.

Nine-Banded Armadillo

This armadillo is one of the largest species weighing up to 22 lbs. Unlike other armadillos, this one can not roll itself up into a ball. However, it is capable of floating across rivers by inflating its intestines, or by sinking and running across riverbeds. It is possible to sink and run across the bottom due to the fact that it can hold its breath for up to 6 minutes.

Paca, Gibnut, or Royal Rat

The Paca is the sixth-largest rodent in the world, weighing up to 30 lbs and reaching a length of 30″. They are great swimmers and when threatened will dive and can stay submerged for up to 15 minutes. They can also jump up to 3′ in the air and when threatened will freeze for up to 45 minutes. These are very common animals around here.

Tamandua Collared Anteater

The Collared Anteater will get up to about 60″ long and a weight of around 18 lbs. They eat mostly ants and termites, scooping them up with their amazing 18″ tongue.

White-Nosed Coati

Coatis are omnivores and will reach a weight of 18 lbs. Coatis also have ankles that can rotate 180 degrees allowing them to walk down a tree headfirst. Their long snout-like nose can rotate up to 60 degrees in any direction to aid in their search for food. We have seen a lot of Coatis around the property, and as many as 15 at a time.

Jaguarundi

The Jaguarundi is a medium-sized cat, getting up to around 15 lbs. Unlike other cats, the Jaguarundi is mainly active during the day. We have seen brown ones and a black one with 3 kittens walking behind her.

 Gray Fox

We have seen a few of the gray foxes in our driveway from time to time. And unlike other canines, the Gray Fox can climb trees.

Opossum

Opossums are marsupials, meaning they have a pouch like a kangaroo. When threatened or harmed they will “play dead”. When playing dead their lips are drawn back, the teeth are bared, saliva foams around the mouth, the eyes are half-closed and a foul-smelling fluid is secreted from the anal gland. There are quite a few possums around here, we usually see them at night eating the fruit we put out for the birds.

Agouti

The Agouti is a rodent that is related to the Guinea Pig. Agoutis can grow up to 24″ in length and weigh up to 9 lbs. They are renowned for being very fast runners, able to keep hunting dogs occupied with chasing them for hours.

Yucatan Squirrel

Squirrels are constantly running around the yard and jumping from tree to tree and gathering cohune nuts.

Kinkajou

Kinkajous or Honey Bear is not closely related to any other tree-dwelling mammal group. They are seldom seen by people because of their nocturnal habits. When the fruits are ripe in the trees above our house we have seen four at a time up there feeding.

These are just the animals that we have personally seen on our property, we know there are a lot more out there that we just haven’t seen yet. We have neighbors who have seen Jaguars, Deer, Peccaries, and Monkeys all around this area. Most of these animals are very active at night and that’s when we should be out looking for them. It’s just that neither one of us has got the guts to take a walk in the dark, dense jungle in the middle of the night.

It’s hard to believe that it has already been two years this June that we have been living in the jungles of Belize. I guess time really does fly by when you are very busy and squeezing in a little fun too. Anyway, we were looking back at some pictures of how the Toucan Hideaway has evolved over the past couple of years and we thought we would like to share them with you.

The Driveway

The first thing we had to do was to get a road cut into the property. Once we found a spot where the house could go, a good solid road had to be laid down. Lots of cutting, burning, scraping, and solid material going down, but finally, there was an all-weather road that we could drive on. Eventually, it was finished up with an entry gate and fence.

The Guest House

Next on the list was to build a small house where we could live while they were building our home. We ended up living in the guest house for 6 months until our place was done. Now that we have moved out, it’s a great guest house for family and friends when they come for a visit.

Our Jungle Home

The spot we chose for the house turned out to be perfect. We wanted it set between two big Cohune palm trees, plus be back in the shade a little to help keep the house cool on the inside.

The Garage

Of course, we had to have a garage of some type to store our stuff and to work on projects. The original plan was for it to be a little bigger, but we downsized it a little and it turned out perfect.

The Garden

We needed a big garden but didn’t want to clear too much land. When they cleared along the road to install our power poles they cut a bunch of big trees along it. So we went in and cleared that section up and left a buffer of smaller trees to grow along the roadside. That way we ended up with a nice garden section that is not visible from the road.

The Outdoor Kitchen and Bar

Our original plan was to build the BBQ into the porch so that we could still cook when it rained. Then we thought about how much we loved our big outdoor palapa kitchen in Mexico and decided why not build something like that here. So that’s when we got carried away and decided that it might as well have everything we’ve ever wanted. Once it was done there was a big built-in BBQ grill with rotisserie, a brick pizza oven, a smokehouse, a sink, and a big deck with wood slab tables where everyone could hang out.

Of course, there were many problems and setbacks along the way. Such as, when we were ready to build the main house there was no wood available, or a 3-hour drive for materials sometimes two or three times a day. Anyway, It’s been a very busy two years for us to create our own little piece of paradise in the Belizean Jungle. We say we are done building and doing stuff around here, but with ten acres and crazy ideas, you never know what we’ll do next.

Hope we see you at the Toucan Hideaway soon.

Okay, so here are a few of the more colorful birds that we have seen around here. All the bird pictures were taken within 100′ or so from our front door. With the exception of the Scarlet Macaw that was taken on our recent trip up to a lake and the Roseate Spoonbill that was taken on Ambergris.

Kelley is constantly going out with her camera every time she hears birds or noises in the bush. Which is great because she is getting some wonderful pictures for us to share. Hope you enjoyed them.

Belize is home to around 600 different types of birds, which makes it fairly easy to spot a different bird almost every day. Of course, everyone wants to see a big colorful Toucan, Scarlet Macaw, or Parrot, but there are many other smaller and less colorful birds all around also. This time I will post pictures and hopefully names of other birds that usually get no attention. All these pictures are taken by Kelley using a Nikon camera with a 70-300mm lens. There is also some editing on the computer to help with cropping and light conditions.

That’s just a few of the not so flashy, but beautiful birds we have seen around the house so far.

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.