With us loving to cook, trying new foods and just a basic love of food, we really have to appreciate that you can just go out and find different wild edible plants growing around us. The other day Ruben found theses beautiful Oyster mushrooms growing on a palm tree right by the house. We have found some before close to the house, but we have never gone out and foraged for them. As soon as we get in our kitchen and can really start cooking again we will grab a bucket and be on the hunt for more of these tasty mushrooms.

The house is still moving along. This week they took down all the scaffolding, allowing us to really see how big the porch is. On the front of the house the porch is 10’ x 26’ and along the side it is 7’ x 20’ which should be great for relaxing and entertaining. Currently, they are making all the window molding, tiling the shower and a bunch of other finish detail work. At this point, we can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Last Sunday we were going to paint the new fence but it started to rain, so football and beer sounded like a much better idea. Monday was a bright sunny day so we got out there and painted that sucker up. We think it looks good and blends nicely into the surroundings. We spent all of Saturday building and painting the first gate, we will build the other one next weekend and it should go a lot faster now that I have a good pattern.

We also had another truckload of gravel brought in to help finish up the road and to help with the mud when it rains. The whole thing is really starting to come together all at once. The contractor’s son (who is around 12 yrs) has been here all summer helping out, the other day he told me that we are building a beautiful resort. Not quite a resort, but in the eyes of some, I guess it could look that way.

The garden area where we planted all the trees is doing very well, lots of new leaves on all the trees. Although there is one little problem, we have a mole. I wouldn’t think too much about it but he is eating the roots on my cocoa plants and that will result in less chocolate, which makes that a problem. I have dug up his holes at night, during the day and even in the pouring rain all with no luck. I have even set a trap and sat out there at night with a pellet gun, but still nothing. I will get him you just wait and see. I know this is where you start singing the song from Caddy Shack.

We went to Belmopan (the capital of Belize) the other day to see about getting a permit for my LED light bar on top of our truck. The head of transportation told us that they are not issuing any permits for any type of extra lights on any vehicles. This order came down from the Ministry with the reason being that people were not turning them off when driving on public roads and cars are crashing.  Also, it has become a competition as to who can have the brightest lights. So at this point, it is now illegal to have any lights on your vehicle that did not come with it. I hate to take this light bar off especially when I see other vehicles still with them on, but on the other hand, I’d hate to end up in jail over a light bar infraction.

The creature feature of the week is the Tapir or Mountain Cow which is the national animal of Belize. This picture was taken at the Belize zoo, but they do roam all over the country. I have heard that there are a lot of them in Mountain Pine Ridge area which is right by us. Tapirs are herbivores eating mostly plants and fruits along the river banks. They spend a lot of time in the rivers as they are excellent swimmers as well as agile climbers. They are a big animal getting up to six feet in length and weighing up to 500 lbs. I guess they are hard to spot in the wild but their tracks are easily identified because their hoofs have 4 toes in the front and 3 in the rear. They range from southern Mexico to Columbia, but are now endangered due to poaching. Belize has the biggest population of these mammals so there is a decent chance of us seeing one in the wild someday.