Supposedly December was the start of the dry season in Belize. Someone here didn’t get that notice this year, as it has rained almost every day at our place in December. The past few months have been really wet and muddy around here, plus there was a hurricane thrown in. We’ve been trying to get our road fixed for a few months now, but it’s still too wet. And then to quote cousin Eddy from Christmas Vacation “Shitter’s full”.  So we had to get a septic truck out here to pump it out. He got here first thing in the morning with an empty truck and still only managed to get 3/4 of it before his tank was full. The ground has been so saturated from all the rains, in fact so far this year we have recorded 64″ of rain. I guess that’s all part of living in a green jungle.

Darren was just down for a visit and to check on his house. The construction is done and it was time to furnish it. He got beds, couch, recliner, barstools, microwave, tv and a bunch of other things that will make it more comfortable. It really came together and is looking like a home, and he even spent a couple of nights there. Of course, there are still things to do around there, but it is completely livable. The entire time he was here it rained every day, which made for a muddy mess everywhere. When he comes back in a few weeks with family hopefully the rains will have stopped and everything has dried out a bit.

It’s time for Ruben to plow our other lot and get ready for the new crops. That’s all great, but there were still a lot of good looking basil plants growing there. So before the plows came we went and rescued a few nice basil plants to put in pots around our place. We also picked a huge hefty trash bag full of leaves that we threw in the dehydrator for future use. The new crops going in are bush beans, purple carrots, beefsteak tomatoes, red pear tomatoes, habaneros, and green chilis. And if everything goes well there should be a whole lot of everything in a few months.

It’s been a few months since we’ve had any bananas on our plants, but now they are starting to produce again. Which is good because now we can quit buying them every week at the market. Also, we just ate our last loaf of banana bread, so now Kelley can start making some more. These are our favorite sweet little apple bananas that we think make the best banana bread.

We just picked 50 lbs. of cacao pods off our plants. A couple of weeks ago we also picked a bunch that is still in the drying stage. Our trees are getting really big and producing lots of cacao. Hopefully, over the holidays we will have time to process all this and turn it into some good dark chocolate. We still have a bunch of dried from earlier in the year that is vacuumed sealed and ready to be roasted and turned into chocolate. It’s a shame Kelley doesn’t like chocolate, but that’s fine with me because I love it!

Recently we roasted a pig on our rotisserie, as it turned out it was too big so we had to remove the head to make it fit. Well, we finally got around to doing something with the head. We brined it for five days in our bacon cure and then smoked it for a few hours with mesquite wood. You would not believe how good it turned out. Kelley diced it up for tacos and it tasted like a bacon/ham combo with just enough fat, plus the crunchy skin made for a nice little crunch. We have cooked many pig heads in the past, but this is probably the best one yet.

We love our natural wood house and wouldn’t change anything, except for maybe a simpler railing design around the porches. The railing needed to be refinished, but it’s impossible to get in and sand around all those tight angles. So we made the decision to pressure wash and scrape it as good as we could and then paint the porch railings instead. We started with the casita to see what it would look like before we tackled the main house. It does add a little more pop of color around here and it should be a lot easier to maintain in the future.

Recently we ordered in a couple of LED spotlights to point up at the trees above the back patio. It doesn’t make it any brighter out there, it just adds some uplighting. Of course, there is a wide variety of light colors to choose from depending on our mood. Currently, we have it on a green setting which we think looks pretty good.

Earlier this year we were at a craft fair over on the coast where we found a unique Christmas decoration. It’s a Christmas tree made entirely out of sea glass and even has a heart-shaped piece of coral for the top. It’s hollow up the middle so a string of lights fits up the center. Definitely a one of a kind piece.

We’ve been so busy this December that Christmas snuck up on us real quick. We did manage to get a few lights up around the house and some decorations inside, but that’s about it. We just haven’t gotten into the Christmas spirit this year and all of a sudden it’s a week before Christmas. We opted not to put our tree up, have the swinging monkeys hanging garland, or even put lights around the back patio.  We haven’t even heard any Christmas songs or watched any Christmas movies yet. Kelley did manage to get some Christmas cookies made and we will still have our annual eggs benedict on Christmas morning. Every year we cook a prime rib roast for Christmas, but this year we are just doing a store bought ham. With only a week left before Christmas hopefully we can get a little Christmas spirit before it’s gone.

Here’s wishing everybody a very Merry Christmas!