As most of you know we love plants and gardening. One of many things that attracted us to Belize was the year round growing season and the ability to grow all kinds of tropical plants and fruits. Our plan is to have a big vegetable garden with all kinds of fruit trees around the property. Besides that we will also have the ability to grow other things such as allspice, cinnamon, black pepper corns, coffee beans, vanilla and cocoa (chocolate) just to name a few. As you can see in the picture below the soil on the property is a deep rich black soil where any plant would love to plant it’s roots. No need for any chemically enriched fertilizers here.

This last time while we were there exploring the property we noticed that there were a lot of different types of mushrooms growing on old logs.

I know that there a lot of different types of wild mushrooms that are excellent to eat and I also know that there are other ones that are not considered food. If you know what I mean.

Since Kelley and I both love mushrooms, we were thinking how great would it be if we could hunt wild mushrooms right in our own back yard. So the next time we saw Ruben we asked him about the mushrooms and he told us that indede there are a few different types that are very good to eat. He said that every so often he will come out and gather some for his meals. I actually think his wife says “I need mushrooms for tonights meal, go find some”. Just kidding, she’s not like that at all. He did tell us that his wife does make a delicious stroganoff with certain ones and others she will deep fry and they are very good. Once we are there we will have to get the mushroom course from Ruben to make sure we are gathering up the good ones.

There is this beautiful plant that gets this small bright red fruit on the top leaves. From what we have seen, the plant only gets 4-5′ tall and bears only one or two fruits per plant. We are still not sure what kind of plant it is and Ruben didn’t have a name for it. He did tell us that the kids like to eat the fruits when they turn bright red. The way I figured was that if the young children can eat it without any problems then so can I. What happen next was pretty unexpected…it was actually good. Not saying that I would seek them out as a regular part of my diet, but if I’m hiking around the property and see some, then sure I’d have one every so often.

Another thing we found while wondering around was an abandoned bird nest. We made the assumption that it was not a parrot or a toucan nest. The first clue was that there were no brightly colored red, yellow or green feathers in the nest. The second clue was that it was only a little over an inch tall. Yes we are geniuses. Anyway we are guessing that maybe it was a hummingbirds nest, but with close to 600 species of birds in Belize who knows for sure. I’m positive that over time we will learn to recognize certain birds and what types of nest they build.

We have seen many different types of spiders and insects around the property and most of them are very colorful and amazing to look at. Many times we have called out to each other to come over here and check this out. A lot of the time it’s because of the colors or the size of the insect, but mostly it’s because it’s something we’ve never seen before. From what Ruben has told us there are very few insects there that are dangerous to humans. A lot of people have been asking us how we will deal with all the big scarry bugs. I tell them that no matter where you live you have big scarry bugs, you are just used to them because you know what they are and what to do with them. In time we will learn what bugs to stay away from and what ones to not worry too much about, just like we did with black widows, centipedes and scorpions in the desert.

Kelley and I are very lucky to be able to explore and learn more about the country of Belize with it’s rich history and wonderful people. Hopefully very soon we will be able to call this special place our home.