Rock’n the island

San Pedro on the island of Ambergris.

San Pedro here we come! Just a 2 hour drive and a 15 minute flight from our place and we were on the island of Ambergris for a few days of fun in the sun and some great music. The music lineup was  Jim Dalton and Nick Scropos (Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers) along with the Jons, and Jeremy Lawton (Big Head Todd & the Monsters).

Jim Dalton, Nick Scropos The Jons, and Jeremy Lawton all having a great time.

Kelley, Amanda and I met up with Ron, Rhonda and a few other friends out on the island for a fun filled weekend. It seems everybody at the shows were big fans of the musicians and most of everyone had seen them at Circus Mexicious. It was great meeting new friends and sharing stories about all the people, places and concerts we’ve all seen in Puerto Penasco, Mexico.

Dave, Kelley, Jim and Amanda hanging at the 303 bar in San Pedro.

After a great show on Friday night, Saturday we all headed over to Secret Beach to soak in the warm Caribbean waters with friends. Many of the bars at Secret Beach have tables waist deep out in the water where they will serve you food and drinks. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Rhonda, Kelley and Amanda in the crystal clear waters at Secret Beach.

When we are at Secret Beach we usually order a bucket of beer, but with 5 of us drinking beer and only 6 beers in a bucket, that was going to keep our waiter pretty busy. So they informed  us that they have a mega bucket full of ice and a whole case of beer. That just seemed like the way to go for the making of a great afternoon.

The mega bucket of beer! Okay we might have ordered two.

After another great show that night, there was a booze cruise the next day over to the island of Caye Caulker with the whole group to soak up more fun & sun. Caye Caulker is about a half hour boat ride from San Pedro or two rum punches depending on how you time it.

Living it up at the Lazy Lizard in Cay Caulker.

It was a great long weekend with old and new friends who all came together to support theses fine musicians. Hopefully we’ll see some of you down here next year for the show.

Back to the jungle

The other day I was out front and heard this rustling up in the trees just a few feet off the front porch. I called for Kelley to grab the camera and there he was, a big Tayra (Bush Dog) up in the tree. He took off once he saw us, but not before Kelley snapped off a bunch of pictures. Tayras can get up to 48″ long including their big bushy tail and weigh up to 15lbs. They are omnivores, hunting rodents, small mammals, birds, lizards, fruits and honey. They locate prey primarily by scent, having relatively poor eyesight, and actively chase it once located, rather than stalking or using ambush tactics. They are active during the day which is why we have seen a few of them around here in the past.

Tayras are excellent tree climbers and have the ability to climb straight down a tree.

Amanda (who lives about a mile from us) has had a family of Howler Monkeys hanging out in the trees above here house. We went over there to check them out and for Kelley to get some pictures. Howler monkeys are considered to be the loudest land animals and can be heard up to 3 miles away. We constantly hear them at our place, but have yet to see any on our property.

This is not the zoo, this is above Amanda truck in her yard. There is a lot of stuff to eat in those trees, and you think birds make a mess on your vehicle, think again.

The other day Ruben was pretty excited when he told us that he saw a Harpy Eagle in a tree only a few hundred yards from our house. Harpy Eagles are on the critically endangered list in Belize and are almost never seen in the wild. We have seen a couple at the Belize zoo and they are an impressive animal. They are one of the largest and most powerful raptor in it’s range. They can weigh up to 20 +lbs. and have a wing span of 7’4″. They possess the largest talons of any living eagle and have been recorded as carrying prey weighing up to their own body weight. Ruben seems to think that this one is hanging around because of all the new little lambs in the neighbors field. Hopefully we will get a chance to see him and Kelley can get some pictures. Below is a photo I pulled off the web so you can see how impressive they are.

Thirty percent of their diet is made up of monkeys.

The wild fruits and berries must be ripening on the trees around us because we are seeing and hearing a lot more animals lately. Nearly every night we are hearing the Kinkajous up in the trees and there are a bunch of squirrels running around all day. We are also starting to see more Aricaries and Toucans in the trees. If it’s not the berries in the trees that are attracting them then it must be that I just repainted the toucans out front and they are acting as giant decoys.

After four years the toucans needed a little freshening up.

It was time to hit the nursery again for some more fruit trees. This time we got a few different types of mangos that we didn’t have. A couple more different types of avocados. More citrus including Mandarin Oranges, Valencia Oranges, Red Grapefruit and a White Grapefruit.  Plus a couple more Malay Apples and Velvet Apples.

Malay Apple is a bout the size of a small regular red apple, but it reminds me a lot of a pear in texture and flavor. They are one of my favorites.
The Velvet apple is covered in tiny hairs much like a peach. And the flavor is described as combination of apple and banana. 

We are lucky enough to have a Black Orchid growing on a tree just off the porch. The Black Orchid is the national flower of Belize and blooms almost all year round. It’s not actually black, but rather a deep dark purple. There are approximately 250 species of orchids in Belize and we have quite a few different one around the property.

The national flower of Belize.

We usually eat pretty good and healthy around here, but sometimes we just have to indulge ourselves. Awhile ago we picked up this giant 2 3/4lb. bone in ribeye cowboy steak from the butcher. We vacuum sealed it and let it age in the fridge a few weeks before we threw it on the grill. Since we were indulging ourselves we might as well throw in some lobsters. The steak was cooked to a nice char outside and rare in the middle. Of course the lobsters were of grilled with a good bathing of butter. Throw in a nice salad and a bottle of wine and it made for a great surf & turf meal.

With that much steak and lobster, of course we had leftovers.

Till next time. If you’re not having fun, then you’re probably not doing it right.