June is here and the weather has started to calm down a bit. This past couple of weeks we’ve had cooler temps, cloudy days and even some rain. Since rain was predicted, I decided to fertilize all the trees and plants that we’ve ever planted, and that’s a lot! The next day we had a good rain for about a half hour, so everything should have some nice growth spurts coming up and be nice and healthy looking.

Now that the weather has gotten better, we were able to get back out and get some things done around here. All of the cacao trees in the garden were overgrown, and you couldn’t get under them to get the cacao pods, so they all got a good trimming. Last year Ruben cut down a couple of big palm trees out behind the BBQ, but the bases were still a good 6-8′ tall sticking out of the ground. We got the truck up in there with the winch and got them pulled out, and then dragged back a little farther. We’re still looking for ideas of what to do with that area we just had cleared. Maybe some garden paths lined with colorful tropical plants, or more cacao trees, a greenhouse, a small pond with a waterfall, a hen house, or maybe nothing at all. I’m sure at some point we’ll come up with something.

The other day I was up in the garden and there it was, a big bright patch of orange in the palm tree. One of the Cohune seed pods had just opened up, and the pod was standing straight up. The orange part of the pod was at least five to six feet long, and being that big and bright, it really stood out against the dense green jungle. Just when you look out and think everything is shades of green, something will surprise you.

Not too often we walk the trails around the property, but the weather was decent, so why not. Since we had some rain last week we were mostly on the hunt for oyster mushrooms. We didn’t find any, but we did find another orchid to relocate back near the house. Now we’ll just have to wait for it to bloom to see what it is.

Every so often we clean our windows and wash all the screens, not as often as we probably should. Anyway, a few weeks ago we got them all cleaned up and shiny, and now it seems like every few days a bird will crash into a window. Most of them just fly away, others will sit on the porch for ten minutes or so before they take off, and then there are some that just don’t survive. It makes me wonder if we should just keep our windows dirty to help protect the birds.

One bird that we don’t have to worry about hitting the windows are the hummingbirds. They will zoom inches from your face and weave in and out around the porch railing faster than you can imagine. We have two feeders pretty much right on the front porch, and the birds will let you get within a foot or so of them. Of the twenty-five species of hummingbirds in Belize, the White Necked Jacobin is very common around our place. At times there will be 5-10 all chasing each other away from the feeders. If you are wondering how fast hummingbirds are, in general, they fly around 30 mph and more than 45 mph during courtship dives. To move that fast, their wing beat is around 70 times per second in regular flight, and more than 200 times per second while diving. It’s no wonder they sound like a jet when they go by.

The other day we noticed a small white spot on a leaf of the basil plant. Upon further investigation we discovered that it was a small Mahogany Tree Frog. After looking him up on Google, we found out that he is nocturnal and is white during the day while he sleeps. At night though, he changes color to yellow and even orange. Next time we’ll keep him around until the evening so we can see him wake up and change colors.

Last week Kelley was walking around the yard and looked down and thought she had lost a back to one of her earrings. When she bent over to pick it up, it turned out to be a beetle. Of course, she got some pictures of it and we had to look it up to see what it was. Turns out it was a Target Tortoise Beetle. He was only about an 1/8″ long, looked like someone dipped him in gold glitter, he had a clear looking tortoise shell with a black target on it. There are certainly a lot of interesting insects down here.

We’re getting some more plants ready for the garden. This time we’ve got habaneros and artichokes. The last time we got habaneros from our produce stand in the village, the peppers were huge, so we saved some seeds to see if they would grow. They did grow and are looking very healthy, so hopefully we’ll get some good peppers out of these plants. We keep trying to grow artichokes, and either they die before they go into the ground, or the ones that do make it never produce an artichoke. I know that they grow great on the cool coast in central California, and we have also grown them in the Arizona heat, so I think that they should grow here. Kelley and I love artichokes, but they are simply not available in Belize, which is why we keep on trying to get them to grow.

Sunday morning we decided to pick the ripe grapefruit off the tree to give the new ones a better chance of getting big. While we were up there we also grabbed a few pineapples, local oranges and I think the last of the starfruits. Looks like it will be a good fruity breakfast this week.

We always have something from the garden on the front porch, either ripening or drying. Whether it’s pineapples, tomatoes, oranges, coffee, or cacao, we’ve never had a problem with critters until now. Last night something got up on the porch and went to town on one of our pineapples. We assume it was a possum, because we’ve seen a few around here lately. It looks like we are going to have to start bringing everything in before we go to bed.

One thing we love about living here is how everyone shares things they are growing. The other day for example, Ruben came down with some avocados. Our trees are not producing yet, so this was a great treat for us. And since Ruben doesn’t have Starfruit trees and we do, we gave him a bag full. A couple of weeks ago, he brought down some bananas and we gave him some okra and peppers. Soon we will be swapping some of our pineapples for some sweet corn and tomatoes. It’s great when everyone is growing something different and shares.

We ended up with a lot more starfruit than we thought we had on the tree. We’ve eaten a bunch, juiced some and given quite a bit away, but there was still more. So Kelley decided to try making a couple jars of starfruit jam. She made some with just the starfruit and the other she added some raspberries. They both turned out very good, and we will be making this again once the tree starts getting more fruit.

We are now making giant-sized dark chocolate candy bars. Now all we have to do is come up with some packaging and I’m sure somebody would want one. Actually, this is the cacao beans after they had been ground smooth for many hours and then poured onto a cookie sheet and let cool. This time we did two batches back to back and now all we have to do is temper it and pour it into some smaller molds.

That’s about it this time, hope all you dads have a Happy Father’s Day!