Dreamer Farm Belize

Family visiting

2012-02-08T13:26:00.000-06:00

We're now enjoying a visit from my cousin, Roger, his son, Matt and Lenae. I'm feeling like a real goose as they came in yesterday and I had my days mixed up and had planned to pick them up today from the airport. What a shock when I got a call from Roger asking me if I was almost there. They ended up taking a shuttle, as it would have taken me 2 hours to get there. They're fine with it, but I'll be beating myself up over that for months. They're so lovely to have as guests. We hadn't seen Matt since he was a tiny boy, so this is a wonderful reunion. We love being able to share the bush and the wonders of Belize with family.

We had two technicians here last Sunday to check on reprogramming our solar batteries. The news wasn't good. They think our accident probably destroyed their recharging ability. Next Sunday Elvis will bring up a battery charger capeable of charging the 24 volt system in order to bypass the restrictions of the inverter. This will be our last hope. We're getting enough energy during the day to handle our useage, but the batteries aren't able to store enough to get us thru the evening and night. We'll then have to just use them until they're totally destroyed and hope then we'll be able to afford new ones. How sad to only get two years use. For now we're just focusing on enjoying our very welcome visit of family. It's hard to complain when we're having scattered clouds and temps in the low 80's when the rest of the world is cold. My glass is still half full.

Visitors

2012-01-27T08:49:00.001-06:00

We have a small group of wonderful friends here in Belize, but there are times that we feel very cut off from the U.S. and our past life. For some folks, that's why they're here. That's not the case for us. We came for economic reasons. We sorely miss our family and friends. What a joy it was to have a visit, albeit a short one, from our dearest, long time friends, Marge & Jack. We've known Marge since our children were in preschool together. It's scarey to realize how long ago that was. They're such delightful people. We could have spent weeks together, but we picked them up from the airport on Sunday and they returned to Florida on Wednesday. Lots to catch up on in a short time. We've had a lot of rainy weather, but Belize put on her best face for them. It magically became a little overcast (which kept it from being too hot), but no rain for their visit. It was beautiful. Art & I laughed as it started raining right after we returned home. I feel so blessed now to sit back and think about our wonderful time together and am so thankful that they continue to include us in their lives.

Concorde AGM battery problems

2012-01-18T13:02:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to post for a couple of weeks, without success. Finally had to move to Firefox to remove error message. Still not sure what caused the problem with AOL. Well, here I am again.

We had a really tough three weeks from Christmas on. Problem one was the generator. Our Briggs & Stratton had bad rings and we search all over the country without success. We ended up by ordering from the dealer in Belize City. We didn't realize they were special ordering. I was told it would come in with their regular parts delivery. We finally got the rings three weeks later to the tune of $240BZ. In the meantime we were afraid of depleting our batteries even more, so spent the last of our reserves buying a Honda EU generator. This was another real lesson. The recommendation from several people was to buy a Honda. We went to Universal in Spanish Lookout and saw lots of Honda engines, but on Asian bodies. These were much cheaper than those at the Honda dealer. We asked lots of questions and found that the reason these are so much cheaper is that they're reconditioned motors and parts for the entire machine are hard to get. Enough already! ! We bo't the little Honda 300 from the dealer. It bro't me to tears to spend such dear dollars on another generator, but that's the hazard of living off-grid. The beauties of this model are, first, it's an electric start. My muscles cried, hallelujah! It also functions on demand. Most generators run all out, all the time. This little guy starts out at idle and then only increases power as needed. Thus, it's extremely quiet and very fuel efficient. This is keeping us functioning, but we are still having battery problems.

We have AGM sealed batteries. You're not supposed to equalize these, but they won't take a deep charge. The inverter keeps shutting the generator off. Elvis and I researched the web and found that there is a way to recover. He just hasn't been up to try it yet. Hoping to tackle that problem this week.

Was sad to get an email from Elvis saying that he'd get here as soon as possible, but he had a burglary at his shop and they stole a lot of his merchandise. Thievery is a huge problem here in Belize.

Our water pump had to be disabled as it wouldn't shut off. That's what initially impacted the charge on our batteries. Disabling it meant carrying water into the house. That's when you regret having a house on stilts (not really). We were lucky that we have a Rotoplas adjacent to the guest house so we could get water from it. By using our camp shower, we managed fairly well.

We pulled the pump and found that the supply hose had ruptured. Wow, why don't we have a few more problems? Now comes the real embarrassing part. They changed the installation of the pump to galvanized pipe, but water still wasn't getting to the pressure tank. The switch seemed to be ok. The problem turned out to be the new ceramic filter I installed. It was impeding the water flow. That's what caused the rupture in the first place. That was a really tough $500 lesson. We're back to the paper filters.

With company coming from the US this weekend, we're relieved to be functioning again. Things still aren't perfect, but heck, they never seem to be anyway. We'll just keep fumbling along. Two old gringos learning new lessons every day.

Electricity problems continue

2012-01-01T20:36:00.000-06:00

It's been a tough holiday time here at Dreamer Farm. We still haven't solved our electricity problems. Wouldn't have had so much trouble if our generator hadn't gone out at the same time. Hoping the parts will be in this week. Of course, this all had to happen during the holidays. Since Christmas was on Sunday, the following Monday was a holiday and then Tuesday was Boxing Day (thanks to the British), so nothing was open. We had help from an electrician who assured us that our batteries were ok, but there was an unknown drain on our system. Now, another problem surfaced with the backup generator we borrowed. It kept dieing. Not again! ! ! Elvis (yes our electrician's name is Elvis) diagnosed that the drain seems to be that the water pump in our cistern isn't shutting off. It appears that the switch directing this has gone bad, but since we couldn't charge the system because the generator didn't work, we were stopped. He took the generator back to try to fix it, but we've now gone thru the New Year's holiday without water. We were able to turn on the breakers for the house, so we have lights but are having to carry water from the Rotoplas. We have bottled water to drink and resurected our camp bag shower, so we're surviving.

Santa came to Belize again

2011-12-27T00:30:00.000-06:00

We dug into the duffle bag, stored under the bed and dusted off Art's santa suit. He would have enjoyed being Santa for more kids down here, but ended up just visiting with one group. What a lovely experience tho'. We've met a wonderful young couple who have opened a Pancake House in San Ignacio. The restaurant is next to their house, which gives them a nice situation with little overhead, and he's the minister of a small church which is across the street. They get no outside help with their funding, but give most of what they have to the children. The 19th of Dec. they fed 85 children a beautiful breakfast of bacon, an egg and pancakes and made up really nice gift bags for each of them. Art was delighted to share in this experience by being Santa to this excited group. Like children everywhere, they had stars and hope in their eyes as they gave him their wish list along with generous hugs. How we wish we could give each of them at least one special gift. We see the children here as well loved and cared for. It's so common to see a father holding the hand of a toddler, walking down the street. Most of the kids are clean and dressed proudly by their doting parents. So much of what little the parent's make is used for school fees and to take care of their children. Why do so few have so much when so many in countries like Belize, have so little? Santa's magic isn't able to fill the gap.

Early Christmas with friends

2011-12-21T12:24:00.000-06:00

We're blessed by having a few, very good friends here. Yesterday we celebrated with a lovely Christmas dinner at Betty & Robin's. The brother and sister-in-law of our friend, Diane were here for a couple of days from Florida. There were about 12 of us enjoying a fantastic dinner with more goodies than is probably healthy. We all pitched in which makes it less stressful for the host. We had a wonderful time just visiting and enjoying the sharing. We even had a round-about gift exchange. The weather turned out to be lovely so we managed "the hill" just fine. I'm so tired of worrying about our darned hill, but at least it wasn't a problem yesterday. Diane will be returning to Florida with her family for about five weeks. I'll really miss her, but am so happy that she'll have this time away.

As usual, I forgot my camera, so can't include photos, but maybe I can get some later.

It's difficult to be away from beloved family during the holidays, but some of the sadness is diminished by the hugs and companionship from dear friends. May we all be so blessed.

Happy Holidays, Gale

Generator problems

2011-12-19T12:10:00.000-06:00

We bought a Briggs & Stratton generator because, in the States, it's easy to get parts and they're very reliable. When our generator started to spit oil at us we took it in for repair. The fellows determined that the piston was good but the rings are bad. They just tell you what they need and we have to do the hunting. This turned out to be an almost impossible quest. We left it at Perfecto's shop, in pieces, carrying the piston and as many numbers from the machine as we could find,with us to Spanish Lookout. It seems inconguous that the Mennonites are the only ones in Cayo who carry parts for machinery, other than cars. Seemed like a siple task. Go over, get the part from Universal Hdwr, where we bought it, and return. Wrong! They didn't have it and said they needed better numbers. We visited three stores with the same results. Nada! Ok, back home. We have a three year old phone book in which I found the number for a place in Ladyville that specialized in B & S. They were able to tell me where to look on the machine for the model number. It was hidden way inside. After getting those numbers it turned out they didn't have them either, so we had to resort to ordering them. They might be in this week or after the first of the year. When they finally arrive we then have to figure out how to get them up here. Ladyville is adjacent to Belize City. For now we're functioning on whatever we get from the sun. Thankfully, today is occasionally sunny, so we should be able to get through the night with moderate electric use.

Once the generator problem is solved, we'll then have to assess is our solar is working properly. Hope we didn't damage it by having to pull the batteries down so far. Live and learn folks. These old folks are still learning some really hard lessons. Blessing to all. Gale

Trying times

2011-12-14T10:14:00.000-06:00

If you decide to try to live in Belize you have to be aware that the elements are hard on machines and people, things break and they're expensive to fix or replace.

Today was one of those days that feels as tho' you're being knocked down and every time you try to get up, someone else hits you a good one. We had to take our Toyota Tundra in for repair because, when it was converted over to butane, the fellow jambed the air filter into the headlight, causing a short. I was thinking that my night vision was getting worse, but discovered that one headlight was barely on. Also, we've been down here over two year so it needed a good tune-up. $$$$s.

The inverter for our solar system has been giving us very confusing messages, including no a/c power. We've tried to figure it out from the manuals, but they might as well be in Russian for all the good they did us. We could manage, at times, with the generator as backup, but it started using oil like crazy. The last couple of days it used a gallon of gas @ $10+ and a pint of oil. Took it to a fellow who does small engine repair. Has to tear it down and is probably a bad ring. $$$s.

The solar inverter gave us all kinds of blinking warning lights. (Take a deep breath). Could be bad batteries, bad inverter or who knows what. All huge dollar problems. To get local help we have to phone to Belmopan and hope for the best. HUGE $$$s. I tried to email Backwoods Solar in Idaho, but didn't have the power for the satellite, so when we took the generator in for repair we found a WIFI spot and tried to send. Bummer! AOL couldn't send emails right then. I was ready to scream or have a nervous breakdown. I took a deep breath and we headed for home, stopping to buy minutes for our cellphone so that I could phone the US. I can't sing the praises of Backwoods Solar enough. We bo't our system and appliances from them and they've always been available with patient help.Today Shawn talked me through our problems, helping me make adjustments to the settings. He told me he'd had the same issues with his system and the what we were doing was fine and he didn't see a major problem. Phew! That one was a big relief. I was able to breath again. Still, because it's so cloudy and rainy right now, we won't have much chance of producing solar power, so we'll have to supplement with lamps, but we have hopes that soon we'll be back to something resembling normal.

The trouble with a day like this when you're past earning an income and living not only off-grid, but in a whole country that feels like it's way off-grid, is that unexpected, heavy expenses are really frightening. The pot never get replenished.

We're going to go out (when the road dries so we can get down the hill) and buy a turkey or ham and I'm going to fix a Christmas dinner for us and put this out of our minds for a bit.
Blessings!

Art's home

2011-11-29T14:38:00.000-06:00

Thanks for the questions about Art's health. I'm happy to say, after having to extend his trip for over a week, he's now home and doing fine. It's going to take him a long time to be totally free of his problem with his leg, but he got wonderful care with the VA in Bend, OR and came home with medicine and instructions. He'll get checkups here as follow-up.

Our dear Bailey was so much company for me while Art was gone and he missed Art, but seemed to adapt just fine. The telling thing tho' was when Art came home and Bailey saw him. Wow, he just about turned himself inside out trying to get to Art. We've settled down now and are slowly getting back into our rut.

At the last minute I decided to fix a Thanksgiving dinner. They don't celebrate Thanksgiving down here, but the Mennonites do raise turkeys, so it's not hard to get one. They're VERY expensive tho'. We invited a few friends to share with us. One couple are Americans who have lived here for 15 years. Another couple are German and Austrian and a lady, who's husband is working in Florida, is Canadian, so we had quite a mixed group. It turned out wonderfully. Everyone contributed something, which made it easier. We missed our Thanksgivings in the States with family, but it felt good to be with friends. The best part is that we got to enjoy the leftovers.

We're having the best weather right now. It's cold at night, so we had to put a blanket on the bed, but it's warm enough during the day to still wear shorts (only around here). We have to remember this time as it will get really hot in April and May.

Army (cleaner) ants

2011-11-20T11:18:00.000-06:00

Seems I just keep going from one crisis to another. I'm going to preface this by saying that prior to moving here, we lived in the mountains or Oregon at 4200' elevation. That meant we had very few bugs. No fleas or snakes and because they sprayed in our area, no mosquitos. Now, fast forward to Belize. I've been chewed and nibbled on by a whole range of things from tiny no-see-ums to mosquitos and an assortment of flies. OK, if I pay attention and put on repellent, my pale gringo skin is relatively safe.

It was dry here for a couple of weeks and now it's started to rain a little. During our tree cutting operation I noted a line of ants moving down the hill. Rene said that that's because it's going to rain. OK, they're down there, fine. Yesterday they were back on a new path, going between the bodega and our house. Funny, for a bit they went one way, then an hour later, they were going the other way. Finally, they went the first direction again and by nightfall, they were gone. Whew!

Well, today, as I was eating breakfast on the veranda, I noticed a couple of ants on the table. When I looked down there were lines of them marching along the edge of the house. Here I have to say that I've heard from lots of folks about the cleaner ants and that if you just let them in the house, they don't damage anything, they just eat dead bugs and bits and clean your house and move on. Ick! Ick! I just couldn't handle that, altho' heaven knows I'm not a very good housekeeper. Maybe that's it. I could imagine them keeping busy for weeks! I couldn't bring myself to kill them as they're just doing what they're programmed to do, but I didn't want them in the house. I put Bailey out on a line as they were starting to swarm around him and he was totally confused and then I got the spray. I sprayed the doorways and at the base of the house and in front of them on the side of the house to discourage them from going those directions. I then sat back and watched them trundle the length of the veranda, down the pillar and within about 15 minutes they were gone.

Every day is an education in the bush.

shutter on guest house

2011-11-19T08:31:00.000-06:00

This probably sounds like a small thing, but it's turned out to be very important for the comfort of any guests we might have. I love our two guest bedrooms, but the one with the double bed, which faces east, has proven to be very hot in the morning. There isn't a veranda on that side, nor does the roof extend out very far. If we had it to do over again, we'd extend the roof a lot. Anyway, all our shutters are hinged at the side. We've kept the shutter on the east side closed most of the time to keep the sun from beating in. The problem with that is it also keeps the breeze, which generally comes from the east, from blowing in.

When Alejandro and Carlos were here, cutting down the trees, I had them remove the shutter and change the hinges to the top. Now it's propped partially open, protecting the window from the sun and the rain, but allowing us to replace the screen and have the breeze blow in.

Since the weather can be so extreme here. This should definitely be a consideration for anyone wanting to have shuttered windows. I have to add that we love our screened windows and wouldn't trade them for the louvered windows.

Cohune

2011-11-18T08:13:00.000-06:00

I hated to have to take down the trees, but it was really interesting to watch Rene take down the cohune. We've had large cohunes fall during storms and have cut down the little new ones, but this is the first time I've watched them take down a larger tree. This one was young enough that it hadn't built a trunk yet. The base of the fronds went to the ground, but it was still about 3' in diameter.

Rene told me that he's taken down lots of cohunes, especially during the many years that he ran a survey crew, mapping out much of the jungle of Belize. He's hacked his way thru the bush in all districts, even on some of the cayes. Cohunes can be deadly, as the base of the fronds is a hiding place for scorpions and snakes. This one was easier for him because we've worked around so much, most of those critters have moved back into the bush.

The fascinating thing for me was to watch him cut out the heart of the palm. I don't know if this is like what you buy in jars as "heart of palm." Rene had to use an axe to cut down the cohune as well as to get to the heart. I was so surprised to see the size and consistency of the heart. It's very white, quite soft and spongy and the piece that Rene cut out was about 9" across and over 2' long. I ate a small piece and it was slightly sweet and quite good. He took it home to see if his mother, whose in her late 80's, would cook it.

This heart isn't a common food any more, but during the 30's when the hurricane nearly wiped out Belize, the cohune kept many of the local people alive. The most common use for it now is to make oil out of the nuts. What a fascinating tree.

Taking down trees for solar

2011-11-17T07:49:00.000-06:00

As a confirmed "tree hugger" it really hurts me to take down a tree, but we've had to be practical because of our solar. This close to the equator, it gets dark between 5pm and 6pm almost year-round. The sun does move tho' from the north to the south. Right now, our small system shuts down or goes to sleep on cloudy days by 2pm. Even if we could afford them, our system has been in operation for nearly two years, so we can't add more batteries. We have to maximize what we have. We decided to cut down several trees to the west of the guest house to open up the sky in the afternoon.

I say "we", but Rene, along with two of his sons, Alejandro and Carlos, did the job. It made me so nervous to have Rene climb up the trees, but I had to leave it in his hands. They work so hard and are so good natured about it all. They cut down five trees, most of which are of no useful value. The only one we'll make use of is a small cabbage bark which will make good fence posts.

I'm hoping that this new openness will accomplish our goal of giving us at least another hour of direct sunlight.

Walkway completed (mostly)

2011-11-08T15:50:00.000-06:00

Amelio and Alejandro worked for three days and basically completed our walkway from our house to the guest house. I think it looks great and is very strong. We'll have to figure out how we're going to treat the handrails, but for now, they're great. I also have to build a gate at our end to keep Bailey from wandering over, down the stairs and off into the bush. We're extremely pleased with the idea of purlins so we don't have to have support posts underneath. The revised span turned out to be 17' and the purlins are steel, 2 1/2" by 8". I think this will look a lot better painted, but that decision will come later.

Medical update on Art

2011-11-06T20:00:00.000-06:00

Art headed for Oregon for his annual checkup with the VA. We got his records from Loma Luz Hospital for his VA doctors. It turned out to be a good thing as they checked him over and found that not only was his blood clot not better, it had gotten frightfully worse. It's such a blessing that the medical facilities in Bend, OR are wonderful, with excellent doctors. At one point they were contemplating surgery, but have now decided on an intense program of medication. Not sure if he'll be able to come home as planned this next weekend. The doctors don't want him to travel for a bit. He's really frustrated and wants too come home, but time will tell. The great thing for him though is that he's getting to see our grandchildren. Max & Tyler in Bend and our son's three great kids in Kennewick, WA. It's hard to believe that Max has now turned 16! ! !

Surprise!

2011-11-06T19:51:00.000-06:00

I really have some dear friends. I was really surprised this am to get a birthday greeting from a really nice lady here in Bullet Tree. Then another came in! I started to get the idea that this came from Facebook and there was a problem there, as it wasn't my birthday. It's not for another 10 days on the 16th. No biggy, I was just so pleased to be remembered. A truly great friend came to see me to help me with a download issue. Shortly after that, here came another car with two other friends, bearing a cake, a chocolate pie and munchies. What a lovely surprise. I hated to tell them it wasn't my birthday yet, but we all had a wonderful time. We called it my birthday anyway, but I told them that I refuse to accept the additional year to my already staggering number of years, until the 16th. What sweet friends.

Walkway

2011-11-05T19:21:00.000-06:00

We decided to finally take the plunge and tackle our next project. Our intention when we built was to build a bridge between our little house and the guest house. We hate to force our guests to walk up or down the stairs, then across the rocky drive and then up our stairs. Especially at night, this can be hazardous. We built the guest house above the bodega with a floor eight feet off the ground. We then had Amelio build our house, which is a little up hill, so that the floor was level with the guest house. With guest coming, we want to make it easier to travel back & forth.

Also, since Dreamer Farm is for sale, it is now either a one-bedroom, one-bath house with a guest house, or a three bedroom, two-bath house. It's easy to chat across the 17' span so that children could sleep in the two bedrooms with safety.

Amelio came over to discuss our shopping list and we decided to use metal purlins to make the span. That way we wouldn't need a brace underneath. Art & I started doing some measuring and discovered that, since the purlins are 8" and we'll be putting hardwood boards above and below, the thickness would be at least 12". Oops! When we analyzed where the purlins would be overhead we found that even at my 5'3", I'd hit my head. Crumb! After walking around this for a bit, we decided to have Amelio build a little landing at the end instead of directly to the deck. Of course this will change my lumber requirements, but what else is new. Thankfully, I bo't a few extra 2x4's and 4x4's, which were slurped up by the new requirements.

The one photo shows where we originally planned to have the walkway connect. The open space with the green table in the background. The other two photos show our revised plan and the beginnings of the walkway. Doing it this way allows us plenty of room to work under the bridge.

We've stayed with Amelio, even tho' he has other work to do, we feel he knows our project since he built both buildings. He's interesting too as he really enjoys building and his recreational reading is of construction books. He and Rene are cut from the same cloth. True craftsmen in their own niche. Rene's oldest son, Alejandro, is helping with the project. We've been truly lucky and blessed by finding these lovely men.

I'm sorry to drop the fact that Dreamer Farm is for sale in the above paragraph, but there are several reasons for this. First, EVERY place in Belize is for sale. All our friends here have their places for sale in one way or another. Also, when health problems surface, most of us dash back to our original home for care. I'll chat more about this in another post. Blessings and prayers for everyone's good health.

Delta vs Continental from Belize!

2011-11-01T08:05:00.000-06:00

I'm in such a rage that this probably isn't a good time to write, but I'm going to anyway. Art is trying to get back to Oregon for an appt. with the VA. An annual thing and not uncommon for expats in Belize. When I last made the trip, via Continental into Houston, I had one carry-on and NO checked bags. What a pleasure. A friend & I were expedited thru the line for the flight crews because we didn't have checked bags. Immigration and customs were handled at the same desk. We were rapidly on our way to our next gates.

For this trip, we got a somewhat better fare with Delta so decided to give it a try. NEVER AGAIN! Delta brings ina much smaller plane and wouldn't allow the carry-ons inside the passenger compartment. They checked it for that flight. When Art got to Atlanta (sucks!) with a 1 1/2 hour layover, he had to wait for over an hour for his bag to come off the plane, then regular customs, etc., so he missed all his connections and had to wait for another flight out of Atlanta and then stay over last night in Salt Lake City at OUR EXPENSE. This caused huge problems for him as well as our family waiting for him at his destination. Rather than getting in last night, he doesn't arrive until noon today. He has so little time with our grandkids there as it is, they've now cut his visit very short.

I don't care what the difference is in the fare. I'd choose not to travel before I/we will take Delta again. They don't have a clue, nor do they care, about the convenience or problems of their passengers. I've written to both Delta and Expedia, so we'll see if either has the courtesy to at least answer back. There's actually no way they can make up for the huge inconveniece and frustration we've been caused.

We've had cool, lovely weather for about a week, but it's now raining again. Mirrors my mood. Thank goodness for our incredible Bailey. He's such a comfort and loving friend.

Hurricane Rina

2011-10-26T09:47:00.000-06:00

To answer a question about our preparations for hurricane Rina, the answer is that we don't have any. We're on the very western side of Belize, only about 3 air miles from Guatemala, so most hurricanes don't find their way over here. What we do get is lots of rain. There's not much we can do about that except have lots of supplies in case we don't want to navigate our road. Even with a hurricane, such as Richard, which did come our way, all we can do is close our shutters and wait it out. Our house is on concrete pillars and is strapped and/or bolted down. The winds generally come from the SE and we don't have trees on that side of our buildings. We are extremely happy to not be down near the river as the rising and falling of the Mopan don't affect us up here. All-in-all the most we can do is have food and gasoline for the generator and wait these things out. A little prayer doesn't hurt either.

The sun is shining

2011-10-25T08:08:00.000-06:00

Ok, I've whined so much about the weather and our road that I have to remind myself and you to sing praises when the weather is wonderful, which it is right now. We've had a few days now without rain, scattered clouds and sun. Being so close to the equator, when the sun is out it can get hot really fast, but oh, are we all loving it. It's gotten quite cold, for here, with the temp dropping to the high 50's at night. We're actually using blankets on the bed. So lovely. Bailey is enjoying the cool. This is absolutely perfect weather.

I splurged and bo't two bouganvilla's, a lovely hibiscus and a couple of other plants (I'm terrible with the names) and will plant them today.

We haven't been doing anything with the cacao. Our grafting attempts failed miserably. I've talked to nursery folks and found that they do most of their grafting in Nov. & Dec., so we'll try again, now that it's cool out. The problem will be getting the buds. I always have to give things at least one more shot.

Rene is back at work. He told me that he's feeling much better and going crazy staying home with nothing to do. Also, they have absolutely NO money. We pay social security for him so he did get 80% of his wages, but it's not enough to support them as he only gets paid for 3 days a week. Anyway, we told him to pace himself and only do what he felt like. Fat chance. He put in a full day, clearing the property line fences. We're so lucky to have him helping us.

Art's heading for Oregon to visit the VA, so we're getting things caught up before he leaves. Wish I was going too, but, as we've already said, one of us has to stay to take care of the place and Bailey. This is a very special time as our oldest grandson, Max, turns 16 on the 28th. It's hard to believe that he's that big. That's the hardest thing about moving out of the country. We REALLY miss our family, especially our grandkids.

Enough babbling for now. I need to get outside before it gets hot. Blessings!

Trooper OOPS!

2011-10-22T14:46:00.000-06:00

On it's best days our little old, 1990 Trooper isn't a thing of beauty, but right now she's having a new struggle. We let Rene take it home over the weedends so that he can get to another job on Friday and then to the market over the weekend. A week ago he bro't the car back and parked it on the driveway. We've had the emergency brake repaired, but he doesn't like to use it. He was weedeating a distance away and I was in the house when I heard a noise and looked out in time to see the Trooper bumping down the hill on it's own. I took off running and yelling when I heard a fairly gentle crash. As I came around the corner of the bodega I saw that it had hit our lime tree. The tree had been struggling with an infestation of bugs which we'd been treating, but it's now a moot point as it was broken and lying off to the side. Luckily, the Trooper only seems to have a broken headlight. If the tree hadn't been there, it would have picked up speed going down the hill and probably been totalled in the heavy bush. We've been trying to find a used headlight assembly, but no one has a driver's side light, so have now ordered a new one. Next week we'll take it to Bado (body shop) and have him straighten the hood and fender and install the new light.
2 weeks later:
We looked everywhere we could think of to find a used headlight, but only found three that were for the passenger side. Darn. Ended up having Bedo order a new one and then straighten the hood and fender to accomodate the light. I told him he didn't have to make it pretty because that would only embarrass the rest of the car. We now have it back and so far, so good. We're ready for a lull in the unexpected expenses.

Rain, rain and more rain

2011-10-15T14:29:00.000-06:00

Sometimes it seems that's all I talk about, but right now it's definitely on our minds. If you can look at a satellite photo of Central America you'll see that we're right at the junction where fronts from the Pacific heading NE and those from the Atlantic, heading NW are meeting and heading for Mexico and the Caribbean. The hurricane center says that there aren't strong winds associated, just lots of rain. Well let me tell you, that's an understatement. It's been pouring for two days and is supposed to continue tomorrow. We're not going to head down until this is over as there's no way we could get back up our hill.

We have one neighbor just beyond ours and he's trying to do some construction. They have hopes to open as a small resort. I swear there's one resort for every tourist in Belize. People can't believe that we're gringo's, live here and don't have a resort. Anyway, we heard a truck try to make it up the hill, unsuccessfully, and then Bailey started barking. "Good boy!" I saw two guys walking up the hill, dragging rebar! ! ! Can you imagine. It's about a 1/4 mile up that muddy, long hill.

My dilemma is laundry. I didn't want to leave clothes at the laundry because I don't know when we'd get back to pick them up, but we really needed some things, so I did a few loads today. Seems silly because it's raining like crazy. I used the existing lines on the verandas of the guest house and our house and Art hung a new, higher line on our veranda so that I could hang sheets. Heaven only knows when, or if, they'll get dry. It's still quite warm out, so worth a try. Makes me feel as tho' I'm doing something positive anyway. Several of our friends have butane clothes dryers. I'm envious, but a huge expense for such a short time. It's something we'd buy tho' if we could afford it.

OK, back to J.D. Robb and Dallas. In case someone reads this who doesn't know, J.D. Robb is a nom de plume for Nora Roberts, writing about detective Eve Dallas. Great stories, but I've read them all at least 3 times. I'm getting desperate. I slurp these books up so fast tho', that I forget them just about as fast. Scary!

Dengue fever

2011-10-14T14:46:00.000-06:00

Our dear Rene, who works so hard for us two days a week, was working a week ago when he collapsed. He's been weedeating. We heard a faint cry and Art dashed out to see what had happened. Rene was on the ground. He hurt all over, but mostly in his stomach and head. We got him in our truck and Art took him to the government hospital, stopping off at Rene's to get a couple of his sons. They stayed with him while they ran tests and checked him over. Now this hospital is new, but nearly worthless. The service is free, but you get what you pay for. Rene went back home, but felt awful over the weekend, so they took him to a private Dr, who diagnosed him as having Dengue and possibly malaria at the same time. There have been lots of mosquitos everywhere, with all our rain, so hard to pinpoint where he got it. We don't have any standing water, but the bush does harbor dampness. Anyway, after a week, he's doing much better and he's determined to try to return to work on Monday. We do pay his social security, which is a combination of retirement and workmen's comp insurance. He'll collect 80% of what his reported earnings are. The trouble is, so many people don't pay the insurance, so many workers end up with nothing. They work so hard for so little anyway, that it makes you angry. Dengue is a real threat here. We've had other friends who have contracted it and it's taken them months to get back to normal. Besides being weak, you have a horrible headache.

I'm so glad that Rene is doing better and we're praying we escape it, but it's hard to escape those little devil mosquitos.

Jaguar carving

2011-10-08T14:33:00.000-06:00

I finally finished my jaguar panel. I was really happy with the carving, but disappointed at how red it turned when I put the teak oil finish on it. This is my first use of mahogany, but I should have expected this. Anyway, I now have to push myself to start something new. I can't complain any more that I don't have the time, because I'm getting really lazy and spend lots of spare time reading. I'm going to try to find a wood that's not quite so red this next time.

Sunday

2011-09-25T12:41:00.000-06:00

We decided to drive into San Ignacio for breakfast. It's something we always enjoyed doing in the States. Here it's somewhat of a challenge. Most everything is closed except the grocery stores, and many of them close early. Our only choice is Pop's. It's a little hole in the wall that seems to have been there forever. Only six booths, so we had to wait outside, hovering to grab the next one available. As Gringo's we have to stand up for ourselves in line or we'll lose out. We had a nice breakfast with my favorite, fry jacks. Everyone seems to make them a little differently, but I love Pop's the best. I should try to learn to make them, but I really don't like to cook and it's so much better when you can enjoy those of an expert.

The weather is "tween" right now. Threatening, with thunder both to the north and to the south most of the day, but little rain for us. The Mopan river is at the bottom of our hill and it comes from Guatemala and the mtns. It's obvious that the clouds and storms to the south of us are dumping rain on Guatemala because the Mopan looks like the chocolate river in the Willie Wonka movie. The water level is high, but not enough to flood Paslow Falls Rd., which is a blessing, and is a dark red, mud color. We really don't covet land along the river. The potential for flooding is huge. The bugs love the dampness. According to Rene, who lives along the Mopan, the iguana's, which are a protected species, destroy most of their plants. We're so happy up on our hill where we usually have a lovely breeze. It's stifling hot a lot of the time along the river. When the weather is nice and the water is clear, we just pop down the hill and enjoy a dip. The best of both worlds!

We both did some weedeating yesterday so have decided to give ourselves a day off today. Art's reading and I'll probably try to finally finish a panel I've carved of a jaguar. I've really been lazy about my artwork. Discipline isn't my long suit.

I had planned to run errands tomorrow, licensing the pickup and going to the Bank. Those will have to wait a day because, saddly George Price, who lead the country of Belize into independence in 1981 and became the first Prime Minister, passed away this last week, just before Independence Day. Prime Minister Dean Barrow has declared Monday a holiday in memory of Mr. Price.

Hope you are all enjoying a relaxing day too. Blessings, Gale

Adjustment to butane conversion

2011-09-23T22:33:00.000-06:00

We've been driving our pickup for a bit now on butane and it's doing beautifully. A problem did arise, however, when we tried to flip it back to gasoline. I've been checking some articles online and read that it's adviseable to start the vehicle on gasoline, at least occasionally, to keep the engine clean. It did start on gasoline, but had no power and wouldn't move. It seemed to be starving. Took it back to LP gas and found that indeed was the problem. It was starving for air. If you have this done, be sure to have this problem addressed. I wasn't there for the dialogue on the problem, but apparently the engine needs more air on gasoline. They installed a switch that will open (or reroute) the airflow when on gasoline. We'll probably have someone else look at it to be sure that this is the proper adjustment. Hope this ends this little project. We are very pleased tho' with the performance on butane and would recommend it to anyone trying to save money on fuel. Now, back to life in Belize!

Trip with friends in the newly converted truck

2011-09-14T16:27:00.000-06:00

A friend had to fly to the State because his mother isn't well, so I agreed to drive him and his wife, Betty, to the airport. It had rained hard most of the night, so I was really leary about driving down our hill. Art didn't want me to try it, but I'd promised, so I slipped and slid sideways down the hill.

It's a short two hour drive from here to the airport, but we always allow lots of time as the trip from here to Belmopan is hurry up and slow down for villages, buses and kids going to school. From there, Betty, our good friend Diane & I headed for Belize City as I'd never been to the new Benny's. Wow, what a treat that was. It's the first store I've seen in Belize that resembles one in the States. It's like a smaller version of Home Depot. Lots of beautiful items for your home, but few would fit in our little wooden house. Our small rooms and single wall construction aren't conducive to installing fancy fixtures, tile or large appliances. I'm sure I left drool marks tho' on the washers and dryers. We had such a lovely time looking tho'. We then made a stop at Brodie's. They're a little high priced on most things, but they carry so many things that you can't find anywhere else. It's lovely to see familiar brands. Our next stop was great, but please don't ask me the name or where we were, because I was lost. Down an alley, behind several stores was a small warehouse that appeared closed. We were buzzed in (made me think of old movies where they buzz you into a dark door to an illegal gambling hall), but this was a wholesale produce place. It was getting to be afternoon, so pickings were somewhat slim, but we still got lovely lettuce, grape tomatoes, apples, peppers , asparagus at good prices. Our last stop was at Save U. I was getting desperate as it's way too easy to spend more than you intend, but here the prices were too good to pass up. I didn't buy a lot but sure had fun.

We headed toward Cayo about 2:30pm. My concern was that it had rained a lot during the day and our road loomed large in my mind. I dropped each of the ladies off at their homes and then headed home myself. Betty insisted on following me in her old 4x4 truck. I felt badly that I'd let my concern spill over to them. She waited at the bottom of our hill and I headed up. I didn't get very far before I got stuck. The mud is slippery like gumbo and I couldn't find rock. I backed up and tried again. Still no luck. Betty stood by and watched my wheels while I kept trying by rocking just a little. Finally, I was able to get down to a bit of rock and lurched my way up the slippery ruts to the top of our hill. I wanted to stop and thank Betty & let her know that I was ok, but I couldn't stop. When I got home the truck & I were both a muddy mess, but I was glad to be home with my groceries and to be able to just relax. It was all worth it. I had such a lovely time with two truly nice friends.

I haven't had a chance to fuel up yet, but the gauge on the tank shows 45% full, if I'm reading it right. We know that our V8 engine doesn't get good mileage, but it appears that the trip cost about $65bz, where previously it cost about $150 for gasoline and a shuttle is from $180-$200, so NOT BAD! Blessings!

We're driving on butane

2011-09-10T11:20:00.000-06:00

This isn't going to be the definitive answer to all your butane questions. Just how we see our conversion. It was a tad cheaper than we'd been told, which was a lovely surprise. We just put a few gallons in at LP gas as they only had the imported butane available for $5.21bz/gallon. Art drove to the BNE depot and filled up with 25.5 gallons for $102bz. ($4bz/gallon). Now the test will be the mpg.

Right off the bat we can see two problems.

1. We've lost some of our load space and the gauges and connection are toward the back, so we'll want to put some kind of a barrier there if we want to haul anything that might hit them. Already ran into that problem when we hauled the old flail over to Hillside welding AGAIN! Yes, that's 3 trips to Sp. Lookout this week.

2. This is a problem for me. The switch on the dash is just the right height that I tend to bump it will my delicate little knee when I get out of the truck. Have done it twice already in one day. Up is butane, down is gasoline.

These are just minor bumps and certainly not significant enough to discourage someone from having the conversion done.

The biggest issue is that, right after we got home the "check engine" light came on. Bummer! Now will have to go to Matus to have that checked. He's the only one with a real code tester.

9/12 This morning Art took the truck to Matus to find the answer to the "check engine" light. Whew! He said it's normal. Just the vehicle's way of saying things have changed. Ignore it! Hard to do, but great to have such a simple answer and it was "free."

Butane questions

2011-09-04T18:41:00.000-06:00

I'll know more after Tuesday, but I'll answer a couple of questions right now.
First, most of the people use butane appliances, ie. stoves, on-demand water heaters, etc., so there are lots of places to get butane. There must be at least 10 in San Ignacio alone. We're lucky that BNE just opened a new station on the Western highway, just west of San Ignacio.

The truck will have a semi-permanently installed tank in the bed of the truck. To fill it we just go to a station and they fill it there. Our only problem that we can see is if we decide to put the canopy back on the truck.

I forgot to mention that there'll be a switch which will allow us to run on either butane or gasoline. This will make it easier as we could switch to gasoline if we should ever take a long trip with the canopy on and a load in the truck.

Hope these help.

butane vs gasoline

2011-09-03T12:33:00.000-06:00

We've been struggling with this question for quite a while. I'm referring to switching to using butane to fuel our pickup truck. We love our 8 cylinder, 2000 Toyota Tundra, but it's a gas guzzler. Here in Belize gas has run up and down from $10.47bz to nearly $12 per gallon. In US dollars that's from $5.50 to $6. Ick! $200bz won't even fill the tank. We use the Trooper some, but it's not much better considering it's age. We haven't really travelled much around the country because of the expense. Between the vehicles and weedeaters we feel we're supporting the gas station on Bullet Tree Rd, all by ourselves.

A few years ago, oil was discovered here in Belize. There are several wells in Spanish Lookout, with more scattered around the country. BNE (Belize Natural Energy) seems to be quite prosperous, but we understand that most of the $$s leave the country, as the oil is processed out of Belize and the company itself is Canadian. Anyway, I digress!

A byproduct of this oil is butane gas. Now my knowledge about all this is extremely limited and I was under the impression that butane and propane weren't interchangeable, but apparently I was mistaken. Anyway, at this point, we are focusing on our immediate problem. Imported butane sells for around $4.50 - $6/ gallon, with the local butane from BNE selling for $4/gallon. We've met several folks lately who have converted their vehicles and they couldn't be happier, so off we trudged to Spanish Lookout to check out conversion possibilities. (I still find it weird that the best mechanics are Mennonites. Kind of an oxymoron to my way of thinking). Folks who've had the conversion done claimed to have spent from $1k to $1,400. Of course, when we checked it has now gone up to closer to $2k for the complete conversion, plus a 30 gallon tank as well as some butane. One consideration is that we'll probably get one or two miles per gallon less with butane. Even at that price, with butane being only $4/gallon, we can save enough in a year to pay for the conversion. It's tough to spend money on something so unexciting, but fiscal survival makes it a smart decision, so Tuesday, early, we head off for Spanish Lookout. Here's hoping we'll find ourselves among those smug, satisfied customers. Later,

Lazy days of summer

2011-08-30T15:50:00.000-06:00

Here in Belize that phrase has a different meaning for me than it did up in Oregon. Up there it seemed that the weather is still warm, but the nights are getting a little cooler and you should just sit back and enjoy the slow, winding down. Here, it's just too hot to do much else. I feel guilty as lots of the local folks (Rene for one) keep working all day, heat and all. It just wipes me out. It will rain for a while one day and then be hot for the next few. Today dawned cloudy, but didn't feel like rain, so I quickly did a couple of loads of laundry. I'm probably repeating myself again, but I do laundry the Belizean way. I either haul water or use the hose to till a washer that agitates, then I move the clothes to a tub on the side, which spins the clothes. It's reminiscent of the wringer washer system my grandmother used. Anyway, I hung the clothes on the line, ate a bite of breakfast and then had to head to town to get the Trooper licensed. This wonderful event is once-a-year, as is the insurance, and a pain in the "neck" (insert your own body part of choice). We always have to wait our turn, which can mean a long time unless we assert the fact that we were there ahead of others. Then they may or may not inspect the car. Now we're talking here about a 1990 Trooper with 280k miles. We checked all the lights before leaving home and they all worked. We just had the emergency brake fixed, so we felt in pretty good shape. Well this happened to be one of the times that he wanted to check the car. The left headlight is held in place by a piece of wire and always heads a little bit off to the left. He pointed out that it was not very bright. Was he refering to me or the car? Of course the sun was blinding us and boiling my brains out, but I couldn't argue with him. Luckily, Art popped up about then and whispered to him that this car is not driven at night and is only our security system. Hi smiled and let the rest of the check go. Way to go Art! Of course then there is another fellow to double check the paperwork and then you go to the cashier. Here we had to wait in line behind a couple relicensing a taxi. They were shuffling with the money an bro't out a wad that looked like hundreds of dollars. Turned out to be his fares, so was two's (yes in Belize they use paper twos that are blue) and fives along with a bunch of US ones. The clerk had to sort it all, turn the buills around, shuffle, shuffle. I was ready to jump the counter and do it for them, but they finally agreed on the amount and it was our turn to hand over $200 and wait for the poor girl to hand write all the papers. My little voice has to keep say, "this is a 3rd world country, it's an emerging nation, it will be over soon!" Miraculously it was. The weird thing is that here, rather than getting license tabs, you get a sticker for your windshield. We always put the sticker on the passenger side. Now, they're demanding that the stickers go on the driver's side. It's to make it more convenient for the transportation inspector to check when he stands in the middle of the road at a checkpoint. Of course, you might hit him as your vision will be impaired because of the stickers, but ours is not to reason why. (Little voice says, "get a grip Gale, you'll be out of there soon). Oh joy, I get to do this again next month when the license for the pickup expires.

After we left there it was off to Three Flags (market) and the bank. The line at the bank can be long and take forever, so we stopped and got a coke before heading home. We had a bite of lunch and then, our energy flagged and it's an afternoon of reading and just gentle chores. I'm seeing the practicality of the mid-day siesta. My trouble is that it's stretching out longer and longer. Wow, looks as tho' I may be retired!

cacao problems

2011-08-25T09:47:00.000-06:00

This probably isn't of interest to anyone but us, but I want to record some of it here for my own memories. We were so excited because our root stock has been doing so well. We've had a good success ratio and had lots of small plants for grafting. Our only source of buds for us to graft has been at Marco's place in San Ignacio. It's exciting to see his trees, full of flowers and tiny pods. We select buds from the strongest trees with the most pods. Marco hasn't labeled his trees, but we know that his are grafted and a mix, so that's going to have to be good enough. Rene and I have collected buds 3 different times and returned home and grafted them the same day. We've been extremely careful with our grafts, but the end result after all this time is that we've had almost no success. We haven't been able to coordinate with Marco for help, so have been struggling on our own. Art & Rene have been extremely disappointed and wanted to give up, but I just can't. If they can do it in Toledo then, by darn, we can do it here in Cayo. It's just hard to have lost so much time and money with our experiments, but we're NOT giving up.

I've been looking at the grafts that we've lost and it seems that they're really wet, with some even having mold on them. We've had them under the trees, but not really under cover. We've had some serious rain lately at times, so that I'm pretty sure that that's our problem. It's not so much our grafting techniques as much as too much water. Marco had already told us that cacao doesn't want to have their feet wet all the time. This time we pulled out all the stops. Our friend Jane gave us a screened house that we'd hesitated to put up as it's not real heavy and we were afraid that the wind and rain would destroy it, but we need it, so up it went.

Fourth batch - Rene and I experimented with different kinds of grafts too with this batch. We left some buds long and not covered and used plastic wrap rather than the parafilm on most of the side grafts. We had already tried 2 unsuccessful grafts on several of the plants, so Rene cut the top off of them and tried a top graft. We put all of these in the screened house right away. We're hoping that in a couple of weeks we'll see an improved result. At that point we cut the tape off and expose the graft to the air. It's hard to work with your fingers crossed!

We've arranged with Marco to come up on Monday to review our problems and give us some advice. Rene feels badly that he didn't ask all the questions we have when he was in Toledo, but heck, he was really only there for one day and we think he learned a lot in a very short time. It's frustrating to learn by the "hunt and peck" system, but we'll get there. We also remind ourselves that the folks in Toledo were given everything by grants. They have concrete floor buildings, were given seed and unlimited help with growing, grafting and pruning. We're outsiders by being in Cayo as well as being gringos. It's just a fact of life here that we can't let make us angry. It seemed to us when we were actually living in the US that the immigrants got most of the assistance and priorities, but here in Belize it's just the opposite. Unless you're a wealthy gringo, you just shut your mouth and plug along trying not to make waves. We knew that coming in, so we try to make it work. The part that makes it acceptable is that we have friends in the same boat. It's easy to feel sorry for ourselves until we look at the plight of the local families and then we realize that we're doing ok. At least we have a great place to live and food. Many of them have next to nothing. That's for another posting. I can really get angry for them. My glass is still half full.

Stormy weather

2011-08-20T16:10:00.000-06:00

Yes, I talk a lot about the weather, but it dictates so much of our lives here that we all talk about it a lot. "Wow, isn't it hot today?" "We had a little rain today at our place, but not down the road 1/2 mile." Yesterday was really sticky. We had been told that a storm was on it's way and would hit Belize on Saturday. Ahead of it was hot, humid air. I watch the NOAH satellite info as well as the weatherbug site which shows the weather for San Ignacio. We try to touch base with friends to be sure that everyone's aware and prepared. I headed to town to buy a few groceries so that we could survive if it rained a lot and Paslow Falls Rd flooded. It doesn't happen often, but when it does we're cut off unless we choose to walk over the hill to the village. It's easier to have a few supplies and ride it out here. We also have to be sure to have gasoline for the generator.

Today we've seen the beginnings of this little tropical storm called "Harvey." That was my Dad's name, so I'm expecting a little disruption, just to keep us all guessing, but no real damage. Most of the afternoon it's been raining and it looked like twilight out at 2pm. We've had a couple of spurts of hard rain, but most of the time it's just dribbling. Probably most of this will hit during the night. Right now the winds are predicted to top out at 50mph, which isn't particularly disturbing. As I've said before, when we lived on the northern Oregon coast we often experienced winds up to 100mps and we rode them out in our 1893 Victorian house. Those storms didn't even warrent a name. I'm not pooh-poohing these storms, we just don't get hysterical worrying about them. If it does get severe, we button up the shutters and (sadistic things that we are) we enjoy the sounds of the storm. I did take advantage of the water to wash the truck. Besides the rain falling, I knew that the cistern was filling faster than I could use it. I also took the opportunity to dig some of the grass that's grown in our driveway and use for plugs in some of our areas of weeds. Go grass!

Update on Art

2011-08-13T13:05:00.000-06:00

We've had notes from folks inquiring about Art's medical progress. I'm delighted to say that he's doing really well. He wasn't to go back to the Dr. for three weeks, but we were concerned about the Warfrin and if it was working propertly. He visited our family Dr. and then had blood tests. Yippee! He's doing great. He's been determined to try to get out and continue weedeating, etc., but his leg does bother him when he overdoes (duh!) and it's once again HOT outside. Weather shows that we should have thunderstorms and rain, but all is passing us by to the south and we're just getting the hot and hear some thunder. Thankfully we also get the breezes, which keep it somewhat comfortable. The thermometer that's in the sun showed 118 this am, but is now in the 90's. All in all we're doing ok. Thanks for all the good tho'ts.

Medical care

2011-08-03T09:22:00.000-06:00

One of our big concerns about living in Belize has been, "what if one of us gets sick?" Many of us have had this conversation, along with upsetting stories of previous care. We pay insurance premiums in the States, but they don't transfer to Belize. We're on our own down here. Well, out of the blue, a problem caught us unawares and had us having to use the Belize system.

Art has been having problems with dizziness and then developed a pain in his leg, along with swelling. He tho't he had a charley horse or pulled muscle. When this didn't get better, but continued to get worse, I nagged him into seeing a Dr. I'd seen Dr. Sanchez in San Ignacio previously for a couple of very minor issues. He's a lovely, caring man, trained in Cuba. He's a family practioner. He sent us to Belmopan to the Imaging Clinic for an ultrasound as he feels they do a better, more professional job. We had to dashed there, get the ultrasound and then get back to San Ignacio before 3pm, when Dr. Sanchez closes until evening hours. As he suspected, Art had a deep vein thrombosis (blood clot) in the back of his leg. There was a lot of hassle finding an internist available who could admit him to the hospital, but the Dr. found Dr. Manzanero was actually at Loma Luz hospital right then. We dashed up there (it was now 7pm) where Art was examined and admitted. Now we had heard scary stories about how expensive Loma Luz was, but hey, this wasn't any time to quibble. We needed help. They immediately started him on a blood thinner and pain killers.

I hated to leave Art in the hospital, but it was really late, we'd had pouring rains and we hadn't been prepared for him to enter the hospital. I dashed home, in the dark, and I have to tell you, when it's dark here it's really DARK! The road up to our place was about a 1/2 mile of slippery, gooey, muck. It was the worst I had ever seen and I was alone and it was pitch dark out. Hey, I'm a tough old, ex truck driving, broad, so I plunged up the hill. I made a real mess of the road, but our trusty Toyota truck got me thru again. I was home and able to take care of Bailey and get ready to head back to the hospital the next day.

Tuesday was long and tiring. It rained gently all night, which is worse than a driving rain because it just creates goo instead of washing it away down to the base rock. I was able to get down the hill, going sideways at one point, but trudged on. I was worried that Paslow Falls Rd would be flooded, but thankfully, was just giant puddles.

I won't bore you with the details of our day, but will just say that it was really long. The nursing care at Loma Luz was terrific. The nurses were caring and cheerful. Art told me they took enough samples to drain half his blood, which meant that they were doing every test immaginable to get all his levels. I don't think he minds my saying he is also diabetic, which might be a causing factor for the clot. Art felt better than he had in days. The medications he was given seem to have an immediate effect, reversing most of his symptoms. The really difficult thing was that the Dr. doesn't come in until 6pm and it turned out that they had emergencies, so he didn't come in to see Art until about 9pm. By that time, I was about asleep and Art was ready to run screaming into the street. Finally the Dr. came in, gave us the reports, all of which were very encouraging, prescribed medication and sent us on our way. We went down to the pharmacy, which is part of the hospital, got the meds, at which time she presented us with the bill. Take a deep breath! This is where it gets scary and they have to admit me with a heart attack! We had to give them a $500bz deposit when he first checked in. Ok, give us the worst. What? We now owed a total of $7.89bz. My gosh. Are you sure? There was an amount there for the Dr. Do we owe that separately? No, that's included. That covered the stay, the Dr., the meds and the lab work. We could have cried tears of relief.

Our trip home, now at 10pm turned out to be even worse than mine the night before, but we made it! I made a huge mess of the road, just putting the peddle to the metal and grinding my way up, but who cares? It was so good to be home, together and know that, for now, we're ok.

We discussed having to fly back to Oregon to get medical help and still might have to resort to that for more serious concerns, but for now, we have much more faith in the Belize level of care. I guess that's the clue. We felt genuine care for Art's problem, how we were and what needed to be done. All along the way we only saw kindness and concern. I have to add that Loma Luz is by far the cleanest hospital in our part of Belize, but by U.S. standards, it would be horrible. Everything looked as tho' it was a garage sale find, but the walls were freshly painted and things seemed relatively clean. There isn't a lot of shiny stainless steel or machines going beep, but we did find compassion and knowledgeable help. It's not the U.S., but that's not all bad. Blessings.

cacao grafting

2011-07-28T07:45:00.000-06:00

We've made two trips to Marco's this week to collect cacao buds. This is a tricky job as we're trying to match the size of the buds to the size of our little seedlings. Marco's trees aren't labeled, which surprised me, but he says they're a mix, so we'll just go with that. When (& if) we finally get grafted plants into the ground, we don't want to plant all of one variety in one area. They need to cross pollinate. Since our first round of grafting was unsuccessful, we did a second graft on those seedlings. It was a little hard on some to find enough room for the graft, but we managed. All together we grafted 184 plants. This time we followed Marco's advice and cut the branches, then trimed the leaves off and placed the bud stem in newspaper, which we wet before transporting. The leaves need to be trimmed to stop the photo synthesis. (Wow, I'm learning a tiny bit of the terminology). We looked for trees that had lots of flowers and small pods because we're actually cloning the most productive trees.

We've been asked, "why grafting." According to Marco, if we plant the seedlings directly in the ground, it will take 5 - 7 years to start getting pods. By grafting we should cut the time down to 2 1/2 - 3 years. I accepted this, but still didn't understand why. As Rene and I were grafting, of course we talked a lot. This question came up and he finally put the answer in terms that made sense to me. He's wise in Mayan medicine and has worked in several fields, is smart and inquisitive. Anyway, he told me that the bud comes from a fruiting tree so once it takes hold on the rootstock it takes off from the point of the parent tree. It no longer has to wait to reach maturity, it will start producing as soon as the plant reaches a strength to support the fruit. Not technical, but makes sense to me.

We have about 500 more seedlings nearly ready to graft. We'll probably wait a week or two for them to gain a little size and then start again. Our goal is to plant an acre or two, which would be about 600 plants, and then possibly be a nursery to sell to others who don't want to mess with the grafting. Don't blame them as it's a tedious task and the loss along the way is very frustrating. The thing is, Rene and I seem to do fine and enjoy the challenge. Art is frustrated that he isn't able to help with this stage as he has a little tremble in his hand, so he gets to do the toting and fetching. We're all a team.

Shipping into Belize

2011-07-17T12:10:00.000-06:00

The things I shipped from Oregon to Belize finally arrived. 7 boxes, 2 plastic tubs and one suitcase, at least that's what they were when they started. By the time they got here, they were barely recognizeable. The shipments started with UPS from Bend, OR to Houston. From there the shipper put in a container to Belize. Not sure of the route, but went thru the hands of the Guatemalans, who took everything apart and threw them back again. The end result of all of this is that the boxes and tubs were crushed and the hard-side suitcase was only holding together because I had shrinkwrapped it. The sadness for me is that most of the things most precious to me were broken. I'm used to packing and have rarely lost items, but this trip was upsetting. I have to admit that I didn't identify everything as "Fragile". I just filled boxes as things demanded, never thinking that they'd be so carelessly handled. One of the wonderful things tho' is that the photo albums that I did ship are here and ok. Memories of building our log house and our grandkids. The bulk of our photos remain in storage with our son. I have to say that the true treasures are our memories. In spite of hurts that have made us sad, the memories of family and friends are still there to make us smile. No careless "lumper" can shatter those.

We've gone from rain to sunshine and humidity. It's so lovely, here on our hill, as we usually have a breeze. Art and Rene worked really hard this week to mow the yard. It really looks like a park. This next week we're hoping to get some budwood to be able to graft our cacao. More about that learning process in my next post.

We're off to visit friends and share some of those unshattered memories. Blessings!

Rumination

2011-07-12T10:42:00.000-06:00

I'm in a strange frame of mind. Probably just getting old, but right now I'm just tired. When I was in Oregon I really missed Belize (of course Art was here), and now that I'm in Belize, I can't seem to settle. I enjoyed having Jane here, altho' we both really wore our selves out, packing her life here. I now seem to be waffling between wanting to be alone and just sit and do nothing but read and being so lonesome for family that I could, and often do, cry.

We have several wonderful friends here who are always ready to help, but I sense that we're all in a similar frame of mind. I think what's got me most upset is missing our grandchildren. Wish we had the money to bring a couple of them down for a visit. Maybe next summer.

We've had torrential rains the last few days which have kept us housebound, here on our hill. Our "road" down the hill is a slippery slide. We can usually slide our way down, but are more worried about getting back up. I guess I was in a sort of coma last weekend as I didn't do the shopping, so we found ourselves facing a real Belizean life of making do with the odds & ends that were here. Since I'm not much of a cook (I really don't care for it) the reality was very upsetting. Yesterday afternoon the rain had let up and we decided to take a chance and head down. On the worst part of the road down a tree had fallen across the road. I took a chance and backed up, turned around and went back to the house to get some tools. The machette did the best job and we finally were able to make it down. We stocked up on groceries at 3 Flags (icky, but best prices) and stopped in at Cayo Cargo to check on my shipment from Oregon. It had arrived over the weekend, but there wasn't anyone there to help load in our truck so we just paid the bill and left the things there. I honestly can't remember what all's in the 10 boxes I shipped, but it had all better be good stuff as it cost a mint to ship. Actually, it's just little pieces of our life that I tho't would do better here. I had to get rid of so much, but wanted to keep bits that were memories or that I tho't would help us here. Whatever! It's a done deal. The shipment from Houston took a little longer than usual because they've decided to forego driving across Mexico for the near future because of all the violence. They're now filling containers and sending via ship. One of the things I'm looking forward to finding is a bunch of books I bo't on eBay. I've read most of my books at least twice, so new fluff is exciting stuff. My sweet cousin sent me books from Amazon, but he expects me to be a little deeper than I am. Right now just give me a good escape.

Jane's back in the UK

2011-07-09T17:26:00.000-06:00

We sorted, packed, taped toted and haul boxes for two weeks. Most of Jane's Belize life is now stored at our place. Actually, most of it is boxes that she shipped to Belize, but never did get the rooms finished to be able to unpack. Now most of the books, etc. may find their way back to England.

After much searching, I found two large kennels in San Pedro and with the help of some friends who were spending a couple of days there, we finally got the kennels to Cayo in the nick of time. (There's a whole story there, but I won't bore you with it now). We got the kennels put together the night before, loaded the animals in their kennels and drove to the airport the next day. Jane had done the paperwork ahead of time, but it still took over two hours to get it all handled. The two dogs and a cat flew to Houston and then straight to England. I was concerned about Honey, to old dog, that the trip would be hard on her, but she's pretty mellow and made it just fine. They're now in England in a quarantine kennel. The dogs are together and are living in the lap of luxury. Magic, the cat is staying pretty hidden until Jane comes to visit and then she comes out of hiding, purring and settles in her lap. The animals flew out on Thursday and Jane flew home on Monday, so they were there and settled by the time she arrived. England doesn't approve of the shots given in Belize so all the animals had to get the shots again. Belize is definitely viewed as a third world country in the rest of the world. A weird twist of fate is that, Jane just found out that the UK will abandon the quarantine period as of January 1. Instead you will have to have the animals tested three months ahead of traveling to prove that they don't have rabies, etc. They'll spend 48 hrs in holding and then can travel with you. Jane is having to spend a lot of money to keep them in quarantine, but she's happy that she can go see them every week or so and know that they're safe. This is all new to me, but I understand that all these requirements are only if your bringing animals in from a country that is not part of the pet passport program. I don't think you have to go thru the quarantine if you're traveling from the U.S.

We were concerned about Max, the dog who chose to stay here and live with Elan at Jane's old house. He now seems happy to be alone and the main man. What a relief.

We're "flush" with pride!

2011-07-03T13:04:00.000-06:00

I know that's pretty tacky, but we're

actually pretty excited. To go from our composting toilets to two flush toilets is pretty exciting stuff here at Dreamer Farm. We've toted the doodoo and put up with the bugs so the reality of flushing is really nice. We've had them build an 8' x 8' concrete septic tank and put in a single drainfield with infiltrators. This was a new concept to us, but our friend, Robin, has installed them before and had extras which we could buy. After reading about them on the internet, we felt they were by far the best solution for us. They're designed for locations that don't perk. That's not our problem here, but the marl is close to the surface, so were concerned that, in an extreme situation, we could have a drain problem. Our friend, Jane, is still here so she was able to go thru the transition with us. We've all laughed at how we can get excited about such a basic thing.

Our cistern holds a shy 10,000 gallons of water which we collect from the two roofs. We just had a pretty severe dry season and we still had over 1/2 the tank full, so water isn't an issue. Also, we have a pump and a couple of tanks, so we can go to the Mopan for water, if necessary. Yippee!

We're still not very fancy here, but at least now I'm not embarrassed to direct visitors to the bathroom.

Packing, packing, packing

2011-06-28T06:23:00.000-06:00

No, we're not moving. Our dear friend, Jane Beard, has returned from England to spend a couple of weeks here, making sense out of the things she left in her house here and shipping her animals back to the UK. All this is much harder than it sounds. She has a whole room full of boxes that she'd never unpacked when she moved into her house. Burlars broke in recently and ransacked the room. It was someone who knew what was there as they seemed to have had a shopping list of items to take. Mostly Mayan books and memorabelia. Also, many of the boxes of books had become damp. We're having to sort and rebox. Ick!

Also, she has 3 dogs and a cat. Magic (cat) came from the UK, so is returning home. Max (dog), whom she's had the longest, must sense what's happening and decided he doesn't want any part of it. He's become aggressive and wouldn't let the vet near him. She's decided to leave him here and gave him to the nice young fellow who's been staying in the house. Even if Belize would let Max out of the country, she wouldn't be able to get him into the UK. I've tracked down two large kennels for her other two dogs and they should arrive here today. That search is a whole nother story. We bring the animals here Wed. and take them to the airport on Thursday am, EARLY.

Then it will be back to the sorting. Once we're done we will keep her boxes in our little Mennonite house until she can afford to ship them. It's so difficult to see her have to make decisions that I had to make just a few weeks ago. The economy all over the world is forcing so many of us to make tough decisions. She heads back to England on Monday and then it will be back to our projects.

They finished building the septic tank yesterday and will now do the drainfield and plumbing.

The nursery is doing fine with about 90% success with sprouting our seeds. We are having trouble with bugs, which is difficult as we're trying to be totally organic. Hope the soap, garlic and neem works. Trouble is, I spray and it then rains. Trying not to be discouraged, but being tired doesn't help. Getting to be a cranky old broad. Have to slap myself alongside the head for an attitude adjustment.

More later.

Giving up on composting toilets!

2011-06-18T10:55:00.000-06:00

We've had it with the composting toilet thing. We paid a lot of money for a Biolet toilet and absolutely hate it. Of course, we bo't the basic model because we were concerned about our electricity useage, which may be part of the problem. But, the whole process is just too smelly and a pain to empty. In this humidity the bugs hatch really fast, so we're emptying it a lot. Whatever the reason, when I went back to Oregon and was able to actually flush I told Art that I wanted to upgrade to a water flushing toilet. Hard to get excited about something this basic, but we are.

When our family visited recently, we had trouble with the one in the guest house as the vent odors permeated the bedrooms. Ick!

We've hired Rene's sons to dig the septic and build the system. Originally we tho't we'd have to have two septics, but upon advice of an American contractor friend of ours, we moved the site to below both buildings and will drain both into the one. We could have had someone come in with a backhoe, but did that with our cistern and it made an even worse mess than we have now and cost a lot just to get them up here. The boys dug a neat hole and they really need the work. It's money better spent. They just finished the hole and will pour the floor tomorrow. Our biggest problem is getting rid of the pile of marl that's now littering our yard. Will probably have to load it in the pickup and put it on our road.

June in Belize

2011-06-13T11:57:00.000-06:00

I had an unevenful trip back home to Belize. Long layovers proved to be a blessing as weather was delaying flights in and out of San Francisco. No worry for me, just shortened my layover time. No problem with Belize customs as residents are allowed to bring in $200 worth of goods and I only bo't a couple of small items, so breezed thru. I did ship a few boxes of "stuff" to Belize, via Houston. Nothing important, just memory things to remind us of our previous life. I'm anxiously awaiting a few books from those boxes.

I've been home a week and am just starting to get my balance again. It was such a difficult time in Oregon and the weather was cold and when I arrived back in Belize it was hot and humid. I've had a tough time sleeping and have just felt disoriented. It was so good tho' to get back home and find my place again. One thing that helped was that Marco bro't us 700 more cacao seeds and some bags the day after I got home. It was great to have a project and to jump right in. This time we've changed our tactics. We're pre-sprouting the seeds to be sure that they're viable. We've put them under the house on screen and are keeping them wet. As they start to sprout, we put them in the bags giving us a much better success rate. We gave Rene some seeds and have about 500 in bags. We already have about 270 seedlings growing for root stock. Now we just need budwood to start grafting.

Belize's hot spell seems to have broken and it's started raining. We're getting lots of thunder during evenings and nights and then lots of rain. This is really good for the seedlings, but the trees we hoped to get budwood from have sprouted too fast, so we're left waiting, again. We made the base for our nursery from a pile of marl we had from digging our cistern. The rain makes this slippery and it splashed up on the bags. Cacao hates marl. Marco suggested we put sand on top, but it tracks and washes away. Instead we've opted for shavings. We get them either for free in bags, or they bring us a trailer load for $20 for fuel. It's really tidied up the nursery making it easier to water and much less messy. Hope we don't find that this has an adverse affect on the plants.

My brother wrote that it sounds as tho' we're working hard and getting blisters. Instead, we work a little in fits and starts and then just watch to see if something is sprouting. All this rain makes it hard to do much else outside, so we're back to reading.

Out with the old, in with the new

2011-06-01T11:35:00.000-06:00

I've been in Oregon for almost 3 weeks sorting possessions, having two garage sales, giving things away and doing a lot of crying. Art had to remain in Bullet Tree to take care of our place and our dear Bailey. It's very difficult to dismantle and discard pieces of our 50 years together. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not going away from, but to. We're definitely not alone in this struggle. So many are facing the same heartache. Leaving a home that you created, loved and now have to walk away from. We're lucky that we have our place in Belize. It's entirely different from our log home in Oregon, but it's a place of healing and new directions. We've been so blessed with good health and to have each other, along with our wonderful Bailey, which allows us to keep dreaming and facing new goals. It' s just so hard to once again, say goodbye to our beloved family.

It's also been very strange to leave Belize, where it's been over 100 every day for a couple of weeks, and have snow and freezing temps in the Oregon mountains. I've actually been so busy that I haven't had time to worry about it. I just put on a jacket and keep packing. Art tells me that it rained yesterday, so not sure what I'll find when I return.

When I get back to Belize I'll update what's happening with our Cacao nursery. I'm taking back grafting knives and tape, so will be jumping into the next phase of our growing.

I'm so grateful for the internet. It can be such a pain, but it allows us to remain connected, even in remote corners. More to come soon. Blessings!

cacao nursery

2011-05-01T22:25:00.000-06:00

After our loss of the seeds from Toledo, we decided to rearrange our nursery. Rene had taken note when he was in San Jose, that they put the bags in 2 rows to allow air space between. We used some of our pile of marl to level the floor and then Rene put up a little palapa to protect our new nursery from the direct sun. It's fantastic to watch him take material from the bush and build this very serviceable structure. As the cohune fronds dry, they'll let in more light. If it's too much he'll just add another layer. So clever.

We've been filling bags like crazy, getting ready for seeds. Hoping to get replacements for the previous failure and then additional. We're hoping to have 500 - 600 grafted plants to put in the ground later this year. That might be too optimistic, but it's our goal.

The photo of the little plants shows the 38 that have come up from our initial planting of 41. A small success.

I'll be heading for Oregon next week and hope to pick up grafting supplies up there. Wow, my learning curve is getting a little intense, but fun.

I Hate to complain~

2011-04-27T19:58:00.000-06:00

It seems horrible to complain about the heat when so much of the U.S. is suffering from such a long, miserable winter, but we're still in the throws of a very long hot spell. Today was the most miserable yet with a temp of over 100 a good share of the day. What makes it almost intolerable is that the farmers think that they HAVE to burn their milpa at this time. The humid, horribly hot air is also so smoky you can hardly breath. Thank goodness we're on the top of a ridge where we usually get a lovely breeze. It's been over two months of dry with about 10 minutes of rain a week ago.

It's hard to get up the energy to do a lot but tend to our new nursery. We've had some success and a big failure, but that's to be expected. The 41 bags we planted directly from a pod are doing great. Right now we have 38 plants up. Hoping the 3 pop up too. The frustrating thing is that the 107 seeds we bo't from the south aren't sprouting. We're not sure if it's the seeds or something we did wrong in the planting. Seems strange that we don't even have one plant showing. We planted them the day after the 41.

We've ordered 400 more seeds and Rene is putting up a shade palapa for the new nursery area. He came back from the south with ideas for an improved growing area. Marco came up on Saturday, looked at our six grafted plants and was very pleased with their growth. We're hand carrying water to them and giving them lots of love and attention. They're our hope for good budwood stock in the future. We're shooting for 500 to 600 grafted plants in the ground by the end of 2011. Go Dreamer Farm!

Rene's trip

2011-04-21T10:05:00.000-06:00

I picked Rene up at the bus stop in San Ignacio yesterday (Wednesday). He was tired, but seemed pleased about his trip and what he'd learned. The trip sounded difficult as it's long, without breaks. Rene, Javier and Henry took the bus from S.I. to Belmopan at 7am. It was a one hour trip. They had to wait until 11am for a bus south as there is now a rule that no one can stand up on a bus, so the full buses passed them by. It was then a 5 hour trip, without a stop to PG (Punta Gorda). They went to the Cacao office where they were waiting for them. They had a quick trip to the chocolate factory and then were driven to the farm in San Jose, getting there at 7pm. What a long day. Coming back they got up at 3:30am to catch a bus from San Jose to PG, but all were full. After two hours they had to pay someone to drive them to catch a bus back. I'm sure Rene's calmness helped them make it back.

I was pleased that Rene could travel with Beth's fellows as he's been all over Belize, is very friendly and not afraid to ask questions. He thinks that neither of the other fellows had done any traveling and were a little unsure what to do. Rene is a gem. On the way back to Bullet Tree he told me a little about the trip, sounding quite excited about what he'd learned. He decided to rest up Thursday and come to our farm on friday to pick up the Trooper and we'll sit down and discuss our project. We're moving forward.

Cacao-grafted plants

2011-04-17T16:50:00.000-06:00

Marco is enthusiastic about finding growers in Cayo, so isn't letting any grass grow under his feet. Another friend of ours contacted the Toledo Growers about cacao and Marco is assisted her to get started. She has some old trees, but we've found that they aren't of the preferred variety, so she'll be starting fresh too. She has lots of good land along the river, so some of her issues will be different from ours. It's nice to feel we can work together, learning as we go. Yesterday we met again at Marco's place where he had some grafted plants for each of us. We're buying all our stock, but as members of TCGA the costs are certainly reasonable. Once again, we dashed home to get our very special little plants in the ground. These 6 are each a different variety, so we'll label, give them special attention and track their growth and performance. These will eventually furnish our budwood for grafting. (see I'm learning new terms already).

We've been sharing our discussions with Rene and he seems excited about this too. Marco has arranged for us to send Rene and our friend Beth to send two fellows to the Toledo District to learn more about cacao, pruning and grafting. Because of the hot weather and schedules we decided to do this right away, so they will travel tomorrow by bus to Punta Gorda and then to a farm in San Jose. It's a long trip, but the only way we/they can get the training.

Cacao

2011-04-15T08:26:00.000-06:00

We've jumped in with both feet in raising cacao. There's quite a learning curve, as with all new things, but is interesting and hopefully will be rewarding. We met with Marco a week ago, toured his place here and picked up the seeds he bro't up from Punta Gorda. He had a few pods on his trees, but the woodpeckers had destroyed all but one. He broke that one open to show us the seeds and then gave it to us to bring home and plant. The problem was that it's still very hot out and the minute the pod was broken open the seeds start to ferment, which will kill them. We stopped for a few minutes at the Saturday market in San Ignacio for some veggies and then headed home. By the time we got here we could already smell the fermentation. We had bags and got 41 seeds from the pod, which we planted immediately. We bo't seeds from P.G. and planted that 100 the next day. We now have a little nursery in the shade with our 140 seeds. It doesn't look like much, but hey, it's a start. Chocolate in our future! Yum!

Our log home in Oregon

2011-04-10T11:46:00.000-06:00

I'm taking this time to digress from the farm to share a little of our distress and upset about our previous home in Bend, Oregon. It's actually a couple of miles outside the resort area of Sunriver, Oregon. The area draws folks because of the Deschutes River, lots of lakes, golf courses galore and less than a 1/2 hour drive to the Mt. Bachelor ski area.

We discovered a log home being dismantled near Seattle in 1999. After a year of assessing and planning we bro't the logs down to Oregon and started rebuilding the home. We had to put the huge logs back in the same way they came apart, which was no mean feat. The original house was 2-story, but the top floor was covered by the roof with dormers. We wanted the view of Mt. Bachelor and more light, so we built an exposed 2nd story. We attempted to use as many salvaged products as possible. We were lucky to find oak kitchen cabinets that had been torn from a vacation home. They were like new. We installed an antique door at the side with most of it's original thumb print glass. When we located a party tearing out two, like new, clawfoot tubs, we couldn't make up our minds between the short or long one, so bo't them both. A really difficult task was accumulating downed poles and posts from neighboring woodlots for our loft and stair railings. Doing all the cleaning & shaping by hand made it a real struggle, but we did it. I spent one winter, carving a cougar on the outside of the front door. We were often visited by deer, so I carved two does on the inside of the door. There are lots of handcarved accents thruout the house.

Our crazy project was written about in "Log & Timber Style" magazine and later we were given a huge writeup in the Bend Bulletin. I'm only sharing all of this to give some insight into the anguish and sadness that we're going thru right now. We've tried to sell the house since first deciding that we wanted to make our home in Belize, but have been haunted by the rapid downturn in the housing market. We've supported the house for a long time, but now that must come to an end. I'm traveling back to Oregon in May to sell all the furnishings, salvaging as much from it as I can and then we'll let the house go. This horrible decision is coupled with some extreme family problems that are tearing us apart.

We'd placed both the Oregon house and Dreamer Farm on the market for sale, but, at least for now, Dreamer has truly become our refuge. It's so peaceful and beautiful and is giving us a positive direction for the future. We're going to stay here, grow cacao and renew our efforts to create a refuge for family & friends here in Belize.

A new direction

2011-04-07T12:05:00.000-06:00

The weather here continues to be very hot. We woke this am to lots of morning mist, but by 8:30 it was rising and the sun started beating down. Rene came at sunrise so that he could work before it got really hot. He's become obsessed by a hole he is digging in the back, where he's sure we'll hit water. Things have slowed down their growing and the hole is in the shade in the morning so we told him to go ahead. This starter hole is only about 4' across so I stayed with him to help by hauling up the bucket of dirt and to sure that he's ok. He's mostly into a sticky grey clay which is very wet. He finally stopped at about 8' deep today. We were both hot and tired, but he hates to stop. I hope we'll be able to get him some help to make the hole bigger and deeper.

Now for the really interesting part. You know when you get an idea it wanders around in your head and you can't even remember where it came from? That happened to me with cacao. Maybe it was the article in the Belize Ag Report, I'm not sure. I knew that chocolate came from a bean, but always got cacao and coca mixed up. I google cacao and wow, what a cool plant. Most cacao is grown in Africa, Central and South America, fairly close to the equator. Here in Belize it's in the Toledo District. I sent an email to the Toledo Cacao Grower's Assoc. TCGA for information and got an almost immediate reply. Their consultant lives in San Ignacio and could visit our place on Monday. That's definitely not "Belize Time."

Early monday morning Marco Figueroa came up. What a great guy. He's extremely knowledgeable about growing cacao and was pleased about our interest. He's anxious to get growers here in Cayo, but interest has been minimal. Rene was here so helped by digging test holes and we included him in the discussions. We found that cacao needs to grow in shade and doesn't like marl. In places here the white marl is fairly close to the surface here, but behind and below the buildings would be great areas. It's possible to grow plants from seeds in bags and then plant the seedlings in the ground. This will take about 5 years and then, the cacao plants are notoriously unreliable and many won't bear fruit. Bummer!

Thank goodness Marco had an alternative. We can plant the seeds in bags. At three months we buy buds from proven plants and graft them onto the seedlings. After four more months we plant them. Grafted plants usually produce in about 2 1/2 years. That's sounds much better and more reliable. Wow, we were starting to get really excited. We can send Rene to Punta Gorda to learn more about growing and grafting. He's excited about the project too. Art may decide to go down too. We feel if we can get started, Dreamer Farm will not only be a real farm, but could be an information and education site for local farmers.

The beauty of cacao in Belize is that the TCGA has a contract to furnish organic product to a very large company. Currently they can't begin to supply the desired quantity. The local farmers have been promised so much in the past. If they grow a certain crop, there'll be a market, which never materializes. By growing cacao, working to maintaining the plants (watering, composting, pruning & growing new plants) a couple of acres of cacao should be able to support a family here.

We're meeting Marco in San Ignacio on Saturday to visit his little place to see plants, to get grow bags and to join the TCGA. We'll be on our way. As we progress (I hope) I'll keep you posted. These old dogs are having fun learning new tricks.

An Akita in Belize

2011-03-31T16:12:00.000-06:00

If you've read some of my entries you'll recognize that I'm referring to Bailey, our seven year old, now overweight Akita. I have to admit that his heritage is somewhat in question. His coloring makes him appear to be part shepherd, but, as our daughter said, when she lived in Japan, she saw "Bailey's" everywhere. Most probably weren't quite his size. It doesn't even matter to us, as he's exactly who and what we want.

Our son & family had an "akita" some year post who was wonderful. He was slow to move and could be somewhat of a lump until someone messed with one of their kids. Then watchout. He was poetry in motion. We watched him put down a rotweiler who was charging in the direction of the family. Sarg, met him, quietly reached up under him, grabbed him by the throat, flipped him on his side and pinned him to the ground. The owner came rushing up and led the crying dog away. Wow, sure glad Sarg was on our side. The kids could crawl all over him an often did.

As I told in an earlier post, I had been searching the Akita rescue sites when I spotted an ad by the Humane Society, including a photo, for Bailey. He was the image of Sarg. Art dashed down to Bend and put in a bid to make a home for Bailey. At five years old he was still a male so we had to wait a day for him to be neutered. Their rules. He'd been picked up at the north end of town, running. The handlers at the pound really loved him and were determined to find him a good home. What baffled everyone was that no one came to claim him. Why was he running? That's actually a question we've never been able to answer. It doesn't appear that he's ever been mistreated, but, as with most Akitas, he's very opinionated, not taking kindly to discipline and he's afraid of thunder and extremely loud noises. Those are things that we've found with most dogs.

Right after we got him, he got loose and took off running. We were heartbroken and looked everywhere for 5 days, putting up posters, etc. We figured he was looking for someone. To our delight and relief, he came home after all that time, thirsty and hungry. We met some fellows working on a house remodel down the road and they told us that they'd spotted him, caught in a pile of lumber, down near the river. One of them was brave enough to go down and pull his leash out and he took off for home. Our home, much to our joy.

I've already related the story of our drive from Bend, Oregon to Belize, but Bailey made it all so much more fun. He's a lovely traveler, bonding with our pickup and enjoying the airconditioning. He gave us so much more confidence traveling thru Mexico because, when officers caught site of him, they'd usually just wave us thru. I don't think I mentioned that, at the time he weighed 110#s. Now, I hate to admit he probably weighs more like 125#s.

Sadly, we can't let him run loose because he will run. He would come back home, but first he'd poke into the bush to check on the snakes and tarantulas or even try to confront the black jaguar that has been spotted around our area. Also, altho' Belizians are extremely afraid of dogs, many would love to own him for that very reason. We've had inquiries about using him as a stud with local dogs and they don't really understand how he could have been neutered.

When we built our little house (600 sq ft) we put a veranda all the way around so that Bailey would have a least a little place to run and also, he can hopefully find the coolest side of the house. We also put him out on a cable in the shade when it's hot.

The whole point of this is that he's not just a wonderful friend, but truly part of our family. He's only happy when he's with us, or has us in sight. Akita's are very quiet, but if he thinks he's being ignored, he'll bark to remind us that he wants attention.

This heat right now is a worry for us on his behalf. I know that he'd be much happier in a cold climate. The surprising thing is that he has an extremely thick coat with guard hairs on his back. He does shed, but his coat remains very thick. We've decided that he's like the bedoins who cover themselves with wool to insulate against the heat. We're watching him closely, but he seems to be managing about as well as we are, drinking lots of water and panting.

I can't imagine living here without him. He makes us feel safe and loved. What a gift.

HOT!

2011-03-31T08:17:00.001-06:00

Ok, you're probably getting bored with my talking about the weather, but hey, it's March and Tuesday it reached 112 and yesterday it was 110. Way too hot for this over-the-hill and not thin lady. All we can do is shut the house up on the sunny side, turn on the fans and sweat like pigs. We told Rene to come in today at 6am (he usually starts a little before 7 and then we'll have him head for home when it gets really hot. This definitely isn't normal for March. Maybe in May, but not now. Hope it doesn't just stay this way. How frightening. It sounds like rain because the trees are dropping their leaves like crazy.

Yesterday I did three loads of laundry and saved the water. I then used what I could save (my washtub sprang a leak) to water the flower beds that I started. Will probably lose all, but have to give it a try. Water is precious.

Hot

2011-03-27T12:32:00.000-06:00

Right now it appears that the hot/dry season might be upon us. It's been near 100 the last couple of days and the forecast is for more of the same. I know that sounds wonderful to you folks up north, but it's just plain hot. The humidity stays pretty high too so I have moved WAY PAST the ladylike, glowing, to just plain sweating. If indeed the dry season is upon us, it will probably last thru April and May. May seems to always be the most miserable month. We visited twice in May before we moved (you'd think we'd have learned the first time) and both times it was over 100 every day. Starting in June is the hurricane season, which brings thunderstorms and rain.

I haven't posted for a bit and won't include any more right now, as we've been facing a few problems which have been taking most of my time. Stay tuned for more of the life and times of an old couple in Belize.

Gale

Back in Cayo

2011-03-03T20:51:00.000-06:00

We had such a great time in Placencia. The weather was perfect and we all had such fun. The ride back to Cayo was lovely, traveling up the Hummingbird Highway. I was really impressed driving on the coast roads where there weren't potholes everywhere, a yellow line down the center and a white fog line. Here in Cayo we barely heautiful part of Belize with family.

I had written to family to describe our place and let them know that it isn't like our place in the states. I'm proud of our place here, but living with composting toilets, single wall construction and our impossible road had me concerned. I should have had more faith in ourselves and especially my family. They loved all of it. It was so good to be home where we could add Art to the group.

We rented a car big enough to handle the six of us for three days. None of us were too excited about doing the strenuous stuff like river and cave stuff. Instead we visited and ate, went to Spanish Lookout, rode around, visited some more and ate some more. We were unaware that the one car ferry to Xunantunich makes it's last run about 4pm and we didn't arrive there until 3:30. Bummer. They gave us a tad of leeway so we dashed up to the ruins, where my sister-in-law, Jan quickly climbed to the top of the Stone Lady and then we all made a dash back to catch the ferry. Would hate to be stuck there overnight. It is a lovely spot and it was a shame that we didn't have more time to really appreciate it. We took them up to Cahal Pech and fantastic, it is open until 6pm. The site itself isn't as spectacular, but the museum part is interesting and informative. It was fun and interesting and both sites so close to our place.

Snorkeling - Placencia

2011-03-02T10:04:00.001-06:00

Art isn't interested in going out on the water, so this trip was my chance to go snorkeling. How exciting. Steve & Jan tried to do a little snorkeling from the beach, but found too much seaweed and few fish. Roger & Heather decided to stay at the resort and just relax, so it was Steve, Jan & me joining a boatload of others for a day of snorkeling on the reef. One thing we all noticed is that in Belize they're not indoctrinated with safety precautions. Non of us wore life jackets. Were told that there were some, but didn't see any. We headed out, once again from the Robert's Marina. We went past several small islands with one or two buildings. Can't imagine how they survive a hurricane as non seem more than inches above sea level. We went out 25 miles to 3 TINY little cays where those who were snorkeling left the boat. Two folks continued on to scuba. We were given the option of blowup vests, which I used. It took a bit to get it adjusted for comfort in the water, but I was really glad I used one. I have to admit that I was a real idiot. I had sunscreen and had my brother put it on my back, but neglected to put any on my legs. What an idiot. I knew better, but was just too impatient. I really suffered for the next several days, but no one to blame but myself.

We had a short talk by a conservation officer about the reef and Belize's rules about it's protection. I was pleased to know that they are taking active steps to protect this fragile resource. Three other boats, much smaller, also had groups snorkeling. This cay is so small that we took up almost all of it's space. Only building there was a barely functional outhouse. Our guides talked to us for a minute to describe where we'd go and that there would be one guide in the front and one in the back, in case we had trouble. They were also wonderful at pointing out things of interest. I was so often at the very back because I wanted to just hover over a spot and take it all in.

Years ago we were fortunate enough to be able to take our kids to Hawaii. I must admit that the reef and fish in Belize weren't as colorful as those in Kauai, but it was thrilling anyway. My camera doesn't work underwater, so I could only look and appreciate. My brother had a new little Fuji underwater that worked beautifully. It's just difficult because everything seems to be moving all the time. We saw tiny blue fish that seemed fluorescent, parrot fish, a few lion fish and even a hammerhead shark that was lying on the bottom.

We came in at noon for a lovely lunch provided by Roberts. They bro't it all in in large coolers that they floated in from the anchored boat. Actually, we were quite surprised at how close the boat could get to the reef, and were told that it had jets and only had a 2 foot draft. This little break was really enjoyable and then we went back out for a tour across open water to a tiny bit of reef that offered a little different view. The open stretch is where I was really glad for the vest. I used to be a fairly strong swimmer, but age and lack of opportunity really lessened my capabilities. Just about the time I was thinking that I'd have to try to just float for a bit and rest, the reef came into view and I was fine. Our guide was a gem and really watched over me. I had a ball. Steve & Jan did great as they each have wetsuits that keep them warm and buoyant.

After our reef snorkeling was over we piled in the boat and went a short distance off another tiny cay to a spot where there's lots of seaweed that's a feeding ground for turtles. Most jumped back in the water to swim with the turtles. We opted to stay aboard and look down on the group. Besides the big turtles the guides spotted a couple of rays too, but they didn't come close enough to the surface to photo.

This was definitely a must do when you visit the coast. I LOVED IT!

Monkey river trip

2011-03-01T21:00:00.000-06:00

My cousin, Roger, really wanted to have the chance to see a crocodile, so we decided to take the trip up the Monkey River. Robert's Grove has lovely boats and guides. We left from the marina at the Grove and took a few little side channels to view the mangroves. Most are being chewed up on the peninsula by dredging and filling to make way for development, but I was a little more heartened to see they're still thriving to the south.

The village of Monkey River is on the south side of the mouth. The road in stops on the north side of the river, so they only get to the village by boat. We were surprised to hear that the river is fresh water so there aren't any mangroves along it's banks. We were thrilled to view so much beautiful jungle and lots of water birds. Yes, Roger go to see his crocodile, altho' we're not telling that they weren't really big. I suggested that he crop the photos and tell his friends that one was actually 8 - 10 feet long. Hey, a croc is a croc. When we'd gone in quite a long way, we put into the bank and walked along a trail into the jungle with the hopes of seeing Howler monkeys. We hear them a lot on our place, but they stay near the river or where there are mangoes or other fruit that they like. We trekked thru the jungle, but didn't see any monkeys. The jungle is different here, with taller trees, but much less underbrush. We passed huge stands of green bamboo. It's not native to Belize, but is thriving in this lush atmosphere. It's a large timber bamboo.

There were a couple of groups going thru and several fellows trying to spot the monkeys when, all of a sudden, there they were. You'd swear from the volume that they'd be the size of gorillas,but they're actually not huge, but boy are they loud. We were warned to be careful if we were under them as they often throw branches or other debris at those below. It turned out that there were two family groups challenging each other so we were treated to lots of noise. What a thrill!

We then went a little further up the river and the back down, sighting lots more birds and wildlife. We stopped in Monkey River at a little restaurant and were treated to fantastic chicken rice and beans. We headed back, thinking that was the end of the trip when our guide stopped near an island where we watched for manatees. They're hard to spot, but we were lucky to see a couple stick their noses out to catch a peek at us. They feed in spots where there is lots of sea grass.

This was a thrilling trip and it showed us so much more than we'd seen before.

Family at Placencia

2011-03-01T08:43:00.000-06:00

Wow, we stayed at Robert's Grove. I have to admit that it's a little outside our price range as we always traveled within the Toucan Trail criteria. Robert's is beautiful and very comfortable. My cousins got a suite so I was able to stay with them. During this whole trip it seemed like we'd be eating one meal and planning the next. Sometimes it seemed that all we did was eat. I didn't take as many photos as I should. I guess I was just too busy looking and enjoying. The sea/ocean in Belize can be messy with debris and seaweed, but the folks at Robert's rake and keep it very clean. What a wonderful stay we had. It was nice to have our truck to bop into the village as the taxi service seemed overpriced and it was quite a healthy walk. We tried several different restaurants & I'm afraid that I can't remember their names. We only had one disappointment at a charming Austrian restaurant at Seine Bight. Lovely service and atmosphere, but the food was disappointing. Steve & Jan have traveled a few times to Europe and one of his favorite dishes is Wiener schnitzel. We'll never hear the end of his disappointment with the fare here. From that point on we'd ask the folks who worked at the resort where they'd recommend. From there on we had only successes.

Through the resort we took two trips. The first was a boat trip up the Monkey River and the second was snorkeling on the cays.

If I can get Steve or Roger to send me some photos, I'll add them. Robert's is a really beautiful place.

Family visit

2011-02-28T19:11:00.000-06:00

After living in Belize for over a year and a half, we have been delighted to have a family visit. I worried and planned for over two months to make it a memorable experience for my brother, Steve and his wonderful wife, Jan, and two of our cousins, Roger and Heather (brother & sister). We all grew up in Washington state, altho' still many miles apart, so visited frequently as kids. Of course, this visit went by way too fast. Belize blessed us by showing them her beauty and warmth. My cousin Roger lives in New York and the rest of the family lives in Oregon. Both coasts have been suffering severe cold, so they were given a warm treat here in the jewel.

The difficult thing about living across country borders is leaving family behind. Not only is it expensive to travel, the customs/immigration bit can get quite tiring, confusing and just plain frustrating. It's not like traveling in country where you could put older children on a plane and meet them at the other end.

Initially, they all flew to Placencia where they stayed at Robert's Grove. I drove down the next day. Art doesn't like the coast and preferred to stay up here with Bailey. Another consideration was that our truck only holds 5 people. After a wonderful 5 day visit in Placencia, we traveled up here to Cayo for the remainder of their stay.

I was overly concerned that they'd find our life here primitive and uncomfortable, but they all seemed to enjoy themselves. They were all such good sports to accept using a composting toilet. They also adjusted to just screens as windows and waking up to the parrots socializing followed by the chachalacas letting the world know where they were. It can get pretty noisy at daylight.

Art & I were so proud of Bailey. He's so social when he knows that someone is family or friend. He'd say his how-do-you-do's and then lie down wait for an invitation for a scratch or a walk. He's wonderful company.

I'm so grateful that they could come down for this visit. My brother and I have been very close and I couldn't love Jan more if she'd been a sister. I communicate via email with our cousin, Roger in New York and have never lost that family connection. He's incredibly smart, talented and generous. I hadn't seen his sister Heather for several years, but we fell right into the family stories and hugs.

I speak about myself in all this, but Art is at the center of all the family stuff. He's such a quiet but charming host and always fits right in with anyone.

It was sad to put them on the shuttle to Belize, but hope they will come back soon. Note: up here we have William who owns a shuttle service. He's interesting and a very good driver. We've found it's much less stressful and actually cheaper to use his service rather than drive to the airport. Gas here is very expensive (currently $10.50bz a gallon) and the trip takes about 2 1/2 hours one way.

I didn't get a tag on the photo so, it's L to R, Jan, Steve, Roger and Heather with Art peeking back at the front.

Handrail project update

2011-02-12T15:27:00.001-06:00

I'm frustrated today as I wanted to work on the handrail project, but it's raining and the Tati is wet, so hard to clean. I putter with this project when I get a little time. Art has been helping me with some of the frame and has even enjoyed stripping the bark off some of the spindles. It's like whittling. Tati is interesting. It's a vine so some of it is very flexible. There's a variety of it in almost every tree. Some of the pieces Rene has bro't us goes up high in the canopy and blooms. We've been smelling and seeing the sweet bloom, but didn't realize what it is. The yellow flower is known as Witches Comb. We're not cutting anything close to the houses so that we can enjoy the flowers and the fascinating shapes.

This photo shows that I'm getting a little more carried away and enjoying the wonderful shapes. I'm having fun.

Redstart and woodpecker

2011-02-10T09:13:00.000-06:00

Finally able to catch the little redstart. This was the first time that he sat still for even a few seconds.

Sharing Belize

2011-02-09T20:51:00.000-06:00

I wish there was some way to share what I see every morning. What a joy to sit at the table on our back veranda, with a cup of coffee and sweet Bailey at my feet, and watch the jungle come alive as the mist rises. In a way I feel guilty that we're experiencing such glorious weather when the States are struggling with miserable storms.

I catch fleeting glimpses of the little redstart warbler. He's as fast and erratic as the hummingbird. Much of the time they're only a sound or a movement in the trees. Then that flash of color. The tiny black & white warbler is an occasional visitor. The parrots start their day as the mist rises, but the chachalacas wait for the sun to be out to start communicating with each other.

I look out on our paths, mottled by the sun, that meander through the trees. The hammock invites us to lie back, relax and look up into the trees. I've made labels for the medicine plants along the paths, for visitors, but actually for me too. Rene was having to keep reminding me of the names. Sometimes I think my memory is a sieve, leaking out more than it's taking in. Anyway, the labels help.

We're so pleased by the way we positioned the house. The front is towards the east and gets the morning sun, which helps get rid of the nighttime dampness. The back is shaded by the trees so it never gets really hot. If there's any breeze at all, it comes around the north end of the house and keeps the area around the table cool.

The beauty and gentleness of it all is like a soft prayer.

Art & I love to dream and plan. If we had the money, this would make a lovely retreat. Imagine a thatched roof cabana, nestled at the edge of the trees, surrounded by flowers. The Mopan river is at the bottom of the hill, inviting you to cool off. We envision an outdoor kitchen where we could share a cool lime drink from the fruit of our trees, or a meal. What a dream.

My current project

2011-02-04T17:14:00.000-06:00

Wow, I'm finally feeling better. It's great to be able to have a conversation without coughing my head off. Actually, I've been doing fairly well, keeping busy, just not doing much visiting. I'm not very good at being sick and staying in bed. Ick! I much prefer to keep trudging away.

I've been concerned because the guest house is 8' in the air and we only have a handrail on the veranda. I saw some of the wonderful Ta ti that Rene bro't out of the bush and asked him to find a bunch for me. I can't tell the difference between the kind that will rot day-after-tomorrow or the kind that lasts for years. I know he thinks I'm a little crazy, but, bless his heart, he responded with huge armloads. I'm slowly peeling the bark off pieces and installing spindles. OK, before one of you hollers, I know it's not code. For heavens sake. This is Belize! There isn't any code here in the bush.

When we built our recycled, handbuilt, log house in Oregon, we struggled, but it's to code. A couple of disappointments were that we found wonderful clawfoot tubs, but couldn't use the original faucets because of code. Some time in the who knows past there was a fire in Chicago and water siphoned back into their water system, so you have to have the faucet 1" above the water line. Anyway, we survived because we had a wonderful inspector who tho't we were crazy, but loved our project. Hallelujah! One of the beauties of Belize is that you can be creative and get away with it.

If we should have guests with small children, we'll put up the temporary wire mesh to protect them. For now, I just had to give this a try. It's going to take me quite a time to finish, but I'm enjoying it for now.

trim colors

2011-01-27T12:20:00.000-06:00

Yes, I'm still struggling with bronchitis, but doing ok as long as I'm up here, away from folks where I can cough and complain and no one to hear me except poor Art, Bailey and the birds. The trouble with bronchitis is that it takes so long to go away.

In the meantime, I've decided to spruce up a little of the trim on the buildings. Not going to paint too much, but the screen doors on the house are getting mungy (not sure if that's a real word, but they are anyway) and the trim on the little house looked really bad. To paint something here in the tropics, I think you have to use the pretty local colors. If you look at the bright green and then the bush you see that green everywhere. The lovely peach color on the little house, is actually around in the trees and is called papaya down here. Have used more of the blue on the guest house on the inside of one room and the bathroom, but love it on the little bench. Love the crumby table on the guest house veranda. Got if for $15bz at an auction and it's perfect for jigsaw puzzles. Now we just need guests. LOL!

Just want to let you know that we're still here. Art is in town getting a new cord put on the generator. Things sure wear out fast here. Life can be tough and we're getting our share right now, but the sun, warm breezes and wonderful folks help us to keep plugging away and to enjoy these beautiful colors.

Just another day in paradise

2011-01-22T20:51:00.000-06:00

Hi guys,
Nothing exciting happening here. Art's been keeping our new weedeater busy, trying to keep up with the weeds. We don't have grass, but actually some of the weeds are low growing and make a presentable lawn. It's hard to grow grass up here because of the hot, dry spells and we don't have expendable water for sprinklers.

I'm spending most of my time trying to spruce up the place, preparing for a family visit. Pretty exciting as this will be our first company in 1 1/2 years. I'm anxious to share our wonderful place with them and also let them see that we've not totally lost our minds. I'm painting some of the trim on the houses. Hadn't planned to, but the weather and wear & tear have made some of it look shabby. (I'll add a couple of photos later)

One of the reasons for my silence is that I'm, once again, struggling with bronchitis. Had hoped that I'd left this behind in the mountains of Oregon, but not to be. Not sure if it's the humidity or what, but sinus trouble haunts everyone and for me, it leads to bronchitis. Darn! I keep going, but have to push myself. I'm drinking lemon grass (fever grass) tea hoping it will help.

Never fear, dear friends, we're here just plugging away. I'll share more in a couple of days.

rain

2011-01-13T09:13:00.000-06:00

Wow, from my fingers to God's hear. Not quite. They've been predicting rain for about 3 weeks, but none appeared until Tuesday night. We're not getting lots of rain, just sporadic and quite a stiff breeze.

Sandy, bless her heart, sent me a comment about the fact that the rainy season is actually during summer months. That's because that's the hurricane season. It doesn't rain really often then, but when it does it comes down in buckets. (I have to tell you that most of my info comes from Rene, who has lived here all his life and has taught me so much about the land). During December, January it is often overcast and there are periods of drizzle. That's the good time to plant a garden. The dry spell was devastating to lots of gardens. Not sure how long this cloudy spell will last, but we do appreciate the little bit of rain.

Well, I'm off to the dentist. I get my crown put on today. I think I already mentioned that we have a wonderful dentist here who is gentle and VERY reasonable. My crown cost $350bz total. In Oregon they're $1k US at least.

Have a great day dear friends. Gale

weather

2011-01-10T08:11:00.000-06:00

I know the weather in the U.S. is really awful in some places. Unusually cold and lots of snow. I just looked at the road cams in Central Oregon. Lots of snow and cold. I loved the snow when we had lots of wood stacked outside and food stocked up. I could just savor the beauty of it all in the mountains. It is always a time of worry tho' about folks driving in icy conditions. Sunriver is a resort area and folks visit who are there to have a good time skiing and enjoying the winter, and have no concern for the hazardous road conditions.

Our concern here is Belize is just the opposite. We're having the most gorgeous weather, which I'm sure the tourists are enjoying. It's in the 80's during the day and high 50's at night. Sounds ideal, but our big worry is that this is supposed to be the rainy season. Usually it rains most of December and on into January. We haven't had rain for several weeks. The ground is dry and cracking and any of the trees have started to lose their leaves. We do have the morning mists, but they're not enough to provide water to the earth. Farmers have planted beans and corn, staples here, and what has sprouted is drying up. The Mennonites are trying to irrigate some fields, but most will be a loss. I hear that the government is trying to find sources outside of Belize to get folks thru this tough year. Prices will go soaring. Because of the weather and struggling economy here, most of the population is out of work. I worry about how families can survive.

We're extremely conservative in our water and electricity use. When we came down we were prepared to have our cistern go dry, so we developed ways of recycling our water. We collect our gray water in a tank (this is from showers and washing dishes) and use that to water plants. We also use composting toilets. As is turns out, our 10k gallon cistern is still 90% full. This dry weather will be a test for our usage. If we continue to maintain our water supply, we may opt to install a regular toilet here in our house. I have to say we're not fans of the Biolet toilet system. We much prefer the homemade composting toilet in the guest house. Anyway, right now we're just concerned about water.

We had standing water in a spot near my garden. This is curious as we're at the top of a ridge. The ground slopes down quite seriously behind the guest house. Art & Rene decided to dig down to determine the source of the water. Rene dug a hole about 3' across and maybe 4' deep and water is leaking below the topsoil at the top of the marl. The water is clean and odorless. Rene remembers as a boy they used to hunt in this area and there was a spring fed stream around here in the bush. When our "ship comes in", what a laugh, we'd like to dig a well and hopefully supplement our water supply.

Moving to Belize is such a fantastic experience. To develop our little place with limited funds and off-grid is a little like pioneering. Of course they didn't have solar, so we know we're pretty lucky. We also couldn't do most of the work on the land without our good friend, Rene. He's a wealth of information and common sense and he works extremely hard. He's so proud of what we've all accomplished here and doesn't hesitate to take credit for much of our success.

This seems to be a very confused year weather wise, everywhere. None of the usual conditions are happening. I hope the spring (that's for the U.S, there really isn't a spring here) will bring a gentleness back to the land for all of us. We're praying for a little rain here before the expected dry season hits.
Blessings, Gale

Aracari - little toucan

2011-01-09T12:41:00.000-06:00

This little fellow visited a few days ago and I tho't it might be interesting for anyone who doesn't get the opportunity to see the differences, to see the little toucan also. I've found that the keel-billed toucan stays high in the canopy, where the Aracari has come down to eat berries very near the house. This little one visited the same trumpet trees as the big toucan. Wish we had lots of fruit trees so that we'd see them more often. I'm just pleased and excited about these visits. Even tho' folks here call it the "little toucan" it's still a fairly good sized bird at about 16". The keel-billed can be about 21". (I love my "Birds of Belize" book).

Finally, toucan photos

2011-01-08T21:55:00.000-06:00

I've been so frustrated trying, first to catch a glimpse of our toucans and then to try to get a photo. They fly in and vanish into the trumpet trees. My photography skills leave a lot to be desired, but I keep trying. I'm slow and so is my camera, but today I finally got a shot of our elusive friend. He seems to come in and just get one piece of fruit and then fly off, out of sight. It's hard to realize that so many incredible birds visit our yard. I'm including a couple of less than perfect photos to show the colors on the body. What an incredible gift.

watercolors

2011-01-02T17:22:00.000-06:00

Ok! Like I told you, I keep thinking I'll break out of my rut, but I keep trudging away, doing my birds and critters. I do love them tho'. Maybe I'll surprise myself and try something different next time.

I don't see many watercolors down here, probably because the humidity is so hard on paper. They would all have to be archival matted and framed to keep out the moisture. Also, the truly frustrating thing is that, at least here in the Cayo District, I have yet to find a place to buy supplies. Got excited when I passed a place in Belmopan called the Art Box. Silly me! It's full of ticky tacky and not much else. Oh, a few of Caroline Carr's painting on the 2nd floor. Doubt that an art supply store would do a booming business, but sure wish someone would be able to stock paints, brushes, etc. Luckily I bro't quite a bit when we moved, so can keep busy, when my lazy bones get ambitious.

Happy New Year

2011-01-02T17:01:00.000-06:00

Hard to believe that it's 2011. Seems as tho' the millennium was only a couple of years ago. Hope this is a good year for all of us. We stayed home for New Year's eve and watched a couple of videos. It's hard to go to sleep early here because they celebrate everything with fireworks. Not pretty ones, just noisy. We did have a great time yesterday tho'. I decided to make pizza and ten of us had a great time just visiting, eating and generally enjoying our lovely weather. (Sorry all you up north). It's now gotten quite warm and today is threatening rain. It's still warm with a wonderful breeze. It was hard to make the pizza because we have a really small oven, but managed just fine. Lots of lovely desserts found their way up also, so we were all pleasantly stuffed.

Today was back to normal with laundry and watering the garden. The really tough part was then sitting down and reading a really good book for the rest of the day. I truly savor not marching to the demands of the clock and employers.

Happy 2011 dear friends.

After Christmas

2010-12-29T17:01:00.000-06:00

We had an extremely quiet Christmas, but managed just fine. Nice to have friends to visit. Didn't hear much from our family, but know that everyone is very busy. We're still in the midst of a cold spell that has been going on for over a month. As I've said before, it sounds wimpy to complain when the temp gets down to 40 here, but that's really cold in the tropics. Last night we had two extra blankets on the bed and closed the shutters. We layer. Two sweatshirts in the morning and then shed them down to a t-shirt in the afternoon. It hasn't rained during this same period, which is a little bit of a concern. This is usually a really rainy time. Hope it rains soon to fill the rotoplas' that I use for laundry. The big cistern is still nearly full, so no real worries. We're extremely conservative in our water and electricity use. Since we had never lived off grid before, we weren't sure how to judge our usage. At this rate we could have put in a regular toilet instead of the composting one. Would have been cheaper and more comfortable. It's all a learning experience.

We are struggling to keep machinery working. One of the good things about the cold, dry spell is that things aren't growing very fast. We have a big weedeater in for repair (has been there for 5 months) and our regular one bit the dust today. It started life as a Truper (made in Mexico) and later the engine was replace with a Homelite. I guess you can only squeeze so much life out of them when they just give up. Bearings jammed and it welded itself into a non-usable lump. With tears and a nearly empty bank account, we had to buy a new one. Found a "deal" on a mid priced one, bro't it home and the darned thing won't start. Art went back to the store and THEY WERE CLOSED! THEY CLOSE ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. It's all right. This is Belize. Get a grip, Gale. Tomorrow is another day.

I did paint a couple of watercolors the last couple of weeks. Nothing great, but nice to get back into something creative besides weeds. I keep thinking I'll break loose and create something bright and splashy, but always end up with realistic something.

I've been hesitant to say that I planted another garden. Moved it down the hill where the marl isn't so close to the surface. Most things are doing ok, but the cold is taking a toll. I'm dragging hoses down there and watering from the gray water tank. That's our shower and dishwater water. Like I said, we're very conservative. I don't sprinkle, but put water only on the ground, not on the plants themselves. I planted carrots and yellow onions and nothing came up. Two weeks ago I planted more of the same seed and they're doing great. This time during the full moon. If I actually get something from this garden I'll post photos and, of course, will have to brag. Isn't it weird to plant a garden in December. My Oregon brain has a little trouble with some of this. Of course, where were lived in the mountains, we couldn't have a garden at all, so this is really a treat.

Ok, I've babbled enough for now. I'm going to dig out some photos I took of interesting fungus that were out before this cold spell hit. More soon. Gale

Christmas

2010-12-18T11:32:00.000-06:00

It doesn't seem like Christmas this year. Last Christmas Art was Santa for about 650 children in a sweet little restaurant called "Mom's". Sadly Bill closed it down a few months ago. It will just be us this year. Just had a call from a dear friend and we'll have a get-together with several friends this Wednesday. We're so pleased.

I really miss Christmas in Bend and the States. What a storybook place with snow and living Christmas trees all around. Every Christmas, in our house in Oregon, I loved putting lights on the outside of our lovely log home and decorating the inside with a tree, garlands on the stairs and the decorations we've acquired in 50 years of marriage. It was always lonely in a way, as Art was a professional Santa, so was gone from Thanksgiving until just after Christmas. I loved being close to our daughter and two of our grandson's and sometimes spending it with our son and his three children and my brother & sister-in-law. I sure miss all of them.

Christmas is so different here in Belize. It's almost a non-event. Few decorations, people in shorts and flip-flops and almost no mention of Christmas. You can say what you want about commercialism in the States, but what a wonderful time of year. Decorations, music and folks dashing around, trying to find the perfect gift for loved ones. Sharing gifts, food and love can't be all that bad. We're also reminded so often that it's really a celebration of the birth of Christ. I guess here it's more of a private acknowledgement. We try to give our neighbors children a little treat, but don't even hear a "Merry Christmas" from anyone. You don't appreciate the generous hearts of Americans until you're away from it and you realize that the whole world doesn't feel the same way. How sad and how proud I am to be an American, even tho' we live in Belize.

I hope you all have a lovely holiday and are able to share it with loved ones. I know our weather here is lovely, but there's something incredible about snow and lights and generous spirits at Christmas.

Blessings and Merry Christmas.
Gale & Art

Shopping in Belize

2010-12-15T14:42:00.000-06:00

This can be EXTREMELY frustrating. I dream of strolling thru Home Depot and Costco with their neat shelves stacked with goods and materials made for the U.S., with instructions in English. Here, it is only a dream. The reality can drive you slightly nuts. We're in the process of plumbing our guest bathroom and planned to install an on-demand, gas hot water heater. We have one in our house and, at the time, we had no trouble finding one. This time, it was like a conspiracy. We traveled to Spanish Lookout first, as the bastion of all things in the hardware line. (Isn't that a hoot that the Mennonites market the best machinery?) Well, this time, the only heaters to be found were huge, ranging from $1,000 on up. Wow, this is for a room that is rarely used and then only for a sink and shower. Come on guys! We used to hear this when we lived in a little coastal town in Oregon - "We just sold the last one and we're not sure when we'll get more." SCREAM! Yesterday I went to every shop & store in San Ignacio and Santa Elena and no one sells ANY hot water heaters. OK, the trips weren't a total loss as I/we had to go anyway to buy more fittings that we didn't get previously. All this is frustrating tho', because I burned $20 worth of gas in two trips to town. Please, don't tell me have to go to Belize City to get one. I really hate that trip and that town. Another problem is that, we have yet to see a phone book anywhere, so we have to gather phone numbers as we visit places. I found the number for Builder's Hardware in Belmopan and gave them a call. It's about 40 miles there and I'm tired of burning gas for a wasted trip. Hallelujah, they had only one, a 6 liter heater for $380. I practically scream at the fellow on the phone, hold it for me. Today, we traveled to Belmopan, and returned with our prize.

We're having Carlos, Rene's youngest son do the plumbing. He usually works in Placencia, but there isn't work for them right now. It's so nice to not be climbing on the ladder and trying to figure out what goes where. This time I'm just the gofer. Within an hour of returning with our purchase, Carlos had it installed and water running. Oops, we forgot the gas line and regulator for the butane. Oh well, another trip to town, but we're almost done. Whew!

Just wandering around the place

2010-12-08T20:13:00.000-06:00

It's still hard to wander around our little Dreamer Farm when the temp is in the 70's and realize that it's so cold up north. I love the blue vine that winds itself around our veranda, with the double hibiscus at the bottom. We've cut the brush in about an acre below the houses and are creating paths and planting for our "park". Right now it's not that impressive, but it is a quiet refuge where you can look up at the trees and watch the birds. We've planted some dwarf palms near a winding path that I created. I'll add more plants and flowers as we get them. I was going to have Art bring back some impatience seeds as they love the shade, but then I realized that it's December in Oregon and they're selling snow shovels and mittens rather than seeds. I'd love to hit the local nurseries, but the budget is a little tight, so will see what I can snip and start from scratch.

As Rene chopped and cleared, he'd find medicinal plants and I asked him to save them. He tells me how each can be used, but I'm a very poor student. He laughs when I tell him that his wonderful stories tend to go in one of my ears and falls out the other. I feel like the little boy who said "teacher, I need to go home because my brain is full." I'm trying to write some of it down. He knows so much of the Mayan methods. I'm trying to come up with a way of labeling these plants so that we don't accidentally cut them down. I'd like to get a printer and put together a book of photos and a map of where things are.

These are just random photos. The darker single hibiscus is near our guest house. The photos doesn't show the deep red center very clearly. The light purple bougainvillea is a dwarf plant and now full size.

Art's home

2010-12-05T18:01:00.000-06:00

Art made is safely back on Friday. What a shift in gears he had to make. From nearly 4' of snow in our back yard in Oregon to 70 degree weather here. He had a safe, but long trip back with 18 hours of travel time due to long layovers in San Francisco and Houston. I had to have William of Belize Shuttle pick him up at the airport as I'm, once again, struggling with a broken tooth. I had a temporary in place, but it fell out Thursday evening. Luckily she could get me in Friday morning for a replacement. Get a permanent filling on Tuesday and then a crown. Luckily, it's not hurting me as it seems to have missed the nerve. Bailey is sure glad to see Art. He was wonderful company when Art was gone, but I could tell that he was confused that his special person was missing. He now seems content that his family is back in place again.

I'm excited to hear that my brother, sister-in-law and two of my cousins will visit us in Feb. In over a year, this will be our first visit from family. We'll be busy sprucing up the place.

Right now, I wish we had visitors to share the wonderful smell outside. There's a tree that has tiny blooms on it that smells wonderful. It's such a tall tree that we can't really see the blooms, but they fall to the ground and create a beautiful carpet. We're also starting to see some of the migrating birds from the north. Caught a glimpse of a toucan today, heading for a trumpet tree, but they're too fast to photograph. Rene stopped by with the Trooper today and brought a bunch of plants to add to our "park". He's so proud of it and wants to help make it pretty. As soon as I can get some decent photos, I'll share with this blog. He told me that when he worked on Friday, he saw 4 Great Curassaw birds cross our yard. They're seldom found here, but he thinks that Hurricane Richard pushed them here from the Tikal area. He's heard that the Ocellated Turkey has also been seen in the area. Talk about a funny looking bird. It has a bright blue neck and then bright orange bumps on it that look like pieces of plastic. Don't you just love the bright colors of the jungle birds?

I know reading my ramblings would be more interesting with photos, but right now I've not had much luck. Will try to be more obliging soon.

Hugs from the jungle, Gale

Art in Oregon

2010-12-01T08:15:00.000-06:00

Poor Art, I talked to him last evening and the snow is still falling. Over 2' and more coming down. He spends most of his spare time with the snow blower. Our house is about 25 miles south of Bend, Oregon, across Lave Butte, adjacent to Sunriver. (Not in the resort as their rules and costs would drive us crazy). We're at an elevation of 4200'. Bend is closer to 3200'. Anyway, Art went to Bend yesterday and there wasn't any snow there. Our place is the perfect location for skiers as Mt. Bachelor ski area is less that 1/2 hours away, but can be tough on us. It is extremely beautiful there tho' and our handbuilt log house is like a lovely small ski lodge. Oh well! Art will be glad to get back here to our 60 to 80 degree days. (I know there's a degree symbol somewhere under one of these keys, but I don't know where). Bailey and I will sure be glad to have him back here, safe and sound.

I'll post more about Belize, but right now it's just maintenance and putting one foot in front of the other. We sure can't complain about our weather here tho'.

Blessings, Gale

Art's trip to Oregon

2010-11-23T13:36:00.000-06:00

Why does fate always do things like this. Poor Art, didn't want to make this trip, but he needed to visit the VA. We're trying to keep one foot in the US for now. We've had quite a bit of rain here in Belize, but it's warmed up, so not uncomfortable. Right now it's cloudy,but 70 out. Well, I just talked to our daughter in Oregon and overnight they had 1 1/2 ft of snow and it's supposed to get down to -7 Fahrenheit. Art should be landing at the Bend/Redmond airport in just a few minutes. He didn't even have a coat to take up there with him. This is one time we're glad we have the house and lots of stuff there. All of our winter clothes are packed away in the house. Also, when I left in April I left the snow tires on the car. At least something should be ok. Hopefully, the fact that it's very dry there will make dealing with the cold a little easier.

Bailey & I will miss Art like crazy, but I have lots of chores and projects, so will keep busy.

Happy Thanksgiving, Gale

Aracari carving

2010-11-20T10:54:00.000-06:00

It appears that we're going to have rain, rain and more rain for the next week or so, so looks as tho' I'll not have an excuse for ignoring my little projects. A friend of ours has a wood shop where they create exquisite furniture. I snagged this piece of mahogany from them and carved this piece. This fellow spent some time in a tree in our backyard. Most of the time they just fly by, but luckily I caught him/her to get a couple of photos. We don't have mature fruit trees, since we've been hacking our place out of the bush, so most of these guys just pass us by. Hope to catch more than a passing glimpse of the big toucans too.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-18T18:11:00.000-06:00

Lots of holidays here that we don't have a clue about. Tomorrow is Garifuna day, which is a national holiday. The Garifuna's are a group of people who mostly live at the coast and south, who are descendants of slaves. I've been told that this is the most colorful holiday in the country. That's great, but we also miss our traditions, like Thanksgiving. We were thrilled that a lovely friend has a tiny restaurant and she decided to have an early Thanksgiving dinner. We just returned from stuffing ourselves on her wonderful fare. Everything was perfect, except that we won't be able to nosh on the leftovers. Oh well! Turkey and all the trimmings and pie. We were in heaven.

I should preface this with the fact that we've had the most incredible weather for a couple of weeks. Cool at night and in the 70's & 80's during the day. Can't imagine any better. I had to water my new little garden every day tho' and was getting worried that the tank I use was getting low. Well, not to worry. Tonight it was filled several times over. About 2pm it started to rain and then it changed to POURING. We slogged our way down the hill early to dinner as we were afraid we wouldn't be able to get back up. Someone said that it rained 2" in an hour. I think it was probably even more than that. It's now about 6:30 and it's still raining. A big share of Paslow Falls Rd was under water, but we managed just fine. At least the river has been down, so there's somewhere for all this water to go. The trip up the hill was a hoot. All I could do was put our sweet Toyota pickup in 4 wheel drive and let her pick the route. It wasn't easy as the whole muddy thing was a river itself. Lots of huge bumps and trenches that previous rains have dug. The top half where we had so much work done is a blessing. We always breath a huge sigh of relief when we hit that part.

Anyway, Art& I enjoyed having our Thanksgiving together as he leaves for Oregon for 10 days on Monday. He'll have the real Thanksgiving up there with family. Bailey & I will be toughing it out together here. Actually, we'll be great. I have lots of tasks to do and Bailey & I have great (if one sided) chats. Also, lots of friends and neighbors to keep tabs on me. We've agreed that Art needs to go to the VA once a year for checkups. Some healthcare here is ok, but we feel better with the quality care he gets at the Bend Clinic. He'll also be able to totally shut our lovely log house up for the winter. It's cold up there right now. We had left everything functional for occasional renters, but decided that's foolish. He'll be a busy little beaver.

I'll close for now. The hum of the generator is putting me to sleep. We didn't take in many solar rays today, so are glad for the generator. Don't have to use it very often, but a blessing at times.

Happy Thanksgiving (& Garifuna Day) to you all.
Gale

Blog

2010-11-13T09:41:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends,
I enjoy sharing our adventure with anyone who's interested, via this blog. It's always rewarding to get your comments. They let me know I'm passing on info that is of interest. If you want to email me directly, I'm happy to hear from you. Also, it would be helpful if you want to hear from me I need your email address.

Belize is an interesting, frustrating, beautiful and sad country, just like any other. Legally we're outsiders, so have no say in anything. That can make it both good and bad. By accepting it for what it is and realizing that there are wonderful people here who are just trying to live their lives too, helps us to sit back and relish the wonders of it all. A couple of things that made Belize appealing to us is that the roots of the law are British, English is the basic language of the country, altho' the majority of the local people speak Spanish) and we've found quite a few expats to maintain our comfort zone. We did a little traveling on our first visits to Belize, but always rushed back to Cayo as we realized right away that it's home for us.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful. If you have specific questions that we might be able to answer, please drop me a note.

It's warming up a bit and today is overcast. Had a dumping rain yesterday which really helped as the ground was very dry. It's actually been a wonderful year here in the "Little Jewel."

Blessings, Gale
gahubbe@aol.com

Birds in the morning

2010-11-10T09:47:00.000-06:00

I love sitting outside on the back veranda in the morning. Right now it's cold, but clear and sunny. The bird sounds are all around. I'm finally used to our 12 hour days. Dawn about 6am, dark about 6pm. I haven't much knowledge about birds, so am constantly thumbing thru "Birds of Belize." What's that one? So many look almost alike.

At first light the parrots start trying to decide where to go for the days forage. It's a group meeting with everyone having a voice. Pandemonium and then they're gone. Out to decimate some farmer's corn.

The two groups of Chachalacas seem to call to each other. The blackbirds, kiskadees and brown jays are always around, noisily flitting about, hopefully working on the bug population.

I keep my camera handy, but both it and I are too slow to catch so many of the little birds. A tiny Black & White Warbler and (I think) an American Redstart tease me by dancing up and down and thru the trees, always moving before I can locate them with the lens. There are so many tiny, li8ttle warblers, variations of yellow and greenish brown. Our resident hummingbird keeps busy with our few flowering bushes.

We've been frustrated that most of the flowering plants we've started have been stripped bare by ants. This will be an ongoing battle.

I had a surprise and thrill a couple of days ago, when I went into the bodega (concrete storeroom under the guest house) and was met by a beautiful blue/green bird which flew past me and out the door. It was a fairly large bird and at first I tho't it must be a parrot. Luckily it hung around for a couple of days so that I could identify it as a Motmot. What a thrill. I suspect that, because we're on the top of a hill, lots of birds pass by, but don't stay.

I wish I had a bird authority at my side to identify all the unseen birds by their sounds. There's chirping and singing all around. A constant variety of sounds, coming from the canopy. I may not see them, but I do love that they're there.

A sadness for both of us is that Art's hearing is getting worse and he can't share in the joy of all this music. We're truly blessed to be able to enjoy this gentle place, at least for now.

Cold

2010-11-07T08:12:00.000-06:00

Ok, Here's Momma Gale's handy hint for the day. If you travel to Belize in November or December, BRING SOME WARM CLOTHES! Now, we moved here from the mountains of Oregon where it can get darn right cold, so this seems kind of woosy to say that it's cold here at 50, but it is. When it's 80 during the day and then 50 at night, with humidity around 98%, it feels as tho' it's freezing. Our first trip during November we had only bro't warm weather clothes and we couldn't get warm. We shopped everywhere and there wasn't a sweatshirt to be found. So please, dear friends, bring sweatshirts and/or jackets for the late and early hours. If you're having to furnish your own bedding, a comforter will save your life.

When we started building here, we stayed in a little travel trailer. It was handy, but boy was that little metal box cold at night. We were begging bedding from friends to survive.

In Oregon we'd be lighting a fire in our little stove to take the chill off. So be warned, the jungle can get cold because it's so damp.

Warm hugs, Gale

Just a quiet day

2010-11-04T08:10:00.000-06:00

Actually, probably a pretty boring day. I had to laugh when I checked my mail. Probably the highlight of the day is the fact that, after 53 years of marriage "someone wants to date me," Wow, the things that pop up in my spam file. So glad there's a "delete file" button that makes all that stuff disappear. I think AOL looks for the mass mailing stuff. Thank you AOL.

It's been overcast a lot and a little rain most days. Just enough to make weedeating and rototilling the garden tough jobs. We're still trying to burn piles of "Richard" debris. No rush.

We read a lot. Are actually rereading most of the books we bro't down. Lots of places trade books, 2 for 1 which gives us new stuff. We both have collections of books that we don't want to give up, so our wall is actually growing.

I don't know why I'm so hesitant, but I have started a little relief carving. They're a lot of work, but for the first time in my life, I have the time. Now I just need a kick in the hinny to get going. One huge panic for me was when I opened my tool roll that holds my Swiss chisels. They have started to rust. I've had them out a few times, but I guess this wet weather permeated my toolbox. I attacked them with a fine steel wood and light oil and have now placed a towel in the tool roll to, hopefully, absorb most of the moisture. We get chips for our yard paths and for composting from some friends who have a furniture factory. On our last trip I spotted a nice piece of mahogany in their trash and am now trying to see what I can make of it. We had an aracari visit some time back & it appears that it might find it's way onto the piece of wood.

The reality of living in the bush is that there is a lot of hard work always looking us in the face, but there are also long stretches of time to sit an ponder about life in general. Why did we make the move, we missed the election in the States, what is everyone else doing, etc.? For the first time in my life I'm actually retired. It's still a start to both of us that we don't have to get up and go to work each day, doing something that is just a job. What a blessing that we've been given this time to just savor life.

Tomorrow night we're going to sample the food at a restaurant that's new to us with some friends.

Blessings!

.

After Richard

2010-10-26T20:12:00.000-06:00

Things sure could have been a lot worse. We've spent most of Tuesday & Wednesday cleaning up debris. First on the list was getting the gutters cleaned out. Rene had done it about two weeks ago, but now the roof was almost solid bits and pieces. During the storm the water poured over the gutters, dumping water everywhere. Since we collect the water from the roofs for our cistern so it's really important that we keep them clean.

We both worked in the yard, cutting up downed trees and limbs, raking and piling.
Barely made a dent Tues., but Wed we got help from a neighbor and got most of the larger pieces picked up. Rene was working on his other job, but will be here Thurs. & Fri and will have to work cleaning the perimeter fences. That will be a huge job.

The picture of a pile of debris isn't very impressive, but when you see that we are making about two dozen similar piles, it mounts up to a lot of work. Art's shoulder and my back keep trying to remind us that there are younger bodies out there who should be doing some of this work. The thing is, it's our yard and our budget and we enjoy knowing that each thing we do hopefully makes our little place better.

We've checked up on all our friends here and blessedly, we all came out about the same. Lots of trees down, but no damage to houses or other buildings. It's amazing that there was no loss of life in Belize due to Richard. Lots of property damage tho' and I hate to think about how devastating the loss will be to the citrus industry. They did a flyover and most of the trees are still standing,but the oranges and grapefruit are on the ground. Just a couple of weeks away from harvest. I understand that there will probably be government help for the growers, but I feel for the workers who were looking forward to finally having work. There's almost no work here in the little jewel and now Richard has destroyed an important lifeline for so many.

Once again, we're so greatful that, when a hurricane finally did hit Belize straight on, that it was Richard.

Hurricane Richard

2010-10-26T08:57:00.000-06:00

For the first time since Hurricane Hattie in 1961, Belize was in the direct path of a hurricane. Richard made landfall from Belize City on the north to the Toledo District on the south. It kept heading due west, on to the Cayo District. Bullet Tree Falls Village is about 3 miles NW of San Ignacio in Cayo.

We spent the late afternoon with several friends at the home of a lovely couple who are new friends. Doris is German and Walter is Austrian. Besides being about the nicest people you'd ever want to meet, she's an incredible cook. They invited several couples over as a thank you for making them welcome to the community. I won't even try to describe the food, but she must have cooked for a week. Everything from a German beef stew, ham, vegetable casseroles, fruit salad and the most incredible homemade cheesecake. Yum! Anyway, we all had a delightful time, but the rains were starting and we knew that Richard was coming our way, so we headed for home. As we came down Paslow Falls Rd., we passed a street light (there are only two)the light went out and homes were dark. The electricity ends about a half mile before our road heads up the hill. It was a slippery drive up, but we made it fine.

We don't have real windows in our houses, only screens. We closed most of the shutters, just leaving a couple open to the back. We moved the truck into the middle of the drive so that if a tree went down it wouldn't be hit. We then settled down to watch a couple of videos. The beauty of being off-grid is that we can stay functional when the infrastructure is hit. Of course, that's only as long as our system isn't hit too.

Having lived at the Oregon coast, where the winds are cold and can really slam hard, we went to bed and slept soundly. Yesterday morning we woke to quite a sight. We were very fortunate to not suffer any damage to our buildings, but boy did the trees get pruned. We lost quite a few and have branches EVERYWHERE.

We walked down the road and there were several trees across. One was a huge Gumbalimba that was actually uprooted. We loaded our little chainsaw and some other tools into the truck and went to work. One blessing is that the Gumbalimba is very soft and cuts easily. At one spot it had a diameter of at least 2'. That sweet little Stihl handled the job just fine. I must admit the job just about did us in tho'. It's hard to admit that we have limitations. We got the trees cut up and moved, but both of us have strained muscles.

We had a phone call from our friend Diane, who said that some fellows came by from the "government" and were cutting trees for folks who needed assistance. Such timing. We had cut the trees that were the immediate problem, but there was a tree over the road leading to our neighbors place. A truckload of about 8 guys came up and made short work of that tree. They were having a good time, laughing and working. Turns out they're from the village, just helping out.

Today we're heading out to see what damage there was to the cleared property. When Rene comes next we'll have him take care of the property line fence.

We're so fortunate that the hurricane that finally decided to hit little Belize head on, was just a category one. We're also extremely pleased with the design of our buildings and where we chose to place them. Our little place and this old couple fared just fine. And Bailey too!

Bat

2010-10-16T20:17:00.000-06:00

Since we haven't had company, we don't use our guest house. We occasionally use the bathroom when the need arises. Lately, we've been sharing it with this little guy. It's so small that I first tho't it was a moth. We appreciate bats for their insatiable appetites for mosquitoes. They can regularly eat twice their body weight in the bugs every day. I hate to shut this little fellow out, but hope it stays nearby. Since there is so much vegetation around we didn't think that there would be a lack of places for them to reside, but may decide to build a couple of bat houses to ensure that they hang around.

I was surprised when I got this one in my viewfinder to see how little it's face is. It looks like a little fox. But check out those arms. Hope it keeps munching away in our vicinity.

Relaxing

2010-10-15T20:04:00.000-06:00

Ok, even tho' I've mentioned that we're not young kids, I had to giggle at my mention of Wilt Chamberlain as a hint. I have to admit that I'm not a basketball fan, so don't know the names of many players. If we want to watch a good game, we'd prefer to catch a girls high school game. Now that's competition. Anyway, decided I need to include a photo of the two of us, enjoying our little piece of the world. One blessing is that we've discovered where to buy COFFEE BEANS! Yum.

View from our veranda

2010-10-13T09:56:00.000-06:00

I had hoped that when we moved from the really cold winter climate that I'd finally be cured of my bronchitis spells, but they followed me. I've actually been surprised to hear how many folks have sinus and breathing problems. I guess it's because the air is humid and heavy. Anyway, for whatever reason, I'm having a case of the punies. Not much energy so I'm sitting on our back veranda, drinking tea with honey and just enjoying the view. It's so peaceful, with small, unseen birds flitting around in the trees and just a gentle breeze keeping it from being too hot. I'm not very good at just sitting without reading or doing something, but today I'm really savoring the view. The pictures don't begin to do it justice, but I want to share anyway.

Below the guest house we're clearing the bush from about a 1/2 acre, in the same way as this view. We all call it our "park". When it's finished, I'll try to post photos of it too. I love the trees, so we're just chopping the bush. Peace, dear friends.

yellowjaw

2010-10-04T20:39:00.000-06:00

Today was busy, as usual. We ran errands in town, one of which was to once again take a weedeater in for repairs. When we got home we both headed outside to work. It was such a lovely day for working. Not hot, just fleecy clouds. This is perfect weather.

We're slowly clearing the bush under the trees below the guest house. Rene is using his machete to clear the bush and I'm using a pitchfork to rake the debris. The bush is a haven for scorpions, in the rotting wood, and snakes. Today, Rene bro't us a female yellowjaw that was lurking in a pile of debris. He had nicked her when he was chopping. He wanted us to see what one looks like before he killed her. She was about 2 1/2' long. I asked how he could tell that it was a female and he noted that this one had a fairly long, thin tail. A male has a shorter, wider tail. I hope I never get close enough to take note of the difference.

Rene is incredible in the bush as he spent nearly 25 years traversing the country, in charge of survey crews. He is so tuned to all the movements, that he seems to see everything. He warned me today to please stay out of the uncleared, low bush. I tend to forget the dangers and plunge ahead. Wearing gloves & boots can't protect me from all the creatures.

Bailey and I seem to be cut from the same cloth. We can't let him loose because he doesn't recognize the dangers. He proved it yesterday when I put him in the yard on his cable. He was jumping around, trying to get at something unseen and barking gently. When I got closer I saw a huge tarantula skittering away. Bailey just wanted to play with it. Oh joy, a new fuzzy toy. Bless his little Japanese/Gringo heart. He catches frogs and just puts his nose on them and then watches them hop off. Coming from the mountains of Central Oregon where we don't have poisonous bugs or snakes (the rattlers are at lower levels), we tend to just blunder our way around.

Anyway, thanks to Rene, we are getting an exciting education in the realities of the jungle. When we finish clearing the bush in the back, I'll try to get a couple of photos.

Lonesome

2010-10-03T12:49:00.000-06:00

I've tried to not be negative in my entries. We really do love our place and are so happy that we made this move. We've worked hard to build and create a place where we can be comfortable and where family and friends can too. It's been a labor of love and joy. The idea of moving to the jungle and living off-grid, where we aren't hostage to an unreliable infrastructure has really been satisfying. I'm still not going to tell our ages, but I'm sure we're older than most folks who have made a similar move. We just feel that you're never too old to dream and accomplish.

One thing that we've found here, and I'm sure it's probably the same in most of Central America, if not the world, is that folks move here for lots of different reasons. Many from the US are frustrated with the government and have very negative attitudes. Some are literally running away from legal problems and lots just want to hide. We're here mostly for economic reasons. We haven't been able to sell our house in Oregon and we can't afford to live there on our retirement income. We can afford to live in Belize, even with our current repair expenses. This is a very sad commentary on the current economy. The recent census reports from both the US and Belize found the widest gap possibly ever, between the haves and the have-nots. I doubt that there's much of a middle class left. We do have a very small circle of wonderful friends here who share some of our interests and concerns.

Our problem is that, we knew that we'd miss our family, but had hopes that they could come down and we could manage to go up there periodically. The reality is that the economy has stripped all of us out of any expendable income. We're all just struggling to survive. We miss so much being even a little involved with our grandchildren's lives. They're growing up so fast. Our daughter's two boys, Quiet Max, our oldest will turn 15 the end of this month. He's a sophomore in high school and loves his classes, especially algebra. Tyler, 13 is in the 8th grade and is our talker. He's finally having a good time in school and can't decide whether he wants to go out for the school play or basketball. We're hoping for the play as he isn't exactly a Wilt Chamberlain. He has enthusiasm tho', so will put his all into whichever he chooses. We've lived near them their whole lives, so our move has been difficult for all of us.

Our son has three children. They live about 5 hours away from us, in Washinton State. Rex is 14 and is a terrific student. He's so smart,loves to read and has such abilities. Hope he taps into them. Charlie, 12 is definitely his own person. He's taking Judo and loves it. None of them communicate much, but he wrote that he broke his collarbone, but no information. Kids! Then there's our beautiful Jessie May. She's 7 (or is it 8? I'm sorry Jessie, you're growing up so fast). There's no question that she's a girl. She loves pink and is so bright and loving. Our son just remarried to a wonderful lady. We're so happy for them, but sad that we don't get to be involved in their lives even a little bit.

Then there's my wonderful brother & sister-in-law. I miss his creativity and sharing our life experiences. His lovely wife, Jan is such a blessing in all our lives. They've been so supportive, even about our crazy move. They never fail to keep touch via phone or email.

The crux of all this is that, if we could sell this place, we'd move back. The separation is just too difficult. We do enjoy and appreciate our Belizean neighbors, but, no matter what, there'll always be an unfillable gap because we're Gringos. Our experiences are so totally different. I'll always be "Miss Gale", which makes me slightly uncomfortable. I know it's similar to using Mrs. but still makes me feel different.

Because of our financial worries, we've put both places up for sale hoping that one will sell soon. Then we'll be able to figure out where our future lies. For now,we're loving our place and continuing to maintain and improve it as we can.

Never quit dreaming.

What else? More rain

2010-09-30T22:38:00.000-06:00

This may sound boring, but is the reality that we deal with here in the jungle. We've just experienced about a week of almost steady rain. We'd get a little letup, which would make me excited that we could finally get something done and then it would start up again. The gods of thunder were sure working overtime. We could tell that Guatemala was getting more than it's share of rain, which for us, means that the Mopan River would overflow. The road from Bullet Tree Village towards our place is Paslow Falls Rd. It's about 2 miles to where we turn up the hill. About half way there's a spot where the river is right beside the road. Monday it spilled over for a while. With all this rain, we hesitate driving down our road as it's muddy and slippery, so I walked down the hill and back to the spot where the road floods. By the time I got there, I was really sweaty and tired and the river had receded, so no flood. So much for photos of our dilemma.

We just had a few light showers last evening and this am we woke up to sunshine. Wanted to give the road a chance to firm up a little and then were going to head down to visit some friends and do a little shopping. Just about ready to leave when it DUMPED rain again. We're up on top of a hill, so the flooding doesn't affect us except for our ability to drive up our hill. Frustrating, but not a threat to our place. I just have a severe case of cabin fever. It's only been three days, but there's something about knowing that you CAN'T go down, that makes me obsess about wanting to go down.

An aside to all this is that we can practically watch the vegetation grow. We're going to have to beat it back again. The weedeater and Rene's machete are going to be very busy.

These photos don't begin to show the power of our flooding river, but they're the best my limited photo prowess can produce. The photo of the road with puddles is where about 4 hours earlier, the water was up to your knees. This was confirmed by our neighbor who had to keep her little boy home from school because they couldn't get to the village.

The photo of a track up the hill is exactly that. It's about 1/4 of a mile of mud, up the hill to our place.

Apple bananas - Yum

2010-09-26T15:27:00.000-06:00

Yes they're called apple bananas by the local folks. I'm sure they have an official name, but who cares. All I know is that they're 100 times better than any banana that you'll find in a US grocery store. They're only about 4" long with a slightly tart taste. After you've tried these, all other bananas are just sweet, with little real flavor.

About three years ago, Rene bro't us a few plants and put them behind the house and fairly near the road. He told me that that was the best soil for them. We now have robust plants and more bananas than we can possibly eat.

These photos show a new bunch starting from the bloom, which is that strange long purple thing. You can see the bunch starting above it. I'm sure that most folks know that bananas grow "up" as you can see in the closeup of a bunch. In the photo of the plants themselves you might be able to see three bunches, very close to cutting. Then you see the bunch sitting on our veranda. Rene cut it about four days ago and they were all very green. They actually turned yellow yesterday. Yes, it happens that fast. Once they turn, they ripen really fast. Because these are so yummy and small, we each eat about three each time, but you do get a little tired of them after about three days of eating as many as you can. By then they're starting to approach overripe and you have to fight off the bugs. I suspect that most of the ones ripening now (there are 8 bunches right now) will go to friends, altho' most folks have their own.

An interesting thing about these plants is that they're much like raspberries. The fruit grows on an old stalk. The stalks look a lot like a tree, but they're not. One bunch grows on each stalk, so they cut the stalk off at about 4'to collect the bunch. The plants are constantly putting out new shoots which will then grow more fruit. You can also dig up the small new shoots and transplant for more bananas (which you'll have to try to give away).

horse

2010-09-25T10:11:00.000-06:00

Woke up this am to Bailey's frantic barking. Could tell it was a dog or something in the yard. He rarely barks, so always means something. We've had to encourage him to bark at folks coming up the road. Don't want them to realize that he's actually a sweetheart. But at 120# he's intimidating until you know him. Anyway, this am it was a darned horse wandering thru my devastated garden. We finally have our whole perimeter fenced with the driveway the only entrance. Of course the poor thing found that. The horses here are very sad. Most folks can't afford supplemental feed and probably wouldn't care anyway. Animals subsist solely on the grass. Most of the horses owned by the local people have bad backs and are skin and bones. They ride or pack them anyway. This horse was an older, rangy. bay that has been wandering the area for a few days. I almost think someone just let it loose in the hopes that it would be taken in by someone else. Horses and dogs are only kept here for their usefulness. Most don't seem to acknowledge the companionship and love you get back from these loving creatures.

Anyway, we made an effort to catch the horse, but he wouldn't let us anywhere near, so we guided him to the gateway and off he went down the hill. I would love to have a horse or two again, but not ready to take on the added expense and responsibility. I hate it that age is guiding me to eliminate some experiences in my life, but have to be practical once in a while. Bailey's probably as close as we'll get to a horse in our lives. He's almost as big as some of the miniature horses we used to own, but his manners are much better and he's easier to take in the car. LOL!

comments

2010-09-25T10:00:00.000-06:00

I love comments. So much fun to exchange ideas and to know that there are folks out there interested in our little piece of the world.

Batfish just shared the idea of supplementing our solar with wind. Right now seems like a good idea as it's been heavy overcast for three days, lots of rain and very little solar collection. Thank goodness for the generator. A neat side affect of the wind is that it's pruning the dead cohune fronds and other branches. We'll have tidying up to do when this settles down, but so glad for the pruning help.

Anyway, we've tho't about wind power, but right now we don't have the funds for any more improvements. If we did we'd probably start by putting up at least two more 165 watt solar panels. Even tho' we are on a hill, we monitored the wind and it's very sporadic so not sure if it would warrant the investment. A couple of gallons of gas and we're charged back up, so doing fine, as long as things don't break!

I have read about so many innovations they're making with solar and wind. A friend told us about an article he read about a small turbine wind generator that was very cheap. Maybe something like that will be in our future.

Right now my name has more than one meaning (or maybe it's all the same. lol)

Love to all, Gale

Rain - again!

2010-09-24T07:20:00.000-06:00

This probably seems like a repetitious subject, but right now, it's what's on our minds. Tropical storm Lisa is showing off by dumping heavy and nearly constant rain on little Belize and much of Central America. It's ugly to check out the satellite photos and see that huge orange weather system heading right for us.

I've lived in the northwest most of my life, so am used to rain, but this is totally different. It can be calm and then you can hear the rain coming, sounding like a freight train in the distance, heading right for you. Then boom, it's dumping. Yesterday it was clouding with periodic rain, all day, so our solar intake was minimal. We had to run the generator for nearly 2 hours last evening and expect to do the same until this weather lets up. The forecast is for this to continue until next Tuesday. Ick! Cisterns overflowing and laundry piling up.

Actually, the laundry is piling up because my Belize washing machine (made in China) which is only about 9 mos. old, gave up the ghost. We tried to get it fixed in Spanish Lookout, where we bo't it, but problem beyond their capabilities. After three trips back and forth, we went to San Ignacio yesterday and bo't a new Dae Woo yesterday. Can you believe that a South Korean brand is top of the line here. I just want clean clothes.

Can't really blame all our troubles on living in Belize. My Dell computer has met the same fate as my washing machine. I should probably write a whole posting on that mess. Anyway, between Best Buy and Dell, my computer died at 9 mos. and there's not help there for us. The SOB's finally won and I've given up!

Anyway, dear whoever's out there, all is not gloom and doom. This icky weather is making me face spare time and I'm tired of reading the same books over again, so will try to do some sketching. My cup is still half full (but with this rain it's going to be running over and down the hill).

Laundry, weather & crime

2010-09-17T09:14:00.000-06:00

We've gone from about a three week dry spell to rain. Tropical storm Karl went by giving us some precipitation. With a few exceptions, that's what usually happens when storms or hurricanes head up the Atlantic towards the Caribbean. Belize is in what they call here a "bight". That's a bay or inlet. When you look on a map you can see that Honduras sticks out below us and the Yucatan is protruding north of us. Corozol in the north of Belize did get more rain and winds at about 40mph, but here in Cayo we just got some rain. So far, it's been a pretty gentle year, but it's not over until the end of November. Hope our luck holds.

My frustration is that my washing machine was broken and we just got it back. Laundry piled up and it's raining. Tough on my solar dryer! Since it's so cloudy, we'll probably run the generator and then I have a couple of lines on the veranda where I can hope things will eventually dry.

Also, have to run to town today to run errands as this is the big holiday weekend. Independence day. I would have done more shopping yesterday, but most shops closed as a statement about crime. Last Sunday there were four murders in Belize City, one of which was a little 8 year old girl who was asleep in her bed. Someone shot at the house and killed her. The other three sound like random killings of men. The business community is banding together with their quiet protest by closing their shops. This form of protest was started by the Chinese shop owners as they have been targets in Belize City. It's sad how often the shops are closed. Sure brings it home to all of us who don't keep up on the news.

It makes me cry to hear about how much hate and ugliness there is in the world. I don't like to include this here, but these are the realities that we all have to face wherever we are.

Ferry to Spanish Lookout

2010-09-14T08:10:00.000-06:00

We've lived in Oregon and Washington most of our lives and have taken lots of ferries. The Washington State Ferry system is wonderful. Beautiful big car ferries in the Sound that take 50 or more cars and of course the scenery is spectacular.

Of course, little Belize doesn't have the money or need for large ferries, but my first views of a Belize ferry had me uncertain if I'd complete my journey on the bottom of the river. So far I've been on three very similar ferries. The first was near Orange Walk, there's one going to Xunantunich and the one we use the most, going to Spanish Lookout.

We have three options to get to Spanish Lookout from Bullet Tree. The direct way thru Santa Familia and Billy White is absolutely awful most of the time. Talk about rough road. It's actually best when it's wet as it's less harsh. We don't drive it much over 15 mph. The long way is east on the western highway almost to Belmopan where there is a new bridge over the Belize River. This road is paved and well maintained by the Mennonites. It's about 30 miles from our home, but takes about the same amount of time as the direct way because we can travel at normal speeds. The way we take the most often, when it's an option, is to take the ferry from near Central Farm. This way has a short span of rough road (almost every road in Belize is rough), but is fairly direct.

The ferry is open at the whims of the Belize River. If the water is too high or the wind is too strong, the ferry ties up. Driving in Belize is so much a matter of faith. You look at a bad road or a wooden bridge or a ferry, most of which are literally falling apart, and have to say to yourself, "Those folks made it across, so I guess it will handle us." Faith! The ramps onto the ferry take a beating and are not repaired until they are ready to fall off. It holds three cars at a time. It can be a little scary when all the vehicles are pickups. I've been the last one on and had to have the backend of the truck half on the ramp. My fear can almost put me in tears, but, hey, I'm a grownup. I moved to Belize! I can handle this! After about 100 trips, I no longer panic, just trudge forth like I had good sense. You come to the realization that they don't have much faith in the safety either as passenger's must walk on to the ferry with only the driver in the vehicle. I guess that's so that only one will go down with the car????

The ferries are powered by cables stretched across the river with a fellow turning a crank. Backwards and forward, all day long. There isn't a toll, so imagine that they're paid by the government. Can you imagine turning that darned crank for hours on end? I'm always happy to drive off and get on to S.L. to take care of business.

Holidays

2010-09-09T09:15:00.000-06:00

Labor Day just past in the US. It seems weird that our holidays slip by unnoticed down here, but of course, why should they?

September is a crazy month in Belize. Fewer tourists, but lots of festivities. The red, white and blue of the Belize flag is everywhere. This is a month to celebrate independence in a big way. The first holiday is St. George's Caye Day which celebrates the battle of St. George's Caye in 1798. The British defeated the Spanish which led to the creation of British Honduras. A tiny English speaking foothold, surrounded by the Spanish. For 212 years this has been the big celebration, countrywide.

Since 1981 when they became Independent and British Honduras became Belize, September 21st is the second huge celebration. Everyone breaks loose and enjoys parades, fireworks and fun.

We'll try to stay out of the craziness up here on our hill, but have to head to town today to be sure that we're stocked up for the weekend as lots of places will be closed.

Happy holiday Belize!

Dreamer Farm Belize

Family visiting

Visitors

Concorde AGM battery problems

Electricity problems continue

Santa came to Belize again

Early Christmas with friends

Generator problems

Trying times

Art's home

Army (cleaner) ants

shutter on guest house

Cohune

Taking down trees for solar

Walkway completed (mostly)

Medical update on Art

Surprise!

Walkway

Delta vs Continental from Belize!

Hurricane Rina

The sun is shining

Trooper OOPS!

Rain, rain and more rain

Dengue fever

Jaguar carving

Sunday

Adjustment to butane conversion

Trip with friends in the newly converted truck

We're driving on butane

Butane questions

butane vs gasoline

Lazy days of summer

cacao problems

Stormy weather

Update on Art

Medical care

cacao grafting

Shipping into Belize

Rumination

Jane's back in the UK

We're "flush" with pride!

Packing, packing, packing

Giving up on composting toilets!

June in Belize

Out with the old, in with the new

cacao nursery

I Hate to complain~

Rene's trip

Cacao-grafted plants

Cacao

Our log home in Oregon

A new direction

An Akita in Belize

HOT!

Hot

More computer problems

Back in Cayo

Snorkeling - Placencia

Monkey river trip

Family at Placencia

Family visit

Handrail project update

Redstart and woodpecker

Sharing Belize

My current project

trim colors

Just another day in paradise

rain

weather

Aracari - little toucan

Finally, toucan photos

watercolors

Happy New Year

After Christmas

Christmas

Shopping in Belize

Just wandering around the place

Art's home

Art in Oregon

Art's trip to Oregon