Answering questions about Belize

The best way to find answers about moving and living in Belize is to make one or more trips down to determine where you'd like to live and what things you'll need to make your life comfortable.  Even tho' the country is small, it has diverse areas offering very different life styles.  

Land  -  Unlike many Central American countries, foreigners can own property here without having a Belizean partner.

 Most of Belize is for sale.  You can scope out areas with a realtor if you're most comfortable that way, but your best bet for the best price is to get to know folks and ask if they know of land.  Prices are all over the place.  Prices are usually quoted in US dollars.  That's because Belize dollars aren't recognized outside Belize and it makes the price more understood.  

 One huge thing to watch for is that you only purchase Titled land.  Citizens are allowed to lease land and will often try to sell it.  Don't buy leased land with the idea that they will transfer it to titled land for you.  This can take years, can be very expensive and often just doesn't work.  

Crime -  The main area of concern is Belize City.  We don't travel there any more than we have to, but find it relatively safe during the day.  It isn't recommended that you travel outside at night.  Some of the best shops are in Belize City, so some trips are inevitable.  

In other areas, theft is an issue.  Lots of folks in the towns have burglar bars.   Dogs are a definite help as most Belizeans are afraid of big dogs.  Gringo's are targets, so we just try to look as tho' we don't have much money, which isn't a stretch for us. 

The smart  is to not leave your house unattended for long stretches of time.  There isn't a lot of work here for folks and many feel that if you're not using something right now, they can make better use of it (steal it / sell it). 

Shopping - We do miss shopping at Costco.  We can find almost anything we want here, we just have to look several places.  There are good hardware stores in Spanish Lookout (Mennonite) and a couple of lovely stores in Belize City for Home Depot type shopping.  We rarely find it necessary to go there.  For a few troublesome things, we can either have a store order them from the US, or I go on the internet and order, having them shipped to a freight forwarder in Houston and they bring them here to Cayo.  Takes time, but it does work.  

 We do our regular grocery shopping at the Taiwanese grocery stores and our fruits and veggies from the outdoor market in San Ignacio.  Some are grown in Belize and lots are imported from Mexico and Guatemala.  
 
Snakes and spiders and other creepy crawlies -  We really don't worry a lot about them, altho' we do try to stay aware.  Frankly, tarantulas are not a concern.  We see holes where they live, but we rarely see one.  They are extremely shy and afraid, so stay in their holes until night.  

Basically the same with snakes, which are more of a concern.  We don't travel in the deep bush without our friend, Rene.  We had the underbrush cleared in a large area around the buildings, which discourages the snakes.  The only deadly snakes we've seen are ones that Rene has killed and brought to show us.  Icky, but helpful.  We did have a large, non-deadly snake go thru the yard, but it's the kind that eats bad snakes so we cheered it on it's way.  The most wonderful thing for us has been our friend Rene.  He has worked for us for 6 years and is of Mayan ancestry.  He knows so much and tries to educate us and keeps the place cleaned and safe.  

Gardening - Lots of folks have gardens here.  We haven't had great success because we wanted to go organic and the bugs defeated us.  You don't notice them, but they do eat the tiny starts. Also, our place was hacked out of the bush and we are slowly amending the soil for better results.  

Weather -   If visiting, don't come down in late April or May.  It can really get hot.  From June thru October or November would be hurricane season.  Hurricane's rarely make land in Belize.  If they do, it is mostly in the Toledo area or around Corozol.  In the seven years that we've owned our place only one small hurricane came our way.  That was Richard, which came from the east.  We lived for many years on the Oregon coast and the winds got harder there than those that hit us with Richard.  


Our house has screens for windows and wooden shutters that we close with the weather.  


Friends and family - We have a satellite dish for internet service to allow us to keep in contact with family and friends in the US.  

We enjoy our Belizean neighbors, but find that there is a language difference (most only speak a little English) and much different lifestyle.  There are lots of expats here, so, with a little effort, you can make friends.  Here in Cayo we have a once-a-month women's luncheon at different restaurants.  Usually between 20 and 30 women attend.  It's informal and just to get acquainted.  There are quite a few expats here in the Bullet Tree area also.


Medical care - This is the tricky one.  There are physicians here, who have been trained in the U.S., Cuba, Guatemala or Mexico.  For general things, the care is good, caring and immediate.  The hospitals are definitely third world.  There is a new hospital in San Ignacio that was supposed to be state of the art and was going to function as a model for the rest of the country.  Is suspect that it does, but it has no equipment and all the fixtures look as tho' they came from a very sad garage sale.  The problem that we're facing right now is that Art is having some serious issues, so to get better diagnostics and care, we'll probably have to return to the U.S.  


I know that there are lots of other questions, but for now, these might help.  I try to tell things as they really are, but am afraid that it portrays Belize in an excessively bad light.  It is definitely an adjustment to live in a third world country, but there are so many lovely things to appreciate.  We just tell folks that you have to able to accept life here, "warts and all."     Blessings,    Gale

The Bush (Jungle)

It's lovely to sit on our veranda and listen to the birds.  The heat has also encouraged the hatching of crickets and cicadas.  Sometimes the sounds are almost overwhelming.  It's early morning and the Chachalakas are announcing their locations to each other and the world.  Its a goofy, but wonderful chorus.  

A sadness to me is that more and more of these sounds are joined by those of chainsaws.  Everyone in Belize seems to be obsessed with cutting down the bush.  It gives me a small hint of what must be happening in the Amazon jungles.  Belizeans are obsessed with cutting down every tree, setting fire to what they've cut and planting corn.  The diet here revolves around the maize or hard corn.  They can't seem to tolerate a tall tree.  Traveling to Spanish Lookout, where the Mennonites raise crops and cattle, the land has been totally cleared and it resembles the Midwestern U.S.  The gringos are so afraid of bugs and snakes that they clear the land, forgetting why they came here in the first place. 

When we first started clearing for our buildings, we allowed the boys to cut everything.  We finally realized that wasn't right and had them leave the trees and just clear the underbrush.  This keeps the snakes away from the house, but lets us enjoy the shade of the trees and the residing birds and animals.  The cleared area is to the east of us, which is the direction most hurricanes would come, so we hope to spare the buildings from falling trees.  

The cleared area is probably only three to four acres.  We plan to leave the remaining eight or nine acres in bush as an island of refuge for wildlife.  It's small, but the best we can do.  

It's so wonderful up here on our hill, with the almost constant breezes and the beauty of the bush.  What a blessing.  

Hard to be sick when it's HOT!

It's been a trying couple of weeks.  I had a really uncomfortable case of stomach flu which lasted for several days, made worse by the heat.  As I've said in earlier posts, there are basically two seasons in Belize - wet and dry.  This year the dry season has arrived a little early.  Our last rain was in mid March and it's gotten steadily warmer since then.  The past week it's reached 100 every day.  Ick!  I have to admit that I don't handle these high temps very well, but I am over my flu.  It's hard to have much energy to do anything outside.  We get up early and take dear Bailey for a walk before it gets too hot.  Not sure if his heavy coat makes him hotter or serves as insulation against the heat.  He's such a gentle giant and I feel so helpless that we can't offer him more relief.  

Our solar is performing beautifully now, so we are able to keep fans going, which offers a lot of help, along with the wonderful breezes that seem to find us here on our hill.  A technician from ProSolar came by and installed a Trimetric meter that will tell us charge in the batteries and he lowered the panels to be at a better angle to the sun.  It's exciting to see the meter read batteries 100% charged. 

 This is the Easter weekend, which is causing a lot of frustration for many of us.  Our observation is that Belize isn't a particularly religious country, but the government declares every possible day as a holiday.  Easter is a 4 day holiday, starting with Good Friday thru Monday.  They've now passed a law that even the Chinese stores must close, which doesn't make any sense.  Why should the non-Christian religions shut down for every Christian holiday?  The government in this tiny country of some 300k folks, seems to want to divorce itself from it's British foundation and passes many laws without much tho't or discussion.  It's sad to sit back and watch them flounder with stupid things, while the infrastructure is in such sad shape.  Wow, I didn't plan to say any of this, it just spilled out.  

It's great to feel better and at least be able to talk to and see friends.   We're doing a lot of reading and I've actually picked up a paintbrush to do a couple of watercolors.  I guess the heat is the nudge that I finally needed.  Feels good!

water pump

Ok, UNCLE, UNCLE - We've had so many repair expenses lately that we've both become somewhat numb.  The less money we have, the more that's needed.  We have been trying to recover from having to buy a new generator and then it was new solar batteries with accompanying expenses.  This last week has been heaven, with enough sun to give us lots of power so we haven't really been worrying about the utilities.  WELL, last night, out of the blue, we lost our water.  We have a 10,000 gallon, in ground, cistern with a 1/2 hp well pump and a pressure tank to supply our water.  The pressure switch showed zero pounds.  OK, now what.  We'd recently had the pump reset and rewired.  I was too upset to even be upset, just numb.  Besides the injustice of it, it was Friday night.  I sent out a call for help with a text message to our electrician/pump guy.  Of course, no answer.  Nothing we could do but start hauling buckets of water up from our plastic tank and worry!  I was so tired this afternoon that I took a short nap (something I never do).  I woke to a sound like the pump running.  Art came in and told me that he decided to poke around and took the cap off the pressure valve.  Inside was a bee and a small nest.  As soon as he removed the bee the pressure gauge jumped to 32 lbs, and WE HAD WATER AGAIN.  What a relief.  I'm so proud of him and we're both so relieved that, at least for today, we won't have another huge expense.  You might be able to hear our collective sigh and see our smiles.  I'm working on making my glass half full again.   Blessings

I know it's not exciting, but I decided to add a photo of the tank for info.  The pressure valve is the little grey box with the two wires extending up.  Such a little thing to cause to much trouble.  G. 

The charm of Belize

My last post sounded somewhat negative and I feel badly about that.  It's true that the roads in Belize are horrible, but that's just one piece of this place we now call home.  There are so many lovely bits to focus on that make it wonderful.  This morning I went to the market in San Ignacio with my dear friend, Diane.  Now when you're a tourist, it's fun to go to the market on Saturday to see all the mosh of people and things.  It's probably not the most colorful market in Central America, but there's lots to see and great produce to buy.  Besides the food stalls that are there every single day of the year, small farmers bring their produce in, along with some Mennonites.  You'll find clothing, plastic, videos, food booths, fresh fish and sometimes farmers selling live animals.  If I want to just shop for produce, it's nicer to go on Tuesday or Friday when the regular vendors get their produce deliveries and things are freshest.   Diane and I like to do our shopping and then stop at Lucy's little place for a cold drink and $2 panada's.  Yum and just a lite snack to get us back home. 

The true beauty of Belize has to be her people.  I'm not talking about the ones in the government offices, or the banks where the slowness and inefficiency can drive you wild.  I'm talking about the gentle souls you see walking along the street or riding their bicycle.  Yes, they can make you crazy when you're driving your car, but when you actually look at any of these folks, making eye contact and smile, you'll be rewarded with a big smile in return.  If we ever leave here we'll miss the fact that almost everyone along our road will wave and smile.  We don't really "know" them, but we give folks a ride to the village in the back of the truck when we can.  We still don't speak Spanish and many folks don't speak much English, but as long as we're friendly and make an effort, up here in Cayo, we find almost everyone will help. 

Yes, even tho' almost everyone has a cell phone and some can use a computer, the houses are simpler and so are most of the people.  It's not uncommon to see a man riding to town on his horse and of course there are the Mennonite wagons.   In most ways, Belize is about 50 years behind the West, but that's not all bad.  Yes, we miss some of the shopping and conveniences of the US, but in many ways, we've been transported back to our childhood when many things were simpler. 

airport trip - Belize roads!

A good friend of ours has really been struggling with debilitating health problems for a couple of years.  His wife was finally able to arrange for his care, his appointments in the US and got him ticketed to Florida.  They had planned to take a taxi in, but I decided to drive them instead.  It costs about half as much, now that we have butane in the truck and I could be there for Diane.  She's so worried that she's making herself sick.  Anyway, we drove into Ladyville to the airport and saw David safely onto the plane.  She'd arranged for wheelchair assistance and they were extremely helpful.  He's now safely in the hospital, getting lots of attention and tests.  We're all praying he can finally get some relief.

I haven't checked the mileage, but it's about 90 miles from Bullet Tree to the airport.  It's a two hour drive.  In the US, that would be not more than a trip to town, but here it's a serious thing.  If you haven't driven in Belize before, you are in for a real surprise.  First, the roads are TERRIBLE.  We all complain that the government wastes so much money, it seems mostly on graft, but nothing on the roads.  There's always talk, talk, talk, but they don't do anything.  It's embarrassing to pick up visitors and have their first impression be Ladyville.  It's definitely a third world country.  We always go north out of the airport and take the Burrell Boom cutoff, rather than going thru Belize City, which takes us past the scenic view of the Hattyville Prison, Ick!  The cutoff road is not pretty, but the road is one of the best.  At the end is a round-about (what a stupid idea) and then we head west on the Western Highway.  At first, the road seems fairly decent.  Two lanes, but driveable.  Thank goodness because the scenery here is depressing.  It's savanna and nothing productive will grow there.  I understand folks have tried to raise lots of different things here, but failed.  I keep stressing to visitors that this isn't the Belize that we know and love.  Just "shut your eyes and wait until we get to Cayo District.  (I have to add the "district" because locals refer to the San Ignacio/Santa Elena towns as "Cayo.")  Once you go past the zoo at milepost 26 (or so) the scenery slowly starts to change.  You start slowly climbing and you see bits of jungle.

On this part of the trip until you pass Belmopan, there are only two villages, Hattyville and St. Matthews.  These would go unnoticed, except that every village has at least one speed bump and/or passenger crossing bump.  These may, or may not be marked.  If you don't slow down to about 15mph, these can be real shock busters.

Belmopan is a couple of miles off the road and not worth taking the side trip.  You cross the bridge over Roaring Creek and then the fun begins.  You would think that since this is the only road east and west and the main road to Guatemala, as well as the way that most inland tourists travel, that this would be the best highway.  FORGET IT!  You travel through at least eight villages, with accompanying sleeping policemen (speed bumps) and the road deteriorates.  Rather than repair, they dump dirt in the holes, which down here is marl, which the rain rapidly washes away.  Sometimes they'll throw a little blacktop patch in the holes, which then becomse a bump.  There aren't lines painted, which makes sense because the edges of the road are broken and they don't put gravel on the sides, so you can flip your car if you drift to the side as the drop can be several inches.  I imagine that Prince Harry was impressed by our lovely roads during his recent visit.  I wish the politicians would quit bribing folks for their vote and spend the money on roads, but I don't see them changing in the near future. 

The additional hazards make the trip very scarey.  We left from Cayo very early so that we would miss the schoolchildren on the road.  They're so sweet, trudging to school in their uniforms with their backpacks, but they're all over the road.  Folks here treat the road like a pathway.  The bicyclists are even worse.  No reflectors, they wear dark clothes and wander all over.  If you should hit someone, not only would you be devastated, but as a gringo, driving, it's your fault.  You pay forever.

The second huge hazard is the Belize drivers.  As David said, it's a blessing that Belize drivers have x-ray vision, because they always pass at a hill or around a corner.  It must be true because, even on these hideous roads, they drive 70 - 80mph.  I just drive my drive, putting along at 60mph as they fly past.

We usually stop at Cheers restaurant to take a break after all this.  Then to Amigo's next door where they raise fantastic hydroponic lettuce.  I usually have to buy some for at least 6 other folks.  Then we toddle home.  After this trip, Diane and I were whipped.  It had been raining for a couple of days, so, of course, I had to worry about the trip up our lovely road.  As it turned out, it was a little dicey, but I made it just fine.  What a  blessing to be back on our little hill, with Art and Bailey and to just relax.

I love Belize, but her roads are not her proudest accomplishment.  We love Belize, warts and all, but sometimes the roads can seem like a pretty bit wart.  Especially when Guatemala and Mexico have decent highways.

weather

One minute we're complaining about it being too hot.  It reached 100 F. on our veranda, in the shade, two days ago.  We were thinking that the dry season had come early.  Now it's raining like crazy and cold.  It's down to the high 50's right now, but the problem down here is that we don't have a way to get heat.  It's usually not necessary.  All we can do is bundle up.  Not easy when your wardrobe is mostly tank tops and lightweight clothes.  It's definitely "weird" weather right now.  Thankfully tho', not as devastating as in the midwest in the US. 

We are so lucky!  We had a barbecue on Sunday (yesterday) afternoon, with 11 friends and ourselves. There were some clouds, which kept it from being too hot.  We had an absolutely wonderful time.  We are so blessed with great friends, both old and new.  Our back veranda is only 8' wide, but it handled everyone just fine and our new tiki torches along with the bug coils kept us bug free.   Good food and great conversations made for a  nice time. Our little house isn't fancy, but it's so comfortable and makes  entertaining small groups a pleasure.  It was as tho' we were being watched because everyone left just before dark and about 10 minutes after the last car pulled out of the drive, it started to rain.  What a blessing.  It's actually been raining ever since.

There's still a little work to do to fine tune our solar system, but it's working!  We have a lot to be grateful for. 

Pro Solar Engineering

It's hard to believe that our electrical problems might be over.  Marco, of Pro Solar, and one of his technicians spent the morning here, installing our new batteries and going thru our system.  One problem they found right away was that one of our DC breakers was broken, thus cutting down the actual amount of power coming down from the panels.  Duh!  Not sure why no one else discovered this.   Some of our wiring was confusing and they changed that and then spent a lot of time monitoring the system and adjusting the settings on the inverter and the charge controller to the limits dictated by our temperatures here in Belize.  Within a couple of hours, these changes had already doubled our input over all of yesterday.  There were several components that hadn't been installed that will help us monitor our usage.  He'll send technicians back in a week or so to check the wiring of our panels, wire in a battery monitor and redo our racks to allow us to raise and lower the panels to better track the changing sun during the year. 

It is such a blessing to feel that we have finally gotten the help we desperately needed.   We are still thrilled with solar and our decision to live off-grid.  Even with our problems, we've had power when the folks using the electrical system haven't.  My main advice to anyone coming to Central America is to get help from a qualified solar engineer.  We've faced huge, unexpected expenditures because of well-meaning, but poorly trained installers.  We even found that the incorrect settings on the inverter could have damaged our new generator.  We're both sitting here breathing a cautious sigh of relief.  Thank you Marco.

Solar answers-finally

Yup, we're still fighting the losing battle with our solar system.  We've had technicians here to try to figure out what is happening, but no real answers.  Nothing they've tried has made a difference.  They've tried to reprogram the inverter to no avail.  Per recommendations from our solar provider in the US and the battery manufacturer, the default settings were appropriate.  Our batteries are nearly toast.  By watching our available volts and running the generator every evening, at least once, we've been able to keep enough power to allow us to continue at night and run our refrigerator and freezer (they're both Sundanzer DC).  We've finally given up the fight and are buying new batteries.

Thanks to the internet, I found another company in Belmopan who sells batteries, designs and installs systems.  We decided to visit their office and see what they have to offer.  We talked to Marco of Pro Solar Engineering and finally got some answers that make sense.  Marco has an engineering degree and additional advanced degrees.  He said that they hear stories similar to ours and offered some answers.  First off, our pump wasn't the total cause of our system failure.  If I'd been more knowledgeable I'd have recognized the fact that the inverter shut the AC down when the pump pushed it to dangerous limits.  Thus it was impossible for this to take the batteries totally down. Of course it didn't help, but wasn't the culprit.  His view of the advice offered by the other companies is that most companies in the US aren't considering our temperatures.  Here in Belize the average temp is 85 and most of the dry season it's much higher.  The charge controller, which was totally ignored by others has allowed the voltage to go too high to the inverter.  He recommends that it be programmed to keep it at 28v and below.  We regularly see the panels send 30+ volts to the charge controller . Marco says that over the two year life of our batteries, we've been frying them.  Well heck!

Also, something that I've noticed all along, but didn't have the knowledge to question it is that we were told when we initially bo't our system that it should generate 4.5 useable kilowatt hrs on a sunny day.  The highest we've seen has been 3kwhs and that was last year.  

We're buying new batteries and having Pro Solar come up and reconfigure our system.  I'll update this when we get things set up.

Family visit

What a lot of joy we got from the visit from my cousin Roger, his son Matt and Matt's partner Lenae.  The 10 days seem to whip by so fast and now they're gone.  Roger's goal was to relax, read and just enjoy Belize, which we hope he did.  There couldn't be a more comfortable guest than this dear man.  He's already talking about when he comes back.  Hope it's soon.

Matt and Lenae were great.  Matt is the same age as our son, Tim.  I have to tell you that their energy level is much greater than ours, but what a lot of fun we all had.  I had never been to Caracol, and that was one of the top things on Lenae's list, so Roger and I accompanied the kids on a tour.  I was so glad that we took a tour rather than drive our truck.  The road is long and rough, but the trip in the Maya Walk van was great.  Lots of terrific information.  The changes in the environment on the way up are startling and unexpected.  I hadn't seen the pine forests of the Mtn Pine Ridge area.  Of course they look rough because of recent fires, but having come from Oregon, I was disappointed in them.  We passed thru and reached the jungle of the mountains.  It was all incredible.  I'm always so overwhelmed by all I see and then have trouble describing it.  I'd make a terrible tour guide.  We passed a huge abandoned camp with lots of buildings.  Our guide told us that the government won't allow them to be occupied, moved or torn down.  What a waste!

Of course, Caracol was fantastic.  It's not a trip I'd want to make every day, but it's a trip I'm so very glad I made.  I can't begin to keep up with the younger, stronger legs of my younger cousins, but had fun just looking and absorbing the beauty of the place.  There are so many similarities with the Mayan sites and yet each is also different.  What an incredible history.

On the way back we stopped at the Rio Frio cave which was so surprising and interesting.  Then, down the road a bit were the Rio Frio pools.  Wow, at the end of a long trip, this is a must see and enjoy spot.  The pools are beautiful and the water so refreshing.  This body doesn't get out in a bathing suit in front of others, but I would still recommend jumping in to the water for most folks.  I felt I could just camp there (not allowed) for weeks and enjoy the cool and calm.

A couple of days later Matt & Lenae too a tour to the ATM Caves.  They were thrilled with the experience and enthusiastically tackled every part of the trip.  I have to state right here that Matt is a river guide on the Salmon River in Riggins, ID and Lenae works for the Idaho Fish & Game Dept., so this was all right up their alleys.

We let the kids use our old Trooper to explore around Cayo and then it was time for all to head home.  The sad thing is that it took them over 1 1/2 days to get back to Idaho and a long day for Roger to reach New York.  There lies the down side of living in Belize.

We were so happy to be able to share our little corner of the world with family and look forward to more visits.

I have to add that I lost a lot of my favorite photos.  I still don't know how to manage all the settings on my camera.  Darn!    Just have wonderful memories.

Secondhand Lions

We are having a wonderful visit with my cousin and his family.  The weather has cooperated and been lovely.  Some clouds, occasional rain and cool nights.  Can't beat that!  Belize has about 12 hours of daylight year round, so it's dark by 6:30 every evening.  We've watched a couple of videos.  We have quite a collection of those we bro't down from Oregon and the ones from the market in San Ignacio.  We always manage to watch The Secondhand Lions, as it's one of our favorites.  None of our family or friends had seen it.  If you haven't, you are missing a treat.  I can't figure why it didn't make a bigger splash when it was released, but it has to go down as a classic.  With Robert Duvall, Michael Caine, Haley Joel Osment and Kyra Sedgwick, how can you go wrong.  Please beg, borrow or steal a copy and watch it.  You won't regret it. 

We just have a couple more days with family and then it will be back to our normal schedule, which really isn't one.  We'll putter around the grounds, raking leaves for compost and will try to finish putting the ta-tai on the handrails.  I'll post a photo when I get done.  Nothing too strenuous, just keeping busy. 

I've had a couple of emails from new friends, asking questions about living here.  I'll try to answer very soon.  I love hearing from you and will do my best to give honest, answers.  I'm sending a hug to all of you.  That may sound corny, but you can never have too many hugs.      Gale

Family visiting

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.