Hurricane Richard Aftermath

We came through Hurricane Richard with lots of downed trees (including one mango, boohoo), but all people, horses, dogs, and buildings are fine. The road was blocked by downed trees both north and south of our driveway; Tom was out clearing the road before 6 this morning. We're not sure how the rest of the country fared since the only news sources we have are international internet news services, but no deaths are being reported so we're hoping for the best. We talked to Julio this morning and he said the Village of 7 Miles is fine, with some trees down, but as far as he knows, no major property destruction or casualties. We'll be spending today clearing away the downed trees and fixing fence.

Tree down in the heliconia near the porch

More of the tree in the heliconia

View from our house toward the guest cabin

More of the view toward the guest cabin

Tree down on the path to Tony and Lodo.  This one took down the mango.

Trees down in Tony & Lodo's paddock

Lodo says it was a very scary night.

We have some fence fixing to do

This one involved some fence as well

Tony says it wasn't THAT scary.  Where's breakfast?

Small tree down near the tack shed

Tree in the road to the south of our driveway

Tree in the road to the north of our driveway

Path back to the palapa

More path back to the palapa

Tree down near the palapa

Trees broken near the top near the palapa

Palapa area, by the driveway.  But nothing hit the palapa!

Carol, Lori, and Rob

Our next visitors were a trio of traveling friends from Colorado. They had spent the first part of their vacation in San Pedro, and flew into the Municipal airport on a 9:30AM flight. I drove to Belize City with our friend Ian, who is living in San Ignacio until December, and who had spent the afternoon and evening before with us, getting out of the city. Ian and I spotted Lori, Carol, and Rob immediately when they got off the little Tropic Air flight, and we got their bags loaded in the back of the little blue truck and we all piled in and were on our way. Our first stop was a bank to get more cash, and after some quick calculations about how much money they needed and a couple of stops at a couple of different banks, we were on our way to the Zoo.

Lori, Rob, and Carol under the banana tree in front of the guest cabin.

We had an absolutely wonderful time at the Zoo. Put together five people who love animals, add a chance meeting with the Zoo director who gave us a private tour complete with feeding some of the animals that many visitors never even see, add a bit of adventure – holding a boa and petting a jaguar! – and the normally hour and a half tour turned into a three and a half hour adventure. Ian had been to the Zoo on his own before, and he said it was much more fun to visit with a group and actually take the time to watch some of the animals. We discovered that Rob is some sort of animal whisperer; he would stand and look into a cage to try to see the animals, and they would get up from where ever they were and come to the edge of the cage to look at him. It was amazing!

By the time we were done at the Zoo, we were all starving, so we made our normal stop at Cheers for lunch. After a leisurely lunch, we headed to Jaguar Paw to zip line. We arrived there at 2:45, fifteen minutes before they officially start their last zips of the day, but because nobody had been in the park since noon, all the employees had been sent home a half hour early and the park was closed. The good thing about this stop was that the park management gave me their phone number, so if we’re running close to the edge again, we can call and make sure somebody is still there before we drive the six miles off the Western Highway, especially during the slow season when some attractions are occasionally closed due to a lack of tourists.

Although they were mildly disappointed, we made the best of it and headed directly into San Ignacio from Jaguar Paw, and arrived at Cahal Pech in time for Rob, Carol, Lori, and Ian to tour the museum and the site. They left the site when it closed at 5:30, so we drove down the hill and into San Ignacio and did a little bit of gift shopping before heading to dinner at Erva’s where we had the usual magnificent service of Germo, and were joined by Shawn, an archeologist friend we met this summer when he was working with Becky at Caves Branch. We then did a little more shopping from the street vendors who are out at night in San Ignacio before heading back to the farm. We really made the most of this transfer day!

The next day Lori, Carol, and Rob toured ATM. We went through a small period of chaos because we weren’t sure if the cave was closed due to some rain we’d been having, and didn’t know until Selmo and Carlos met them in Georgeville if they were actually going to make it to the cave. But, lucky for everybody, the cave was open, so they had a great day in the Maya underworld.

They were only with us for two nights, so they were heading back to Belize City to go home the next morning. But, their flight wasn’t until mid-afternoon, so they had some time to hang around here in the morning. We had just started digging in the ground under the palapa to level the floor for the kitchen, so we showed Rob, Carol, and Lori how we were finding pieces of pottery. They grabbed knives and trowels and started digging, and we all found pieces of pots, which they thought was pretty cool – and we were glad to find someone else so fascinated by digging up thousand year old garbage!

Jennifer, Carla, & Pat

We had a laughter filled visit with Jennifer, Pat, and Carla, a sister-sister-daughter/niece trio from Georgia, Virginia, and Washington, DC, who met in Atlanta and flew to Belize. I picked them up from the airport, recognizing them immediately as they walked out of the gate thanks to Jennifer’s forethought in sending me a photo of herself and Carla. We than went to lunch at Cheers, and then backtracked a couple of miles for a tour of the Belize Zoo, where we were lucky enough to run into Sharon who was walking around feeding chicken parts to the predators – which gave us an up-close and personal look at some animals we might not have otherwise seen.

Pat & Carla with a famous Moonracer Farm breakfast. 
We have no pics of Jennifer since she was always behind the camera!

The next day Tom took them into town to meet Selmo, who took them on a tour of Xunantunich before handing them over to Link, who took them kayaking in the Mopan. After a great evening visiting, they were up early the next morning to head to the Guatemala border, where they met Hugo who took them to Tikal where they both ziplined and toured the site.

The next day they were heading to the water taxi to continue their vacation on the cayes, but thanks to the late afternoon water taxis, we were able to get a full days of touring in before they left. We started with a visit to the Green Hills Butterfly Ranch, early enough to still see the butterflies emerging from their chrysalises and drying their wings. We then traversed the rough road to Barton Creek Cave, where Jose paddled them through the cave while Louie and I watched Mango the monkey.

We got out of Barton Creek around 1:00, and started the run to Belize City. It was Belize’s Independence Day, so none of our usual lunch stops were open and we ended up stopping for takeout at a Chinese restaurant in Belmopan. That was fine, except a new speed bump had just been put in the highway between Belmopan and St. Matthew’s. That would have been okay, except I was talking, laughing, and trying to eat the fried chicken Jennifer was passing to me…and didn’t see the new bump until I hit it at about 55. I said something I probably shouldn’t write, and then looked in the rearview mirror as I hit the bump, and it looked like Pat and Carla were in a snow globe as they bounced up, surrounded by the flying fried rice. Lucky for me, all three of them have VERY good senses of humor, and we all started to giggle. They cleaned up the rice as best they could, and all the way to Belize City we all periodically erupted into fits of giggles. The car smelled like a Chinese restaurant, but by the next morning when I got around to finishing the cleaning job that was already quite well started, most of the rice was dry and I just swept it out! We made it the rest of the way to the water taxi, said good bye, and they headed to the cayes as I headed home.

The school children of 7 Miles got a big bonus from these three women. Jennifer is a sixth-grade teacher, and Pat is a retired librarian, and they arrived in Belize with an entire suitcase of school supplies. Because they visited over Belize’s Independence Day holiday weekend they weren’t able to deliver the goods to the school themselves, but as you can see from the picture, the kids were very happy and appreciative!

Christi & Mike

This time of year here is usually very quiet tourism-wise, and very busy weather wise since it’s the height of the hurricane season. This year, however, has been exactly the opposite for us, with enough guests to keep us busy, and generally gorgeous weather. So, when we haven’t been busy with our guests, we’ve been busy being outside and having fun, or, as you can see from previous blog entries, building our new kitchen and dining room. But, I’m finally getting around to updating the blog with the visitors we’ve had since the end of August! Sorry for the delay, Christi and Mike!

Christi and Mike from Texas stayed with us for the last couple of days of August. Christi and I had communicated quite a bit prior to their stay, and, on our advice, they spent the first bit of the inland portion of their stay at Caves Branch because they wanted to do the Black Hole Drop. It’s an awesome tour and worth doing, but it’s very expensive to do it from our place because on top of Caves Branch’s tour price, you have to pay for transportation to get there and back, not to mention it becomes a very long day by the time you add close to three hours of driving to a long hike and the actual Drop. So, they stayed at Caves Branch and did the Black Hole Drop, and caught a Caves Branch transfer to San Ignacio the next day, where Tom met them.

The next day they toured ATM with Gonzo, and, predictably, loved it. The water was a little high and Christi said the going was tough at some points, but they conquered the cave and were amazed at its beauty and archeological significance.

They were only here for two nights, so they had to leave the next day for the cayes. Fortunately, they only had to get to the water taxi and didn’t mind having a little bit of time to kick back and relax, so we had a very enjoyable morning visiting with them. Tom and Mike discovered that they’re both Eagle Scouts, and Christi and I enjoyed sitting on the porch and just visiting. Then, off to the water taxi for the diving part of their Belize adventure at Xanadu in San Pedro.

Done with the roof, on to the floor

Fortunately Tom and the crew made far better progress on the kitchen over the past few weeks than I have made on blogging! The following pictures should give you a pretty good overview of what they’ve done.


With Tom passing leaf to the guys on top of the roof…


…they made pretty quick work of getting the rest of the leaf tied onto the roof. The key was to get enough guys tying that nobody had to move back and forth too much. They just waited for the next leaf to be passed up, and then they tied it to the roof beams.


What amazed me was that while Tom was barely comfortable climbing the ladder to pass up the leaf, most of the tying crew completely ignored the ladder and just went up and down from the inside of the roof using the poles and the sticks in the roof.


When they had completed both long sides almost to the top, they put a couple extra layers of leaves over the gap.

Then they stuck short metal poles through the thatch perpendicular to the roofline…

…so they could set long metal poles on them, against the thatch, to hold down the roof cap.

Here’s a view of the completed roof from the inside.


And here’s a few of the work crew under the newly completed roof!

The next step was the floor. The biggest problem with the floor is that the very rocky ground in the back right corner was about a foot and a half higher than the ground in the front left corner. So, one day while Tom and I were out, Julio and Byron build a rock wall around the perimeter of the building and topped it with a level strip of cement that would be the floor level. They then started to fill in what was a rather obvious large hole with dirt and rocks from around the property, but it soon became clear that it was going to take weeks of back breaking labor for a few men to get the level up to where they could pour the concrete.


So, Tom ordered a truckload of sand, and it took less than a morning to move the sand from where the truck dumped it to under the palapa. The next problem was to get the sand mashed down so it wouldn’t settle after the concrete was poured. Tom tried pulling our little blue truck in and running it back and forth over the sand, which helped, although when the clutch started stinking they were back to a more manual method of flattening it.


The more manual method of flattening was basically wetting it enough to make it settle. Fortunately for us our water supply has been pretty dependable lately, so Tom and I didn’t get too anxious about it. We’re going to have different floors in the kitchen and the dining room. In the kitchen, we’re just going to have a flat concrete floor, while Tom is going to inlay some wood into the dining room floor. Since we don’t have the wood for the dining room floor yet, the floor is being made in two parts, starting with the kitchen. They cut some long boards to pour the kitchen section of the floor in two pieces.


They put some cage material in the floor, and then started pouring and flattening in four sections…


… making it level with another long board.

When it was all poured, it was left to dry overnight.

Byron has spent most of today working on giving it a smooth finish. I had to make the decision about what I want on the floor in the end, and I opted for the smooth concrete. If I wanted tiles, they would have left it rough because the tiles would adhere better, but I think that tiles tend to get slippery when wet – and my kitchen floor is always wet – so I think that a smooth concrete finish will be the safest and the easiest to clean.

So, you're going out to see your lovers?

A funny Belize moment.

Tom and I were going out shopping today.  I was dressed in a flowered dress with my favorite red strappy clogs, and Tom was wearing decent sneakers, Carharrt shorts, and a button up shirt.  A couple of local friends were here working, moving dirt and stones into the area that we hope will shortly be our kitchen.

As we went to get in the little blue truck, we stopped to tell them what we were doing and to say goodbye.  One of them said, in Spanish, "So, you're going out to see your lovers?"

Huh?

The answer:  Uh, Tom, you're not in a sweaty t-shirt, shorts, and boots.  Marge, you're not in your rubber boots, sweaty t-shirt and shorts, dirty, and surrounded by horses.

Obviously, you're not in your daily routine, so obviously headed out to see your lovers.  (Novios, in Spanish.)

Us:  Uh, yeah.  We're going out with each other.  So, yeah, we're both going out with our lovers.  Bye."

We love these guys.  They're so frank.  And we love living in Belize.

Kitchen progress - walls and roof

Tom and the crew made amazing progress on the kitchen building over the past couple of weeks. After getting all the cement poured for the footers, Tom, Julio, and Marvin went out in the jungle to find some suitable trees for the support poles.

They found the trees and carted them back to the Farm in Tinkerbell.

The next step was to strip the bark from all of the trees. The timing of the tree cutting was important, because all the wood and the thatch must be collected in the week before and the week after the full moon. It sounds like superstition, but we’ve come to believe it, and some scientific types tell us it actually makes sense because the water in the plants follows the moon like the tide, and the water level in the trees and thatch is at the right level for best preserving the wood when the moon is full.

When the poles were stripped, they started mounting them on the footers. With a combination of man power and ropes, they stood the poles upright and while some of the guys held them, somebody else would drill holes through the bottom of the log and bolt it to the bracket mounted in the cement.

The tree used for the corner pole is quite large and very heavy, so they used a different procedure to get that tree set on the footer. The day before, Julio, Marvin, and Tom built a large stand as a brace so they could mount a block and tackle on it to pull up the pole.

They strapped the pole to a chain on the block and tackle, and used the pulley to get the log in position.

They left the bark on the big log until it was in position so it wouldn’t be slippery, and then stripped it once it was up.

At the end of the day, all of the logs were up on the footers. Most of them were roped to each other or to trees so they wouldn’t fall over before they were hooked together by the supporting beams at the top.

The next day, the supporting beams were added, all the way around from the top of each log to the next, and across the structure for stability.

This involved lots of climbing, using both ladders and the logs. I find it amazing that construction workers in the US always seem to wear heavy boots. Here, the workers find it easier to climb on the logs with bare feet, so they usually work in Crocs or sandals, and kick them off when they head up into the roof.

They then had to go back to the jungle to get the smaller trees that would be used to build the whole frame for the roof. They hauled these sticks back to the farm, and then spent the better part of a day stripping the bark from them.

The first step to building the structure of the roof is to set up the pole that will form the peak.

They then start running poles from the peak to the side beams to form the sides of the roof.

All of the poles must be nailed to the top roofline pole, and that’s way up there. The ceiling of the building is about 10 to 12 feet above the ground, and the peak of the roof is 15 feet above that. You’ll notice that there are lots of tree branches hanging over the roof. These will have to be removed when the roof is done because cohune thatch roofs need sun, but the construction guys decided to leave them there while they worked on the roof both for shade, and in case they need to grab something attached to something to get their balance.

When the sides are on, more poles are added for the front and back of the roof.

Horizontal poles are added for more support because the leaf is heavy, and to support the structure of the roof. A single tree is used for each side without joining trees in the middle.

The next two days were spent cutting the cohune fronds to be used as the thatch. The leaves are better when they’re cut from cohune palms in the open, rather than trees in the jungle. Only a few fronds are taken from each tree so the trees aren’t damaged. The guys had a problem this day because many of the cohunes had wasp nests, and everybody was stung. Fortunately nobody is allergic to bees! The timing on this was perfect because they finished the structure of the roof two days before the full moon, so all the leaf was cut the day before and the day of the full moon.

All the fronds were hauled back to our place on Chuck and Marjie’s trailer. About 600 fronds will be used on this roof, and the weight really adds up. It didn’t help that they day they hauled them back it was raining, so everything was even heavier because of the water.

All the leaf was unloaded, and it then needed to be split. A couple of the guys split the leaf, and the others sorted and stacked it, organizing the split leaves by length and by which way the leaves grow from the spine.

The splitting of the leaf here took all morning, and by the end of the morning we had stacks of leaf everywhere. Although we’re going to need more leaf to complete the roof, this gave them enough leaf to get started.

The four guys from 7 Miles went up to start tying the leaf to the roof supports, while Tom fed the leaf up to them.

Tom doesn’t mind being the guy on the ground, for a couple of reasons. First, he doesn’t like heights, so he’s more than happy to let somebody else do the work the requires your feet to leave the ground. Second, he knew how all the piles of split leaf were organized, and he knows what order they need the leaf of the roof, so he can keep track of which leaves from which piles are going up on the roof in which order.

By the end of the day on Friday, we had a respectable start on the roof. They guys had intended to work through the weekend to get at least the ends of the roof done, but Tropical Storm Matthew changed those plans. The crew still showed up here this morning to work, but Tom and I decided that we didn’t want the risk of the guys up in the wet slippery rafters working with heavy slippery leaves…and none of them looked too disappointed at being sent home. Work will continue on Monday.