Ninety-Seven Percent Forest-Free

Thursday morning dawned chilly again. I forgot to check the "thermal meter" on the porch. But, it was chilly, up till about mid-morning. After the obligatory morning walk with the girls, Dianna and I huddled under blankets while we had breakfast and watched the Daily Show, our major source of US news. Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder - down to 58 (f). I think National Hardware will be getting a supply of snow shovels in any day now.

But, enough sniveling about our cold-cold-cold weather. Yesterday afternoon I took photos of the guest house and finally got them all posted below. We start off with a panoramic view of the front of the place. The only sticks still in place are the ones supporting the outside headers, everything else has been cleared.

Front Panorama

This is where the 4-piece sliding glass doors will go, opening out from the center in each direction.

Closer to the Big Opening

This shot is from inside the kitchen area, looking toward the bedrooms and bathroom doors.

From the Kitchen

Now, this one's kinda neat. Looking from the kitchen area out to the pool and deck. I wish it was warmer - I'd be in the pool right now!

Looking Toward the Pool

These two views are from bedroom number 2, looking out the window, then back to the bedroom door.

Number Two Bedroom - Looking In

Number Two Bedroom - Looking Out

This set is of bedroom number one. Again, looking outside, and through the bedroom door out.

Bedroom Number One - Looking In

Bedroom Number One - Looking Out

Bedroom number one actually has a pretty good view straight out to the pool, as you can see below.

Bedroom Pool View

This view is of the kitchen area, taken from the living room area side of the room.

Kitchen Area

Another of the kitchen area, taken from the bathroom, on the left, and from the living area.

More Kitchen Area - From the Bathroom

More Kitchen Area - From the Big Doorway

The most important room in the guest house... the bathroom. These view are looking from the shower area on the left, and looking toward the toilet area on the right.

From the Bathroom - Looking to the Pool

From the Bathroom - Different Angle

Here's the bathroom door from the outside on the deck.

Bathroom Door Outside

For a small place, we have enough door. This one is of the utility room from the deck.

Utility Room

And this finalizes our tour. This one is of the interior of the utility room showing the plumbing roughins and a bit of the power panel. The ladder is just for effect.

The Utility Room and Pool Toy Storage Room

Chilly Wednesday Morning

This morning dawned cold and windy, at least it was dry. Walking the dogs required blue jeans and my hoodie sweatshirt, topped off with brisk walking to keep from shivering.

I know, I know, those of you from up north, smirk at 68 (f) degrees as being cold, but let me tell you, once you get acclimatized here, cold is cold. Don't forget, no one down here (that I know of) have furnaces or even fire places in their homes, so when the thermometer takes a drop, it gets cold. And with our usual high humidity, there's no such thing as saying "but it's a dry cold".

The other morning, was worse. It was cold, windy, and drizzly. As you can see from the photo below, we hardy dog walkers get out before sunrise, whether it's wet, or cold, or windy. As you can tell, Doug is the hardier of the bunch, wearing his shorts and t-shirt.

This picture was taken in the Corozal market. It was even too early for most of the vendors. When we come through, usually there's only three or four vendors open for business at that time, so we tend to get the freshest fruits and veggies of the day's offerings.

Doug, Twyla, tupelo, and Lola - Walkies

I've been meaning to get this picture of one of the market tents since we came down here. Just a curious use of USAID materials. I thought it was kinda cool.

USAID Tarp

Northern Belize Violence

A little excitement has come to northern Belize. Normally, it's relatively sleepy up here compared to San Pedro and the more touristy areas of the country. That has changed. We've had some unrest in the Orange Walk area involving the Belize Sugar Industries (BSI), Ltd (http://www.northernbelize.com/econ_sugar.html), and independent sugar cane growers. Actually, more than just "unrest". "Violence" is the term we should use. a striking cane farmer was killed and several wounded in clashes with police.

Ostensibly, the argument is about something called "core sampling", which is a piece of machinery that takes a core sample of a truck load of sugar cane to determine sugar content.

What BSI wants to do, is pay farmers according to the quality of their product, instead of just paying by weight of cane delivered to the Tower Hill Sugar Factory in Orange Walk. To those of us that are not involved in the industry, that sounds reasonable on the face of it.

However, yesterday we had a Neighborhood Watch Association meeting, our meeting host's housekeeper, to her credit, piped up during our discussion of the violent turn of events and gave us the independent cane farmer's point of view of the problem. Her comments were eye-opening in that the only side of the story we had been getting to that point was from the local TV media, which seems to have pretty much provided the public what BSI wanted broadcast.

Anyway, it seems the issue is more BSI keeping down cane prices artificially through use of their company-owned cane fields, really lessening the effect any action the independent farmers may try to take to increase their income. The core sampler issue is more the focus of that effort, the lightning rod, so to speak, than the primary issue - at least that's my take on things.

So, the day before yesterday, things came to a head. The farmers barricaded the Northern Highway, and tried (I think) to blockade the factory itself. Because of the blockage of the highway, brought a response from the Belize Police Department. Things turned ugly, when some cane farmers apparently used machetes to threaten police. The police responded with force. The rest you know.

Apparently, now the highway is open, BSI is still processing cane in the factory from their own fields, and still arguing for use of the core sampler. To think the problem has been resolved or is anywhere close to that, would be premature at best. Politics has gotten involved up to and including the Prime Minister. Hopefully it will get resolved fairly and soon.

Guest House Update

Alright, enough of that sort of reportage... Our guest house is now forest-less. All the sticks and plywood supporting the roof have now been removed (except for the outside doorways because of the size of the headers, which are also concrete. It'll be another week or so before plastering is begun on the walls of the house. I'll try to remember to include some photos of the bare house interior a little later on.

Tunes On the Site

Something new on the site is a list of my fav tunes. I picked kind of an eclectic mixture. Featuring the late Andy Palacio, Belize's best know musician. He unfortunately died just as his career was getting ready to take a huge international jump. Still his music is worth listening too. I've included a bit of reggae, which I've been a fan of for years, and even some Ol' Blue Eyes, just cause I Frank is such a groove of a singer. Let me know what you think of this feature. It's still in beta on Google's Blogger services.

Casual Saturday

Ok, I've carried this casual bit about as far as I can - probably about a day longer than I needed. Y'all realize of course, we don't wear socks, most times we go "commando" (if I need to explain that, you really are behind the times), and rarely wear anything other than tee-shirts and either shorts or swimming suits. Oh yeh, and Crocs. Unbelievable just how comfortable those things are.

Here's the latest updates on the guesthouse. The guys are planning on casting the roof this coming Sunday, so they'll be spending today (Saturday) prepping the forms, growing the forest, etc.

As you can see, some of the forest is beginning to grow as they've already got the form done for the "chain" as it's called. It's the rebar-laced concrete bit that goes completely around the edge, binding the whole house together. Below is the view through the 12' hole for the sliding glass doors, this time taken from inside.

View From the Kitchen/Living Room

A few more views - the one on the left is looking into each bedroom from the living room. The shot on the right is from the kitchen window.

View Windows All

Another View Window

Here's a closeer view of the electrical panel in the utility room and a view from there out to the pool.

Electrical Panel

View From One of the Bedrooms

Here's the new pool cover deployed. We noticed that it kept the tempurature about 2-3 degrees warmer just overnight. I've also trimmed it a bit in places for a little better fit in the pool (that'll show up in later shots. These views are of it untrimmed).

Pool Cover Rolled Out

Pool Cover Rolled Out - Untrimmed

And finally, another view of Corozal Bay, near the fishermen's pier and the "old man of the fleet". I always image him as the senior pelican since he has the coveted post to spend the night on.

Sunrise

And finally, for today. I noticed yesterday, the more Gregg's trees get pruned and cleaned out, the better our view of the bay improves. As you can see below, we've now got a nice, albeit short view of the bay.

It's Casual Friday!

Since it's Casual Friday, I thought this was apropos.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Progress was made on the guesthouse. Here's the main door opening. It'll be a 12-foot wide sliding glass door affair, opening from the center so as to maximize the openness of the room and deck.

I Can See the Glass Already

In this shot, if you look carefully, you can see the main electrical panel already in place. Progress.

Utility Room

And, here we have another view of the back of the house, this time with the forms off. It's looking good.

Guesthouse Back

We Just Had Second Christmas

Yesterday was a fun day. We had visitors from Succotz, a small village southwest from Belmopan, right next to the Guatemalan border. Linda and Mickey. Great folks. They're more or less from Ocean Shores, Washington (near where we used to live). I met Linda on the Belize Forums (http://www.belizeforum.com/belize/).

They're building a house in Succotz and living in an apartment in Belmopan while doing it. Linda is on her way for a visit to the States, so, with a pause for a day in Corozal while on their way to Cancun and the airport, they stopped by to visit. I hope we see more of them.

While they were visiting, Billy and Pam stopped by, having just returned from Oregon. They brought the holy grail of Oregon beer (well, one of them, anyway) - a couple of bottles of Black Butte Porter for Dianna. Of course, she'll have to share it with Midas, our elderly, beer-loving kitty. That was always his favorite brew. Billy and Pam will be here for about the next six months, then it's back to Oregon, and so on.

I was going to take photos of everyone while they were here, but with a few Belikins and good conversation, I forgot.

It was really nice having all those folks visiting at the same time. That's one of the nice things about living down here. It's hard to get much done because of interruptions - visitors, etc.

Guesthouse Construction Update

It's getting close to time for the guys to cast the roof. Here's a new load of rebar. Most of it will be for the roof with ome is being used to extend columns and other stuff.

Money in Metal

Along with the rebar, you need to have a stick forest. This is what holds the roof forms up and in place when the roof is cast and afterwards while the concrete cures.

Forests by the Trailerfull

Some more images of the column forms being positioned. Here's two views of the same corner - inside and out, showing how the forms are positioned. They're tied together with tying wire (what else?) run through the concrete blocks and then twisted to draw the wood closer together against the blocks.

Corner Forms Going In

Corner Forms From the Inside

A nice view of the back of the guesthouse, showing the corner forms in place and a central form getting ready to be positioned.

Forms and More Forms

Second Christmas

We just took delivery of a shipment of stuff we had ordered from the States. Generally, instead of shipping it directly to us, we have it sent to one of two shipping companies with regular runs between the US and Belize (Clifford Marage Shipping and Roy and Son Trucking).

We got about 7 boxes this time from Marage. A swimming pool cover and reel (in 4 boxes - fun to put together); Web cameras and headsets; a doggie pack for Cindy; and a couple of springy floaties for in the pool.

Here's our solar pool cover and its reel. The reel is mounted on locking casters, so it's easy to wheel out of the way. I'm going to have Alex the tailor make a nylon tent for it to protect it from the sun when it's rolled up.

Our Nice, New Pool Cover and Reel

And not only did we get this stuff, but miracle of miracles, my workbench showed up too! Here you can see the top piled with stuff still waiting to be put away. Still to come is the upper cabinets for my workshop, and largish set of shelves for my workshop alcove, and a bookcase for Dianna's workshop. But, it's progress. We've only been waiting about three months for the workbench. After all, it's Belize!

Fancy-Dancy Workbench

Since we each have our own laptops, it's only fitting that we each have our own webcams and headsets. Here's Dianna enjoying her new webcam as she's talking to her dad, Norman, and her brother, David in Pueblo, Colorado. She's using Skype, which works quite well for us... Unfortunately, at the present, not that well if both parties are using webcams. The system tends to dump the call in that case. Still, it's fun to play with and is a real improvement over old-fashioned phone calls.

Dianna Enjoying Her Webcam

While on the Walkabout

Yesterday morning on the walk with the girls, we stopped by the Thunderbolt pier, just to see what was going on. A couple of guys with castnets were fishing off the end of the pier. I got a shot of them doing just that. It's kind of a dark photo - the sun had yet to break through, but if you click on the photo, you'll be able to see an expensive blue castnet (they're pretty high-tech) in mid-air.

Early Morning Fishermen

Monday, Monday

Such a cool song. "Monday, Monday" was written by John Phillips and recorded by the Mamas and Papas. It was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for May 7, 1966 and stayed there for three weeks. My 16-year old hormones were in love with Mama Michelle - or was it lust?

The previous week's number one song was "Good Lovin'" by The Young Rascals with that hot New Jersey beat that traces its lineage forward from the Rascals, through "Little Stevie" Van Zant, and on up to the Boss, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. "Good Lovin'" was followed by Percy Sledge with "When a Man Loves a Woman" - powerful blues and soul.

We used to listen to KOMA in Oklahoma City at night - it was AM radio and we could only receive it after dark. With my little 3" tape recorder and microphone stuck up to the radio speaker I would record and transcribe the words to the new songs so our band could get a jump on the other local bands by a week or so. Man, those were the days!

So, what does all that have to do with progress on the guest house? Not one damn thing, other than what I wrote for this post's title sent me far afield. There you have it - a little excursion down Memory Lane for a few minutes on a Monday morning.

Now back to business. Here's the progress as of this morning on the guest house. It's getting pretty close to being ready to start working on the roof. In fact, as I am writing this, the truck is here delivering a whole bunch more rebar and bags of cement for the roof.

Looking Across the Kitchen

Through the Kitchen to a Bedroom

There's a bit more work to do. Not all the walls are up to the final height yet. They're forming the steel for the "chain" as it's called to bind the walls together. Plus, earlier today, they deliverd a load of sticks that will be used to support the roof when they pour that.

Looking Through the Bathroom to the Other Bedroom

The Missing Window is In Place

The Utility Room Almost at Final Height

View From Across the Pool

So, there we are. A successful start to the week. Go out there and make it a good one!