Humans can’t get it right and the Internet definitely lets us down on weather forecasts. The plethora of animals making noises from frogs croaking to rain hawks cawing sometimes get it right. Wait for it…the most consistent sign of imminent rain (for us) has been the grader working on San Felipe Road. Guaranteed 97% with 3% Faith!. The grader came by today to move rocks about and flatten the road a bit. Standby for the torrential rain!!
We are Waiting…
Hi There!! Here are some pictures from the weekend event at the Grand Opening of Rail B Service Station on the Southern Highway, Toledo, Belize. We had fun…good to get out and socialise! There was a lot of interest in our Copal products; it is good to see that there is a demand for natural medicines. Anyway, here are some pictures:
Paul Mahung was in top form. For all our International readers, he is our usual Master of Ceremonies down her in Toledo; you can’t have an event without MC. Mahung.
More Pictures…Well done, Isabel…
Lots of music and entertainment…this was an East Indian dance:
The ribbon cutting:
And of course, we had the traditional celebration food for lunch…cohune cabbage!!
We had an unexpected big rain on Saturday evening; it was great to see the new guttering work well with none of the usual leaks. I have found that lately, since we have been actively looking at the weather forecast, we have got nothing right! Two weeks ago, when there was a forecast of rains we quickly put our guttering up. Not a drop of rain. This time round: forecasts of endless bright sunny days so we didn’t bother emptying the big tank to put underneath the new guttering. What happens…big rain…with no available tank to fill. Gnome quickly ran out to shove a 55 gallon barrel underneath the gushing water.
This makes me think of an article that I read in an old English magazine from the 1980’s. The writer had mentioned that during World War 2, no weather reports were broadcasted from the United Kingdom in an effort to thwart possible enemy attack. This resulted in people reverting back to the old traditions in weather prediction including the study of the constellation of the stars, the sky colour at dusk and dawn, etc, etc.
Some people even listened to the different “moo’s” of cows to figure out the weather!
Now, I wouldn’t dismiss this as being too far fetched as…
We had for some time (when we didn’t have Internet) listened to certain bird calls which, in our personal observation, signified rain. The “rain-hawk” cawing is one example. We also noticed that the Wee Wee ants come out early if there are going to be evening rains. The other more obvious one is the croaking of frogs…we found that they only do this is unison when there is a surety of rain. Otherwise, they are deathly quiet apart from the random isolated croak.
There of course no absolutes but the observation of nature to help predict the weather is definitely worth looking at. Especially when the super-duper hi-tec forecasts haven’t been very helpful!
This is a Friday night so I don’t suppose I need to write anything of great consequence. However, this is important to us since we have managed to solve our water issues on the farm. Hooray!! The smaller tubing worked for the compressed air and the air-lift pump works great. Thanks to Gnome for Belize Rigging…it helps to have brains on a farm…it makes all the difference in finding elegant solutions.
We had our usual town day today and then stopped off at the hardware store to purchase one connector and a roll of teflon tape. These were two crucial pieces that were missing in the air-lift pump construction that stopped us from completing the full Gnome-Rig yesterday.
Gnome put the missing piece in and switched on the air-compressor. There was a moment of silence as we stared at the pipe coming out of the well. All of a sudden there was the glorious sound of water shooting out of the pipe…YAY!!! Hip Hip Hooray!! Respect To The Gnome. He Gnome-Rigged an air-lift pump all by himself!
And then at Gnome’s finest moment, the clouds gathered together above our house with the inevitable Sod’s Law rain. Ha-Ha!!
We celebrated with a glass of vernaccia; Gnome says that this particular wine that he has made tastes like local (vernacular) Sardinian wine which has a sherry like quality.
Mmmm…what a lovely way to celebrate. A little bit of sunshine in a glass.
It was quite a while when we had discovered that our well pump was broken…apparently by a frog getting caught in it and sliming up the whole contraption (remember the thrilling installment of Pump Vs Frog??). Anyway, we have been thankfully saved time and time again by the Toledo rains. Lately we have been getting dry season weather…you know, that stifling heat with some young plants starting to wilt in the ground. Our water supply is fast dwindling and we are now on red alert ie. back on bucket washes and hand-washing clothes (boo-hoo). What a life…living in Paradise. Anyway, it is about time we started sorting out the water situation!
We have decided to replace the whole mechanism of pumping with an air compressor. This utilises the “air-lift” effect which was a Gnome brain-storm; just so happens to be more elegant plus you can buy all the parts here (which is very important if you live in Belize). Basically, compressed air goes down which in turn, displaces water upwards.
Now to find an air compressor and would you believe it…none to be found in the Toledo region. Looks like we are going to have to take a trip to the big city to get all the equipment. We have to get this done quickly or we will be out of water within a week or less. It’s a race against time!
Hello Everyone!! We would like to offer our support to Richard and Alisa Atkinson (for all our British readers, they are the ones that appeared on TV with Kevin McCloud). They are holding a Christmas Fair at Tumul K’in Centre of Learning in Toledo.
Some stuff that we have donated for the Christmas raffle:
Hopefully we will see you there!! Mark Sunday the 13th of December on your calendar for the most spectacular Christmas event in Toledo!!
Straight after the SHI Fair, we had to run up to Independence and did not get home until late. I was hoping to get these pictures up earlier but such is life!
Our table: pretty messy after rummaging through bargain boxes! Copal Medicinal Soaps in the middle and bargain tooth-powder to the left.
Vendor selling Plantains, Cho Cho and the roots, in the middle are Cocoyam.
Jars of yellow ginger (tumeric):
Toledo based business marketing and promoting a new BBQ sauce. Good Luck to them:
Overall, there was a moderate turn out and we received a lot of good responses to our products. This year, there were not so many visitors from other districts of Belize.
We have only written three posts in the last month so I am using this post as an opportunity to catch up. We have actually had very hot and dry weather for about 10 days with no rains until today actually. In the last 3 to 4 days we had to go on “red alert” as the water supplies were going down fast. This meant bucket washes (no long showers) and hand-washing clothes. The well-pump still has not been fixed yet but Gnome has a plan to use compressed air to pump the water up to the surface…all we need is a compressor.
I have heard the frogs ribbitting on for rain and we have even joined them in their gloriously orchestrated croaking. The grey clouds are gathering above our house as we speak! Let us continue Ribbitting!! We are down to half a 550 gallon tank of water and we need two 550 gallon tanks totally filled up. When we are on “red alert” a lot of activities are postponed including soap-making…this requires a lot of water for washing up and cleaning of big pots, buckets and utensils.
I will leave you with some pictures from The Spice Farms which is situated in Golden Stream in Toledo, on the Southern Highway of Belize. The place is owned by another fellow medical doctor (anaesthetist) from the United States, formerly from Kerala, India. Being Doctors/ Wannabee Farmers together, Dr. Mathew was nice enough to give us a guided tour of his establishment last week. Lots of vanilla, black-pepper, cinnamon and other spice plants to see.
Have a good night!! Let’s hope for a massive downpour tonight!!
Hi Everyone!! Gosh…can you believe it…in Belize, I can’t find a simple desk lamp. I am just looking for one of those normal lamps with the bendy neck and on-off push button. Yeah one of those cheap (C&G…Cheap and Good) lamps that you can buy anywhere else but Belize. How frustrating…
The reason why I need one is because I have started hand-sewing out of sheer necessity and I need a desk lamp for better lighting. I am in desperate need of good fitting clothes so I have resorted to buying second-hand clothes and altering them to fit my size and shape.
I think this is a good enough time to talk to you about clothes shopping in Toledo. Any brand new clothes that you buy here are usually really bad quality and made of material like viscose or polyester. In the Tropics, these are horrible to wear because your skin can not breathe through them. On top of this, the fashion is really trashy (yes, call me a prude) with see-through stuff and blouses with too many holes in the wrong places. Also, all trousers (or pants) are low riders and there is no other choice. Personally, the only people who suit these type of trousers are the skinny waif types. 5 foot 2 inch Munchkins, like me, need trousers that actually come up to the waist or else we look like fat squashed-up pears. In short, the clothes that you buy here are for flirting, showing off flesh and accentuating the size of your bottom (they like voluptuous bottoms here) and I am not into that at all!
And so I have resorted to the used clothes stalls. The clothes sold here are usually from the Goodwill stores from the States. So, all you guys out there who are giving away your lovely clothes, in the name of charity, note they are getting sold to us poor buggers in Belize. Tops, shirts and trousers usually go for about $10Bz ($5US) in the seconds market. Mens’ second hand trousers can fetch as high as $20Bz ($10US) and they look like they have been worn to death. I noticed that for a while there was a spate of seconds with sewn on “Dickie’s” labels (but were clearly not Dickies stuff) and because they had that label, they were all being sold at premium prices. And we won’t even mention shoes…not a single pair of decent leather shoes to be found in the whole country of Belize!! Wahhhh!!
Anyway, at least you can find some cotton stuff at the seconds stalls. Oh, and when I find linen, I grab it! Also, there is some classical, elegant stuff so I can at least dress like a doctor if need be. It is pretty embarrassing wearing tarty clothes on a medical house call!! It is certainly not the image that I want to get across…but the funny thing is that it is actually perfectly acceptable to wear a hot little number, whilst doctoring, and so the problem actually lies with me!!
There you are…I have had my little rant and I feel much better for it! Alas, if only I could find a desk lamp…