Spanish Creek is a 2000 acre nature reserve in Belize. 75 acres of the property are used to support orchards, gardens, bamboos, and palapas. They are a strong proponent of agroforestry, and rely heavily on the expertise of local Belizeans. This is a video that was produced by our friends over at Green Living Project. Green Living Project's mission is to educate and inspire individuals and communities to live a more sustainable lifestyle through stories focused on unique and diverse examples of sustainability from around the world.   We were fortunate enough to have the crew come and visit us ealier this year and spend a couple of days filming Brooks, the owner MArc, the crew, and more. they do a great job in all that they do. be sure and check them out here: Green Living Project

The month of May brought about many new and exciting things for us. May yielded more births than deaths in the animal department, which is a nice change. One of the lambs gave birth to a male, which is also nice because we lost our ram a few months ago to blood poisoning. Although the name of this new little guy is 'Bar-B-Q'. You can probably guess why... The farm cat, Dilly, had 4 little kittens that just opened their eyes in the last few days. There were two new baby chicks in the coop - although one alredy died. Brooks and I went to Alabama for a wedding. It was nice as usual to go from the farm life to good 'ole American civilization in a matter of a day. It was rather shocking to go from the heat and jungle to A/C and country clubs. I personally did some golfing, fishing, and lots of eating.   Before we had even left Belize to go to The States, we were dealing with sporadic bush fires. They continued while we were gone but were contained as much as possible by the crew that works out here during the week. Once we got back and even until today they have been constant; burning all day and all night and taking up nights and weekends. Literally everyday in the afternoons the fires crank up and burn until the moisture of the night sets in. So we have been driving all over the farm in a tractor and Land Cruiser pulling a trailor with a water tank and pump and two hoses, buckets and machetes and just doing the best job we can do. We have successfully kept the fire away from the house and palapas (with thatch roofs that would go up like a mtch stick), fence lines and most of the bamboo patches. We finally got a couple of rain showers in the last couple of days, but not enough to completely extinguish them. Before yesterdays rains it hadn't really rained since March. The locals say it is one of the worst dry seasons in the last few decades. Much of what is burning are the piles of debris from the hurricane cleanup that took place last fall after Hurricane Richard came through... On Tuesday the fires finally appeared on the treeline that surrounds our palapa. No bueno...              

The Agulars are good friends. Nery works on the farm, heading up the crew Monday through Thursday. He has five girls and two boys (both of the boys now work on the crew as well). So on days when the girls are out of school, they come to the farm to hang out for the day. Often, this turns into a cooking extravaganza! One of the last times they came, we made dukunu, or tomatillas in Spanish. Here's how it works: Fresh corn is harvested, at the base of each piece, the husks are cut with a knife all the way through, the tough outer layers removed and put to the side, the inner layers bagged for other uses on the farm. Then the kernals are cut from the core and ground. A touch of condensed milk (Belizeans Love condensed milk!) salt and pepper are mixed into the masa, dipped into the husk pieces, wrapped and steamed. The result is an amazing, soft, savory meal!

Lately we have been seeing more jaguar tracks on the farm. They have been spotted near the sheep, horses and pretty close to the back side of the main farmhouse. We've always known they are out there - close by, but we definitely know they have been around because we lost our favorite new puppy, Bamboo, and the newest colt, Jaime. Bamboo was a great little Pit Bull/Bull Mastif puppy that we had for a couple of months. She had recently gotten into the habit of going out hunting in the bush with the other farm dog, Cashew. We are not positive that it was a big cat that took her, but we know where they were hunting and after searching around we never found her carcass. We also never saw the vultures which could be another indication that it was not a snake bite. We have learned that normally when a dog goes missing around here it is either because of a snake bite or a cat (tiger, as the locals would say). We loved Bamboo and definitely hated to see her go. She was on her way to being a really obedient, smart, protective, and loving dog. We are fairly certain however that the farm's newest colt, a 4 month-old, was killed by a jaguar. Jaime was found seperated from his mom and the other four horses. They had all been put in the same pasture but Jaime was apparently dragged under the barbed wire fence into another pasture and had a big chunk of his back side missing. The vultures signaled the final resting place of 'ole Jaime. Now apparently there is a "man eating" jaguar on the loose from the Belize Zoo. The recent hurricane apparently freed the Jaguar and he attacked and killed an American shortly thereafter. Supposedly it is still on the loose. Fortunatley for us, our dog Caden doesn't do foolish things like go running into the bush.   For more inof on the Jaguar that escaped click here: http://7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=18091.