Our neighbor, Bob, has been keeping a bull on the farm for several months now. He came by last Wednesday to ask if we would be up for a slaughtering this weekend. So Bob and his wife, six men, one woman and three children show up for the event. The bull is cornered, shot behind the ear, and the throat is cut. It was a crazy few minutes! One man stands on the stomach to help the blood move out. The bull is then hooked to the tracter and pulled a few feet to lay out under a tree. The lower half is skinned and a very large stick is placed between the back two legs. A rope is then tied on each leg, thrown over a sturdy branch and hooked to the back of the tractor. The tracter pulls forward and the bull moves up, up, up then CRASH! the rope snaps and it comes thudding down on its head. Woops! A new, stronger rope is found and attempt number two is a success. With the bull hanging it is easy to get the rest of him skinned and gutted. You have never seen such a huge gut! It must have weighed a couple hundred pounds. Next a skill saw was used to cut through the bones, leaving two halves hanging. A tarp was spread in the back of a pickup, and the halves lowered down, quarted and divied among the helpers. Everyone washed their hands and headed out with a big bag of fresh grass-fed beef! Yum Yum!

Brooks and I decided that we needed to get off of the farm so we left early Saturday morning and headed to San Ignacio in the Cayo District. We usually head to the caribbean but wanted to explore more of western Belize. We reached San Ignacio within a couple hours after leaving Rancho Dolores and were just in time to catch the Saturday morning market in its prime. Compared to the dirty, sometimes sketchy market in the heart of Belize City, this market was clean, vibrant, with actually good sounds and smells. On the way we found a nice resort to stop and eat lunch at. The name of it was Ka'ana and it is located just west of San Ignacio Town. We stayed at Chaa Creek which was actually the same resort that we stayed at last year during our fisr trip to Belize. Chaa Creek is very nice, luxurious resort in the mountains outside of San Ignacio. Fortunately it has a great River Camp that you can stay at that is considerably cheaper than the big palapas. There are lots of things to do there but we normally opt to sit by the pool all day. We did that and ate some great meals. We also used toilets that flushed, faucets that had great water pressure and flowed of hot water. Wow. Chaa Creek is by far our favorite and we can't wait to go back. Anyways, on Sunday we went exploring on the Pine Ridge Road, ate lunch at one of Frank Ford Coppola's resorts, Blancaneaux and then stumbled upon a great area of swimming holes called Rio On Pools. We were back at home in the jungle by sunset on Sunday night feeling fresh and focused for the new work week ahead...    

This Easter weekend we had a party on the property, down by Churro, for our good friend Neri's two kids. Neri is an El Salvadorian who has been working at Spanish Creek Rainforest Reserve since the beginning. He and his crew helped to clear the land once the owner, Marc began development. Neri and his crew of brother (Artoro), his son (Antonio), and a 73 year-old local man named Mr. Moody work on the farm every Monday through Thursday. They do the hardest work on the farm by bush-hogging, construction projects, casting concrete, building the bay leaf, thatched-roofed palapas, farming, and so much more. Ben and Annie, Brooks and I chipped in a contributed a lamb to grill at the party. We went to the neighboring village of Scotland Half Moon and purchased a lamb from a local farmer. It cost $50.00 BZ dollars ($25.00 US). We bought a live lamb with the goal of learning how to properly prepare it for cooking, all the way down to the actual slaughtering. Brooks had the honor of doing this. Neri explained the process of slaughtering, which involved hanging the lamb by it's hind legs from a tree, cutting the throat and allowing the blood to drain. Brooks did it quickly and easily and we all, skinned and gutted it after that. We slaughtered the lamb on Thursday, quartered, and froze it until Saturday morning when it was sliced on a meat cutter and grilled on Saturday afternoon. It was delicious!  

I wanted to write a catch up blog since we haven’t posted in a while. So here we go: We had our first visitor. A good friend from Charlotte, Matt Gent, came to spend ten days with us, though because of a missed flight, it ended up being nine. It happened to be the week tropical storm Ida came through, so it was a wet week, prohibiting us from going to the Caribbean as planned. But no problem… he’ll be back February 19 (and we did get to go to the zoo)!     The truck became official. It was no small feat. Any bureaucratic process here seems to be absolute chaos. It took a few phone calls to find the right broker, a few trips to the city to get even an idea of what to expect, a few trips to the bank to have enough cash, and few days with the truck impounded. But we got it back and it now has Belize C.A. tags!   Naya and Gordon, a couple from Germany, volunteered on the farm for close to three weeks. They were great, helpful and fun. It was sad to see them move on.Thanksgiving away from home was a first, but it was great! Ben, Annie, Justin and I had planned on a big traditional dinner, then ended up heading to Caye Caulker instead. Fabulous. We had Lobster tail for Thanksgiving dinner. Into the next week, however, we all realized we just didn’t feel right about not having turkey, so we planned the meal for that Thursday. We went all out: turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, biscuits, pumpkin. It was awesome! And we ended up having a couple of extra friends; a volunteer named Michael and our friend Shane.  We have chickens now! We started with two hens, six chicks and one rooster, but we lost the rooster when he ventured back to the main house to fight Don Juan, the new younger rooster on the farm. To keep Henry from killing Juan, Henry’s head was “removed”. We tried to eat him for dinner, but being an old rooster, it was a bit tough, and turned out to be better suited as a meal for the dogs.   The garden is dug! What a challenge! The grass and bush was chopped and burned, the remaining grass and roots dug out, the beds dug to a depth of two feet. It still needs some work, but we have bush beans, arugula, and radishes coming in and flats of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, cucumber, zucchini, and limas.   We’ve had quite few additions to the homestead: a new bed, built out of mahogany scraps given to us by our friend Omar, and built by our neighbor Chris; counters and shelves and an island in the kitchen. It is so very nice to have a table and some storage space; two barstools and two swings, made by Chris. I had forgotten how nice it is to eat meals sitting at a table; a desk, custom built by Chris to fit an entire upstairs panel, ending up at 8’ long in the back, 5 ½’ in the front. It’s beautiful and certainly an upgrade for Justin’s workspace. We went home for Christmas! Our flights were out of Cancun, so we hopped the bus in Belize City, which took us to the border. We walked across, got on another bus for the 5 hour haul north to Playa del Carmen, caught a flight the next morning and were home in no time! Projects have continued since we’ve been back, including a third counter top in the kitchen, which Justin built in an impressive hour and a half; a facelift for the shower, removing the plywood and replacing it with bamboo; and a new tool closet, getting everything off the ground and out from under the tarp. Stairs, a porch, and a bathroom are next!   Keep checking back, as each of these adventures and projects will be elaborated on!