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We trimmed the trees for a better view.
This is the third part about the (slow) conversion of the land I bought in Guatemala and my new life here, you can read Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them.
As the third week is beginning here, let me introduce you to our new residents:
Three hens have been living on the beach for the past few days. There was a thatched roof with four pillars that we circled with cage wire, so the hens wouldn’t escape. On the first day the roof wasn’t properly sealed, so of course they escaped, this we were expecting, but they went to hide in the bush of the neighboring land and we had a hard time catching them.
Now they just come back around 430pm and go up to sleep in the roof.
VEGETARIAN PEOPLE MEAT ALERT, SKIP TWO PARAGRAPHS
I called them Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. You can’t get too attached. Breakfast provides the most eggs, as she is the youngest, Lunch is a bit older, and Dinner was bought initially just to be eaten, but since we had eaten another hen soup recently, the handyman kept her at his house for a while and we ended up thinking she would be just fine here in the meanwhile. Who needs a deep freezer when you can keep your food alive until hungry?
Hens with a view
Sorry if I bothered my vegetarian friends with that description (I warned you above), but to all of you who eat meat, me included, we have to remember where chickens come from. They don’t have the shape of a chicken breast packed in a cellophane tray. I have no trouble handling meat that has just been slaughtered but still can’t kill an animal bigger than a scorpion. I want to get used to it or go meatless, it seems weird to me to get the meat on my plate and not prepare it.
MEAT ALERT OVER
The entrance wall and gate are finished, I thought BF was going to lay off the mason in charge of the wall, who did stupid mistakes after stupid mistakes, but eventually he finished his work. We added six layers of blocks, 1.20 meter higher, and then some wiring on top that we will cover with bamboo and ivy or some other kind or rampant tree.
We asked for ”green” and were thinking a darker shade of green, I am not a big fan of the color but it’s done. I painted the wall white with lime, which has the advantage of being very cheap (about $5 for the whole wall) and deter insects.
Inside the house we did a deep spring cleaning and noticed that a look of crap was falling off the thatched roof. So we removed many leaves (the roof being covered in plastic anyway) and many unwanted guests started to get out of their nest.
Cockroaches are big and disgusting, but scorpions, if bothered, will bite you so hard your tongue will go numb for a couple of days. After a good coat of Baygon, we put back the furniture in the kitchen and the room. We tried to arrange a fake ceiling where most of the dust was falling, with plastic and wood that we found around the house.
New leaves to thatch the deck
While we are still hesitating on re-thatching the house’s roof, the deck had holes also, that we thatched. The leaves are not dry yet and it looks funny in green and brown with the old leaves.
I did that! not so hard once you get the hang of it.
The work should start this week to build a safe room. A room that will be so sealed no insect can enter.
After that we are still hesitating between tearing down the house and building brand new or making do with what we have. The house is better than expected so I think it will stay, but it needs to be safer, for bugs and people. The windows are just mosquito nets, anyone can get in easily.
Finally, a big help for my November zero food waste goal has arrived: a deep freezer! We also got a super cool blender, so I can make ice, and blend frozen margaritas…
I love cooking, and the supermarket is $20 worth of gas away, so the freezer should make my life easy. It was $300 and the blender was priced at $100 but since we also bought a motorcycle for the handyman (that he will pay back with his work) we got it for $30.
frozen margaritas anyone?? 🙂
I just stocked the freezer with a full lamb that BF brought back from the ranch, some fish from the lake, and some delicious grapefruits that also came from the ranch. They are so big they barely fit in my hand. And super juicy and sweet. I peeled them and took the flesh out, put it in small sandwich bags, so I can take one bag out straight into the blender and add a little water for a fresh juice in the morning.
What a fascinating life you live!!.. It really is beautiful there.. I would love to come and visit for a vacation.. But I think the cockroaches and scorpions would freak me out a bit, and make it hard to sleep.
Keep sharing your stories and your pictures… I can’t get enough.
I am starting to build a bug-free room, super sealed and partly built inside the ground to keep it cool, so once it is ready you can sleep safely!
So far scorpions have only appeared when we bothered them by removing the thatched roof, I think they like to stay up there. From what I understand they would only sting you if you attack them first.
So beautiful!! I’d love to go…especially since I woke up to frost this morning. I love that you named your chickens breakfast,lunch and supper…so funny. Keep the pictures coming!
We just had a skinny one added to the mix, poor thing, she is mostly bones and a little feather. I had to call her little snack… 🙂
“Who needs a deep freezer when you can keep your food alive until hungry?” LOL!! I love it! Great pictures Pauline, it really looks like things are coming along well for you. Seeing all of the pictures is showing me why my brother loved his time there so much and making me think we might have to make a trip there when the kids get older.
It is indeed lovely, and a great place for kids. There is a blog called discovershareinspire.com of a family with 5 kids who is going from Alaska to Argentina on a veggie powered truck. They have been in Guatemala for a year and the kids look so happy. Life is simple here and people are very friendly.
Love the pictures! It’s really cool to see how moving has worked out for you. With our new house, I have lots of decisions about what to do with different rooms and the exterior and whatnot, but nothing like you have to decide with this property! That freezer sounds like a huge asset considering the $20 of gas required per trip.
Take your time with the decisions! We have started things and then had to accommodate other factors, usually at a cost. Dream about everything, if you renovate a room visualize the bed, the plugs for every item, the wardrobe… a little error is costly.
That’s fantastic. I think the paint could easily be re-done in a couple of hours if you so chose, and you could do that yourself. You might end up getting used to it, but at first glance it does appear a bit….bright.
It is anti corrosive so not sure how to add an extra coat, this is surely not a priority for now, money is tight! But when I do I think I’ll try to do it myself
I am so jealous of your life. Wow, how cool and fascinating it is. Waking up to that view in the morning. Sweet. I always try to keep renovations neutral so that I can add accents and change rooms around without having to do too much work later. It allows for variety and saves cash later.
That is a great idea. I have one big room at the moment that I don’t know if I want to keep as room or living room, or guest room… will keep that in mind.
Wow that’s an amazing view! I don’t think I could handle the scorpions and cockroaches, but that life looks seriously appealing.
You forget everything looking at the lake… or swimming… I may change my mind if one bites me though.
I’m a roofing guy, but cant say I”ve ever done a thatched roof, haha! THis is really cool though! Sorry that gate contractor sucked, man, it’s always hard to find a good, honest one.
The problem is people here say they know how to do something when they don’t. Or that they understand what we said and they have no clue. My BF says some building blocks disappeared too, but I have to go count and make sure. It is quite normal here, and with three neighbors renovating in a 2 miles radius they could come help themselves at night. Thatching is easy, I bet the easiest kind of roof, and the wooden structure was already there so even easier.
Wow love your pictures! Looks so pretty.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo! You ate them? :*(
What a great view of the lake now. I’m curious how the insect situation is there?
I did one hen soup that the handyman killed and plucked. The other ones are happy free range animals. I am hoping they reproduce a bit before eating more.
Regarding the insects, it is ok, they don’t come too much around the house. A few scorpions fell when we took the leaves out of the roof, but I never saw one crawling on the floor. Still, I wear flip flops all the time! And cockroaches have been scarce since the deep house cleaning. Very few mosquitoes, a little bit at night but not a real problem.
For sure the bugs would creep me out. As soon as I see any bugs I feel like they are crawling all over me even if it is only one and it hasn’t come close. I am a baby, I know. Last summer I was sitting in our family room watching TV one night and an ant landed on my shoulder and crawled into my shirt. Not sure where it came from initially, but I was freaked out all night 🙂 Love the new blender and freezer!
Loving your pictures as always!!
I am ok with ants, and there aren’t so many, I am very careful to wash dishes asap and not leave any food outside. Cockroaches are really creepy. Usually at night we put Baygon all over the house but you can’t prevent them all. I am working on putting a mosquito net to isolate the wholes between the wall and the roof, hopefully it will limit unwanted guests.
I am so freaking jealous of your life right now! I like the green gate btw.
What is the diving like close by?
Diving is apparently forbidden in the lake unless you have a permit, because there are so many remains of mayan heritage. But here everyone does whatever he pleases, so I guess not much is left. The reef of Belize, 2nd largest after Australia’s is about 3h drive, thinking about it for new year 🙂
Awesome progress. I love the names you chose for your feathered friends. Did you collect the leaves yourself? Or did you have to pay for them? Either way, it’s less expensive than asphalt shingles. Good luck getting everything the way that you want it. I can’t wait for the next update.
The leaves were delivered at the house by the handyman’s father. Those bulks weight a lot and it would probably take me the whole day to gather one bulk, meanwhile the leaves would dry and be unusable. They cost $.20 each and we needed about 500 so $100 total, better than the $600 estimate a guy gave us to do it himself, changing all the leaves. I am considering shingle for the house, a bit more expensive but leaves last about 10 years. It may be hot underneath though.
It is super fun reading about your new life – keep up the posts!
I watched my grandma kill a chicken one time – ax to the neck. They really do run around a while after the head comes off!
I still have to see that one for myself! I saw a woman break a chicken’s neck at church (they mix not so catholic stuff in church here) and the chicken didn’t move. I know the chicken run is true, but kind of disgusting!
Well I WAS planning on visiting, until you mentioned the cockroaches and scorpions. I mean I thought the bats in the toilet were bad. ha ha! You are a brave, brave women…but I love seeing the progress on your place. I’ll just be checking into the Hilton if I come there. lol!
haha, they are not the norm, but I have to keep this blog interesting 🙂 I was working in a luxury boutique hotel on the Pacific coast a few years back and we had cockroaches too, so even if there was a Hilton it wouldn’t be a safe bet!
I think you have roaches anywhere that is hot and humid. We had huge ones in Memphis, TN. I was about to come visit, but the scorpion killed it for me. I went on a camping trip once with some friends and one girl woke up with a scorpion in her sleeping bag. Freaked us out, and it was little. I have a very morbid curiosity about how you slaughter the chickens. I love to eat chicken, but I don’t think I could kill one.
I don’t know yet, apparently you can grab them and just chop the head off, which is the case when they run around for 30 seconds with no head and the blood pumping out, and the other option is just to crack their necks which is more ”manual” but kills instantly and no running around. Then you still have to pluck them. I may sound weird to want to do it, and it is really not to inflict suffering, but rather to live by my decision to eat meat and see where it comes from and what it takes to do so.
Oh, not bad at all. My biggest fear would be a bunch of mosquitoes.
Ahh – this is so awesome! I love reading about your life in Guate!
Some family friends once had 3 sheep that they called “Do Ray Me” or “Shish-Ka-Bob” depending on who was around. I still think it’s hilarious.
I have dived at the Belize reef – (it runs all the way past Roatan) and it is incredible!!! Think you need to check out the lake and do some exploring!!