Belize Independece Day 2013

Belize in you, Belize in me, Land of the free!  

2013 Casey Community School and Sylvester Village Independence Day celebrations.

Happy 32nd birthday Belize!

Realities of Jungle Life 2

The lines between work, daily life, and nature get blurred often in Gallon Jug, but a few incidents from this past week really emphasized this plurality.    

Each school week at the Casey Community School begins with the singing of the national anthem, after raising the flag.  The Belize anthem is long and beautiful and strange, and probably deserves a post all its own, but that will have to wait.  This week, sometime between the singing of the anthem and the conclusion of our beginning of the school week assembly, an ornate hawk-eagle - one of the apex predators in our local ecosystem - killed and began eating a young ocellated turkey on the far end of the schoolyard. 

For those unfamiliar, I would say that the ornate hawk-eagle is to the eagle, as the ocellated turkey is to the the wild turkey:

same basic function, but with a little more pizazz. 

Suffice to say, it was a fun 'teachable moment' with each class taking turns looking through binoculars at the snacking bird.

By first recess there was only a pile of feathers and two turkey feet marking the special visit.

Deer and turkeys are a daily occurrence at the school, but it is not uncommon to have other visitors to the school, though usually they are nighttime visits and leave only hints that they were around:  a tipped over garbage can, a pile of fur/ feathers, or unfamiliar droppings on the sidewalk or veranda. 


This week we also took steps to reclaim and replant the school's garden.  Over the course of what at least felt like a short summer, the garden made its best effort at reverting to its jungle roots.  With the help of a gas powered weed-whacker, and weeding of individual garden beds by the students, the Roots and Shoots Garden is officially back in business.  This school year we've added composting to our list of activities. 

 In order to accommodate this process, we moved a large plywood box from under the school, where it was used for ball storage, as well as an occasional garbage can, and general recess time nuisance (as it hindered efforts to keep kids out from under the school).  

I took it upon myself to move the 'compost' box out from under the school, having the inclination that it might be housing more than just our recess and PE equipment.  I will spare the details, but will add this...in my experience any rock, log, or other moveable object tends to hide about one creepy-crawly per square foot.  

Take this log planter in the garden as an example:

When nudge to the side, the comfy home of one of our creepier ecosystem inhabitants is revealed.

 UGH!



And to finish on an un-creepy note, the warm and fuzzy animal of the week is: 

The Toucan! 

These guys have been regular morning time visitors to my new house.  The trumpet tree (pictured above) has a fruit this time of year that the toucans seem to enjoy for breakfast.