And The Fun Begins....

Monday morning.

It is only 5:00 AM here but I was awakened by a variety of bird calls. Belize is a paradise for bird watchers and has more variety of birds for a country its size anywhere. Seriously it sounds like I am in an old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie.

This begins our third day in Belize. The first day was mostly travel oriented. 3 hour flight and two hour trip in a Land Rover from Belize City into the mountain pine ridge. Landra and I were greeted at the airport by my client, George Headley. This is my tenth trip to Belize but Landra's first. Driving on the western highway, we pass the entrance to world famous Belize Zoo and I tell Landra a little about it and promise to take her there. About halfway to San Ignatio we stop at a local restaurant called Cheers. The weather is hot and muggy and Cheers has an outdoor pavillion where the shade makes it comfortable. Here I order a tamale and a coke. You may think that the Coca-cola we drink in the states is genuine. It isn't. Belize has REAL Coca-cola that I remember from my youth sweetened with sucrose, not high fructose corn syrup and served in a 10 ounce glass bottle! I am convinced God intended Coke to be bottled in glass, not packaged in a can or in plastic. It tastes just like I remembered from my teen-aged years.

After lunch we travel to Bull Run Farms - so named after George's father, Julian "Bull" Headley, who was a unique character in his own right. Bull was born in Pearl Mississippi. His family owned several sawmills. Bull made his money timbering in the US and then later in Belize. He once owned most of the Dismal Swamp in Virginia. In the early 1960's Bull came to Belize after Hurricane Hattie devastated most of the timber on the Mountain Pine Ridge. Bull began salvaging timber and acquired much of the concession to log the timber on the Pine Ridge and did so until the late 1970s. He wound up buying over 100,000 acres of land in Belize including 22,000 acres of the Pine Ridge most of which now belongs to his youngest son, George.

At the farm we are greeted by George's wife, Melina. Melina is originally from Wisconsin and was George's stock broker. They fell in love and got married in 2007. They spend about half of the year in the states and half in Belize. Once we settle into the guest house we visit George and Melina and catch up on the activities going on here at the farm and over the whole Mountain Pine Ridge. At supper we are joined by two guests, Eric Wolf and Verl Emerick who are graduate students from Virginia Tech working on their doctorates and doing research here for George. They just returned from a swim at Orchid falls - which I will describe later. We chat for an hour or two and then retire for the night.

Sunday morning I wake up about 4:30 AM but it is 6:30 according to my biological clock. It is central standard time here and daylight comes early. Unfortunately, most everyone doesn't wake up until after 6 AM. I have some quiet time in God's Word and world (quiet except for the birds) and then fix some breakfast....sausage and eggs. Now I do not usually eat eggs, but there is something different about eggs in Belize. They taste better here. Maybe it is just my imagination, but I like eggs in Belize where I can just take them or leave them in the US.

Verl wakes up next. He comes in and notices my Auburn hat and asks if I went to college there. I reply "of course". He then says he is the only member of his family going back four generations that did not go to college there. I told him that including Landra my family has five generations who went to Auburn from my great-grandfather on. I told him my father was born in Auburn and my grandmother was a well known kindergarten teacher there. He looked at me kind of funny and asked was your grandmother Luckie Meagher? I said yes, how did you know. He then said something I did not expect..."Cuzin Luckie"? I said huh? He said, his grandparents were great friends of my grandparents. I thought and said....."your grandparents are Verl and Elanor Emerick? He said yes. I then told him well howdy cuz! My grandparents and Verl's were either first or second cousins so that make us.....hmmm forth cousins??? Or second cousins twice removed??? I am not sure. But anyway, how cool is that! At breakfast I introduce Landra and George and Melina to Verl as my cousin and they all get a kick out of that.

After breakfast, Geoge gives me a tour of the farm and shows the progress made since my last visit in February 2006. The pines on about 4,000 acres are now about 9 years old and between 15 and 20 feet tall. George has precommercially thinned (at my recommendation) about 500 acres so far and those pines are doing excellent. The coffee plantation that George started in 2004 has since been abandoned do to cost overruns and the fact that Tapir love coffee plants. The coffee plantation now has pines seedlings growing up in it that are about 5 feet tall - they must be about 3 years old. We check out some of Eric and Verl's research plots and by then it is lunch time. We eat lunch at an overlook with a great view of Thousand Foot Falls - so named because Roaring Creek literally drops over an escarpment that is 1,600 feet down into a broadleaf jungle. After lunch we look at some areas that were burned by a wildfire....about 900 acres. Wildfires are common during the dry season in the Mountain Pine Ridge - in March, April, and especially in May. Fortunately there isn't much pine regeneration growing over much of the area, at least nothing like the regeneration on the previous 4,000 acres we looked at before lunch. We pass by George's D-6 Caterpillar Dozier which caught on fire on the way to fight this wildfire. It was burned pretty bad. George says yep and to top it all off, his hands tried to put the fire out with water which cracked the engine block. George says he doesn't know when he will get it fixed, but certainly before next years fire season.

We return back to the farmhouse at about 3:30 where Landra has been helping Melina fix supper. An old friend Peter is coming for dinner along with another research scientist, Marcela, who is studying jaguar on the Pine Ridge. Landra, having heard all about Orchid falls by now, wants to go swimming. So I grab some towels and off we go. After George built his house in 2004 he then proceeded to clear a trail to Orchid Falls....a relatively small but gorgeous waterfall on Privassion Creek, I think. It has about a quarter acre pool at the bottom which is perfect for swimming. George built a gazebo and a dock so that family and friends could enjoy it more comfortably. I posted a picture of it yesterday on my facebook page. I would post pictures here now but George's bandwidth through Hugh's satellite is limited so I will do that later.

We get back to George and Melina's house at 6 where dinner is almost ready. Tonight it is ribs, corn bread, cold slaw (which strangely I also like in Belize but not in the states) and a really really chocolate chocolate cake Melina has cooked for dessert. Peter arrives and we sit on the porch and catch up. Peter is a unique guy. He is a 68 years old Austrian born and Bermuda raised chap. He was hired by George's father in 1997 to manage the Hidden Valley Inn which Bull used to own until he sold it in 2002. Peter is now semi-retired and works for both George and for Hidden Valley part time. He is only about 5 feet tall, but is solid muscle. He has a thick English accent and was once a champion water skier in Bermuda. He has built the most amazing house I have ever seen on the escarpment of George's property overlooking all of northern Belize and southern Mexico. I will write more on his house in a later blog. Peter reminds me of what a British explorer like William Perry or Henry Hudson must of looked and been like. He has been over most all of Bull's/George's property at one time or another and I am talking about some rough country - places where if you slipped at the wrong time you would fall over 1,000 feet into broadleaf jungle that even a forester like me would not venture into too deeply. We have a wonderful night of sharing old stories. At about 10 I walk outside with Landra to show her the Southern Cross constellation which you can see just over the southern horizon. The view of the stars from the Pine Ridge is incredible because there are no city lights to obscure the view. The Milky Way looks truly milky here. Landra gets excited because several meteors shoot across the sky. A perfect way to end a day with God's glory on display.

Today Cuzin Verl and Eric leave for the states while George and I will be taking some plots of our own in the precommercially thinned pines and discussing future management strategies for the rest of the pine forest. I will get to see some of the areas that Don Lewis and I marked to be cut back in 2005. Landra and Melina may go into San Ignatio for some shopping or they may go to Peter's house for a swim. We will see.