Must We Have Drama

The crew arrrived at the lot to discover their tools were missing.  Upon further investigation, the tools were discovered in the canal.  There is no proof of who such an adolescent perpetrator might be, but there are increasingly well founded suspicions that will not be detailed here.

The boat slip excavation left lumpy marl masses smeared over the lot surface so that it could dry out before the lot was leveled.  We were fortunate this rainy season to have several days of minimal rain.  The leveling was scheduled for 10:00 Monday morning.  I arrived early to take before and after pictures.

At 1:30 pm the bulldozer arrives.  It was promised at various earlier times throughout the morning.  Possibly it is considered impolite to state a realistic arrival time your costumer doesn't want to hear.  Punctually is not regarded as a Belizian virtue.  I've conditioned  myself to expect this. I've seen others, who have lived here for a decade or better, still become irritated by lax time commitments.  Possibly this is a difference between a working person and a retired person.

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The bulldozer and crew set to work leveling the lot.  This machine is equipped with a 14 foot wide blade.  The driver is equipped with a bee suit for protection against africanized bees.  Dirt was piled up against the stone wall to block a bee's nest entrance and it remains blocked after the leveling, which is fine with me.

This is the lumpy lot before leveling.

This is the lot after leveling.  The marl was a bit too wet for this operation, but the bulldozer operator is commended for putting in more time than expected and for the best leveling job possible under the circumstances.

The neighbor had stacked a pile of boulders on my lot that the crew had carefully moved to the front of the neighbor's property before constructing the retaining wall.  One boulder had a carved face that has since disappeared.  Accusations were made that the crew made off with it and that someone should pay for the disappeared stone.  

I'm having difficulty finding any sympathy for the neighbor's loss.  I explained to the neighbor my plans to remove the trees and build a retaining wall weeks before anything was started.  He hardly listened and made no effort to move any of the boulders onto his property nor did he pay for the removal the trees he planted on my lot.  Likely his precious boulder was scooped up with the trees I paid to have removed.  I'm forming the opinion that the best thing about this neighbor is that he is mostly out of town and that he is selling the place.  Drama queens are tiresome and tranquility is restored in their absence.