WHAT IS GOING ON AT MYSTIC RIVER RESORT.......

My sincerest apologies for the delay in publising this newsletter! We have been so so very busy and there was so much going on that I just forgot.....

In early summer, we acquired an additional 85 acres of land at the back of the original property, giving us now 160 acres of fabulous landscape. Tom was very eager to start work on it right away (before the rainy season) so he hired some pretty heavy equipment to put in a road to give us access to this new land. Needless to say, I fought tooth and nail to not have that big equipment, but eventually Tom's reasoning won and I let it go. I was not, however, allowed to go back there to see the work that was going on because the guys new I would probably flip out! Trees laying everywhere, big mess.....the big bulldozer on its side!!!

All I know is that our workers worked so hard to make as little impact on the land and to try to clean up as fast as humanly possible and in my view they succeeded. We had a big 8 Bulldozer, a couple of smaller bulldozers, some road graders, trucks, excavators...you name it, we had it. The result is magnificent! We have brand new hiking trails, horseback riding trails, a couple of pastures for the horses and some breathtaking vistas, that we would never had had that fast, if Tom had listened to me!

The work is not finished and it will take a little more time for the vegetation to grow back but overall the only word I can say is "Thank You Honey".

We also took the opportunity to plant more Mahogany Trees, Ceiba Trees, Rain Trees and some May Flowers in that area after we found some clear spots that would be perfect.

One of the results of all this work was that we ended up with some pretty big logs and since we try to use everything we have, we decided to revamp our Lilly Pool area.
Lilly Pool was created about 2 years ago when our grandchildren were coming for a visit and we wanted them to have an area to play. The concept started with a plastic inflatable pool and finished with the gorgeous pool we have today! As part of the pool area, we built a palapa so that our guests could relax underneath away from sun and rain. We used Cohun leaves to do the roof and that pretty much worked for a while but unfortunately the roof started to leak, making it useless when it was raining... So all the fabulous wood we got from building the road came to be used as new posts for the new palapa area of the pool.
We have Poison Wood with a beautiful dark heart, and Fiddlewood as the centre column and I think the whole thing looks phenomenal! The new roof is perfect and will protect from the rain. And what about our new shower area!!! The guys found a tree trunk that was just perfect to house our water line! What do yo think?

Another big event for us was the birth of a new colt on July 8. River is a fabulous little guy, and we know he is going to be big!! He is already bigger than Mystic, has a beautiful dark brown colour and is a lot of fun being around. All our horses are doing very well and we are continuing the improvements to our barn and facilities for horseback riding for our guests. Be sure to try them!

And just to make sure that nobody gets left out, we are also redoing the chicken area! The Ladies (our laying hens) are getting a brand new house complete with laying boxes, and our Stewarts (our stew chickens!) also got new accomodations! All in all, I think everybody should be quite satisfied.

Rainy season is always more of less fun...sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on how much rain we get and runoffs are always an issue. Getting to know where the water will flow when you do construction and reshape the land is always something to watch out for. As you all know, we do not have many flat areas at Mystic River and so we have had to build many ditches complete with culverts to catch the water and divert it in various directions. We also cleaned up an area just past our barn which will be our future house site (:-) and decided to build a pond! Well that turned out to be quite a success for everybody, including the horses, who decided that it was a great place to hang around when it is hot!! We also planted some water lillies.

Anyway, it was very very muddy when we did the work, as you can see.....

As always, my last words are for our past guests and the hope that you enjoyed staying for us and discovering Belize. We thank you for chosing Mystic River Resort knowing that you had other choices. We also value your comments and appreciate the time you took to write reviews for us on Trip Advisor. Again, thank you.... and for those of you who did not get the chance to do it yet.... there is always right now!

http:/www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g291971-d1418982-Reviews-Mystic_River_Resort-San_Ignacio_Cayo.html

This last photos is compliment of one of our past guests, Jenine Pontillo. Thank you Jenine! We just love this little bug with her pink necklace!