I haven’t posted in a while – nothing in May. Unbeknownst to me, the site was in trouble. I couldn’t log in and Donna could only open it as an Administrator. It took Bluehost an entire day to get it up and running again! Luckily, it appears all is well now.

Donna has been hard at work with our travel plans – inbetween running her Viewpoint Good Neighbors program and making a trip to Vermont to assist her mom, who is recovering from a hip replacement.

Our first trip of the summer will begin next week. Our granddaughter, Gabi, is graduating from high school in Arlington, Washington. Gabi is the daughter of my eldest daughter, Alana. Donna secured a house-sitting job within a few miles of Kevin and Alana’s place. We’ll fly up there on June 12th, graduation is June 13th and we’ll stay through the weekend and fly back home on the 17th. The house sit should be easy, we just have to care for a cat.

The house sit was fortunate as the hotel prices seem high to me and Kevin and Alana will have a house full of guests. That’s house sit number one. The next house sit will be over the Fourth of July. We’ll be up in Prescott, Arizona from the 2nd of July through the 8th. It looks like a real nice place and I should be able to set up for astrophotography.

Our third house sit will be at the end of August. We’ll travel to San Diego’s east county outside of Alpine, California from August 27th through September 6th. This house sit will involve dogs and sheep and more astrophotography. Sounds interesting.

The big travel event will occur on September 26th when we board a Hawaiian Airlines flight to Tokyo, Japan. We will spend two weeks exploring Japan. I haven’t been there since I was a kid and I’m really looking forward to spending some time kicking around there. We plan to spend the first two or three nights in Tokyo, then keep things loose and travel without a preset plan until we return to Tokyo for our flight back home.

We’ve been playing tennis three or four times per week. We were starting our 90-minute sessions at 7:30am to beat the heat. This week we moved the start time up to 7am as the days are getting warmer. Eventually we’ll have to start at 6:30am as the morning temperatures quickly climb.

Yesterday the Viewpoint management had the palm trees trimmed. This is a little earlier than the last couple of years. They started using a different tree service two years ago and they prune the trees severely – the result is what they call a Hurricane Trim in places like Florida. I’ve read that it can be stressful on the trees here in the desert, but they have bounced back every time and seem to be thriving.

I think this time they were even more severe than in the past. Also, trimming this early doesn’t do the birds any favor. We had at least two bird nests in each of the palms at the rear of our property. One had a young bird in it that was unable to fly and it perished.

I mentioned the Belgian Coticule whetstone in my last post. Now that I’m sharpening straight razors I needed another finer stone to to finish after the coticule. I ordered a type of slate called Imperia La Roccia (ILR). While I was waiting for this stone, my next door neighbor gifted me with an old translucent Arkansas stone. He didn’t remember how long he’s had it. It had very little use and he thought he inherited it from an uncle.

It has the original box and markings on the stone. I’ve been told by whetstone experts that this stone was on the market between 1955 and 1965. Back then, hardware stores stocked fine whetstones. This stone has the Bear trademark which indicates Behr, a division of the Norton Company and it came from Troy, New York. Coincidentally, Donna’s dad worked there in the early to mid-1950s.

I wouldn’t have ordered the ILR if I knew I would soon have a fine translucent Arkansas stone. But, you can’t have too many whetstones! I wrote above that I’m sharpening straight razors (plural). My first straight razor is a modern razor made in Germany by Ralf Aust in 2023. Since then, I’ve found old straight razors on Ebay.

I bid on a German Puma razor from the 1930s. It wasn’t in very good condition when I received it and the scales (handle) were incorrectly fitted. The blade was chipped and needed work. It was a learning experience. I replaced the scales with buffalo horn and repaired the blade. I also figured out that I paid too much for it.

I found another listing for a Puma razor in Japan. This one appeared to be in much better shape. I made a low-ball bid and won the razor! It only needed a little clean-up and honing to become shave ready. This one is a 222 and it’s also from the 1930s. I still need to polish the blade, but I’ve shaved with it.

Then I bid on a Wester Bros. German straight razor and was surprised to win again. This one was shave ready right out of the box and it’s a real fine razor. It dates back to the 1920s – that’s right, I’ve shaved with a razor that’s about 100 years old.

If I would have known these old razors were available at a fraction of the price of a modern one, I would have started with these. On the other hand, these old razors involved a bit of learning along the way. Just learning to shave with a straight razor is challenging enough without having to think about its condition.

Summer temperatures have arrived with highs forecasted to be around 110 degrees over the weekend before it cools down to the low 100s. We don’t mind it much, we start our day early then stick with mostly indoor activities once it heats up.

I have a couple of dinner plates before I wrap – actually one is a good ol’ American breakfast. I don’t know why I took this photo, but here it is.

Donna tried something new – a stuffed flank steak. She rolled and tied the meat around a stuffing of fresh oregano and cheeses. The oregano came from her garden.

And the dinner plate.