In my last post I mentioned how much I’m enjoying the new wood pellet smoker/grill. Last month I learned about cold smoking. Cold smoking is a technique that can preserve food and add smoky flavors without cooking the food. Specifically, I wanted to create smoked cheese.
Of course, if you cook cheese, it melts. The wood pellet smoker grill cannot operate without creating heat, so you need to have another smoke source. There are external smoke generators that pump smoke into an enclosed vessel for smoking foods, but that was too elaborate for what I wanted to do.
The answer was a smoke tube for creating smoke from smoldering wood pellets. I used the Z Grills smoker grill as a place to concentrate the smoke and hold the cheese I wanted to smoke. The thing is, ideally you want to keep the temperature no higher than 80 to 90 degrees. Cooler is better. I smoked the cheese on cool mornings and after the first batch, was able to keep the temperature in the 80-degree range.
To do this, you fill the smoke tube with wood pellets and light it with a small torch. I used a kitchen torch intended for uses such as glazing the sugar topping on creme brulee. You need to keep the torch on the pellets for at least 30 seconds to make sure the pellets are well lit. Let it burn for at least five minutes with visible flame, then blow it out and it will continue to smolder. My tube will smolder and produce large amounts of smoke for five or six hours when filled.
Lit smoke tube
I removed the heat diffuser from the smoker/grill and placed the smoldering smoke tube in the bottom of the smoker/grill on the far left where the pellet feed is located. I put the grills back in place and placed the cheeses to the right side, near the chimney. My first attempt was a learning process and I learned a couple of things.
I used gouda and cheddar cheese. I placed the gouda to the far right on the main rack and also on the smaller second rack. Then I placed the cheddar more in the center portion of the racks. Cheddar has a higher melting point than gouda, so I thought it was safe to have it closer to the smoke tube which generates some heat.
It turned out the cheddar was overheated and also over-smoked. But it wasn’t all that bad. The gouda was very good. I watched a lot of YouTube cold smoking videos and tried to learn something from them. Everyone has their own take on how to do it and I tried to glean the best tips and combine them. Everyone agreed on one point – do not taste test the cheese right away. When it first comes out of the smoker, the flavor is harsh. It needs to be wrapped and aged in the refrigerator for a minimum of one week – two weeks is much better.
For my second round of smoked cheese, I added a step to the aging and also smoked the gouda first, then the cheddar as a second batch to keep all of the cheese on the far right – away from the smoke tube. I smoked each batch for two hours this time. I then wrapped each piece in butcher paper and put them in the refrigerator for 48 hours. Then I removed the butcher paper and wrapped each piece in plastic cling wrap and put the two batches in large zip lock bags to age for two more weeks. This looked much better.
Gouda wedges ready for the cold smokeAged smoked gouda wedge on top, cheddar bar below
I used cheese from Costco – a two-pound wedge of Dutch Tradition gouda and a two-pound block of Coastal cheddar. I made eight pieces of each for four-ounce packages. I made a third batch and Donna will add them to Christmas gift bags.
These are good quality cheeses from Costco at less than $7/pound. Smoked cheese costs more than double the price of plain cheese – plus it’s a fun process to make it yourself.
Here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, many of the snowbird residents went home for the Christmas holiday, so it’s a little quieter around here. Donna had her Christmas performance with the Viewpoint Concert Band Sunday night. They had a full house despite the missing snowbirds. Their next concert will be on January 19th.
Donna has been working with her Good Neighbors organization to provide Christmas meals and some gifts for residents of Viewpoint that do not have relatives nearby. I’m planning on making a double-smoked pineapple-bourbon glazed spiral ham and we will share it with neighbors.
We couldn’t ask for nicer weather – it’s been great. The forecast calls for daily highs in the mid-70s to 80 degrees from now until Christmas. With that, I’ll wish a Merry Christmas to all.
Christmas stockings hanging in the Arizona room/man-cave
We’ve decompressed from our Japan trip and things have reached a new normal for us here at Viewpoint. Donna has revised her activity schedule – the break made her realize how hard she had been pushing herself all summer long.
She has since put golf on hold until after the busy winter season here. She also resigned her position as President and Secretary of the Viewpoint Concert Band and bowed out of a tennis committee. She filed for and was granted non-profit corporation status for Viewpoint Good Neighbors, the volunteer organization she founded last fall. As the Executive Director, she still manages the day-to-day activities of organization but has delegated in-person visits to volunteers. Viewpoint Good Neighbors exists to assist mostly elderly members of the community that don’t have relatives nearby to help them. Good Neighbors provides limited meal service, household help and also can run errands for them and provide companionship. It’s a worthy endeavor and is funded through donations from others in the community. She still plays in the tennis league and also plays clarinet in the band.
At the beginning of November, I put a pork shoulder on the Traeger smoker/grill to make pulled pork. I was watching football in the Arizona room as the Traeger went about smoking the pork. I checked on it from time to time to make sure the temperature was in range and pellets were feeding. At one point, I looked out the glass slider and the carport was filled with smoke. I couldn’t even see the street!
I ran outside and found a disaster in the making. Something happened, either a pellet feed problem or a grease fire – flames were coming out of the grill vent and the pit temperature skyrocketed above 450 degrees. I used a squirt bottle filled with water to extinguish the flames and shut the unit down. Meanwhile a couple appeared through the smoke – they were driving by and thought our house was on fire.
After I had things calmed down, I restarted the Traeger and observed the pellet feed. It seemed to be working fine, but there was noise coming from the auger that feeds the pellets. The pork shoulder came out of the mess just fine and made a good batch of pulled pork. I started troubleshooting the Traeger and found the source of the noise to be the fan on the auger motor. There are two fans on the Traeger, one fans the fire pot to keep the pellets burning hot, the other cools the auger motor as it operates at high current and high load. That’s where the noise came from. A replacement auger motor (the fan is integrated with the drive motor) costs less than $30. The problem for me was the disassembly required to access the auger motor. It would take more time and effort than I was willing to do.
After nine years of reliable service, I decided to retire the Traeger. Donna posted it on her “Buy Nothing” Facebook group with a description of what was needed to bring it back to normal service. Several people wanted it. Donna ended up giving it to a nice young couple that had time to fix it and could afford to pay for a new motor, but couldn’t afford to buy a Traeger.
Now I needed a new smoker/grill. I did some research and found that technology had marched on since I purchased the Traeger. The biggest advancement came in the form of the controller that regulates the unit’s temperature. Older pellet smokers used a relatively crude method of regulation that used a duty cycle for control. The duty cycle selected set a certain amount of time the auger would turn (the duty part of the cycle) and a period of rest with no pellets fed. This duty cycle was adjustable to within a small range for each temperture setting in the upgraded controller I installed on the Traeger.
Newer, quality units use what engineers call a PID controller. This uses more sophisticated software to regulate the pit temperature. PID is an acronym for three algorithms used for control – Proportional, Integral and Derivative. This allows for much more precise control than duty cycle operation and the software is an adaption of that used in industrial and agricultural applications.
I ended up choosing a wood pellet smoker/grill made by Z Grills. This company originally made smoker/grills for other brands – in fact they made some of Traeger’s grills until around 2015. In 2017, they started making grills and distributing them under their own brand. Their PID software is advanced and regulates the temperature precisely by controlling the pellet feed to the burn pot and also varying the fan speed blowing air through the burn pot. It also incorporates two temperature probes that can be inserted into the meat to determine the internal temperature of the meat without opening the grill.
It came in a surprisingly compact box. Some assembly was required. I saw where people online claimed anywhere from one to three hours of assembly time. I figured I should be able to do it in two hours. I met that goal with some assistance at one point from Donna. The instructions warn that two people are needed for some steps. I only needed Donna’s help when I installed the legs.
Z Grill in operation with temperature probes in useController display and settings
I smoked a spatchcocked 11-pound turkey for Thanksgiving. I had a temperature probe in the meaty part of a thigh (P1) and another in the center of the breast (P2). I had already broken the unit in with the initial burn-in and a trial run with a spatchcock chicken. I did something new to me for the chicken and the turkey. I used a syringe to inject melted, unsalted butter into the breasts and thighs before smoking them. The outcome was delicious. After about 20 minutes of settling time after start up, the temperature remained true to the setting with only an occasional variation of just five degrees. Excellent performance!
Thanksgiving smoked spatchcock turkey
Near the end of the turkey cook, I turned it up to 375 degrees to crisp the skin. I took it off the grill when the breast read 163 degrees and the thigh was at about 185. I let the turkey rest for half an hour before I sliced it.
Donna made dinner plates for our next-door neighbors, Allen and Lois. They are in their mid-80s and Allen needs a knee replacement. He has a lot of trouble getting around and it’s been hard on Lois. She also made two plates for a Viewpoint Good Neighbors volunteer who spent the entire summer in the hospital fighting for her life. She and her husband greatly appreciated it! Viewpoint Good Neighbors delivered a total of 26 home- cooked meals to residents who might not otherwise had a Thanksgiving meal. Altogether, it was a very good Thanksgiving.
Before Thanksgiving, I got my rating with the Viewpoint Tennis Club. I wanted to play in league matches, but before you can join a team in the league, you need to have an official rating. This is done through arranged play of games observed by a professional tennis coach from outside of the park. I needed a minimum of a 2.5 rating to qualify for men’s league. I haven’t been playing tennis for very long – my first game was in April after four months of coaching and practice drills. I’m happy to report I was rated at 2.5. Whew! So, now I’m on the Viewpoint Men’s 2.5 Tennis Team and we play weekly matches in the East Valley Senior Tennis League (EVSTL). This has me committed to play three times per week – a team practice day of 90 minutes, a round robin day with 90 minutes of play and a EVSTL match either here at our courts or away at another tennis club participating in the league. Donna plays in the women’s 3.0 league. I’m also an official EVSTL score keeper for matches played here when my schedule allows.
Another thing I’ve taken up again post-Japan is guitar practice. I hadn’t picked up my guitars in many months. I just got away from it for some reason. It took a little while to build up callous on my fingertips and regain the dexterity, but I’m having fun again.
My guitars, amps and cabinets corner in the Arizona room
Donna is back to regular clarinet practice as we’re back in the concert band season.
Although I was unsuccessful in my search for Japanese straight razors in Japan, I’ve managed to acquire a few through auction sites and from members of the Badger and Blade forum. The stones I bought from Morihei are proving to be very good for finishing the edge on a razor.
My latest acquisition is the SanKan pictured above on the Morihei Oozuku mizu asagi stone. Japanese razor brands can be interesting. In the 1950s through the 1970s, many brands used names “borrowed” from German makers as German razors were highly regarded. I have one with a German name – Sonnal. The SanKan name is interesting – san (pronounced sahn) is Japanese for the number three. On the backside of the tang on this razor is a trademark stamping with three crowns arranged in a triangular fashion. The word okan means crowns in Japanese. So, SanKan seems to be these two words joined without the “O.” The kapton tape on the spine in the photo is there for protection while honing.
I started offering a knife sharpening service for people here at Viewpoint and have had several takers. I charge $5 for one knife, three or more are $4 each. I enjoy sharpening and it keeps me proficient. My knives and razors hold their edges really well and don’t need to be sharpened all that often. Some of the knives brought here for sharpening are completely dull or even chipped and damaged. I bought a couple of coarser stones to take care of these problem knives and it’s working out well. I don’t call a knife finished unless it will slice through an unsupported magazine page without catching and cleanly make thin slices through a tomato.
Donna has her raised garden bed replanted after harvesting the butternut squash that grew in late summer/fall. She’s planted cold weather crops – broccoli, spinach, cabbage, fennel, cilantro and dill. We went to the Arizona Worm Farm where she bought the starts and I bought 300 more worms to restock the bed. The hot, dry summer was hard on the worm population so I wanted to jump start the colony instead of waiting several weeks for them to re-populate.
We’ve had daily highs from the mid-70s to low 80s with one surprise rain squall last Thursday night. Friday morning I took Donna to the airport. She flew to San Diego for the weekend and her sister, Linda also flew in from Florida to celebrate their mother’s birthday. Donna’s been going to San Diego one weekend each month to visit her mom.
The weather ahead looks slighly cooler – lower 70s with some cloud cover. We’ll see if it includes precipitation. I think that just about catches up with all we’re doing. I’ll close with a dinner plate Donna made with an excellent pork chop with green beans and a cheesy potato pancake made with leftover mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving.
We had our fourth and final housesit of the season at the end of August. I mentioned in my last post the construction work on our home, adding a half-bathroom and laundry nook. The work started a bit late on Monday, August 26th. There was some confusion on the expectation and what the construction crew thought they were doing. Donna had met with the contractor and had a fairly long discussion going over what she had in mind and how it should lay out. Ron, the owner of Paragon Home Services, said it looked straightforward and easy.
He sent me the job quote while Donna was away in Vermont. I looked it over, but I wasn’t there when they discussed the project. I wish he would have included a drawing of the layout instead of just a written description which was a little vague in my mind.
We had a meeting with Ron and his foreman, David. Once we were on the same page, they went to work. We thought we would be heading to our housesit in Alpine, California the next morning, but that was also a case of mis-communication. We actually had to arrive on Wednesday, August 28th. This was good as it allowed us to see how the home project was shaping up. Tuesday afternoon, as they were finishing up for the day, I asked David when he thought they would be finished. He said he thought it would take “a few more days” and he would send photos to my phone.
We left Mesa around 9am on Wednesday and made the familiar drive west on I-8. We’ve done this countless times over the years in cars, motorcycles and the motorhome. We made the usual stops – Dateland for a date shake, Yuma for gasoline before we hit California gas prices and El Centro for lunch at Las Palmitas Taco Shop. It’s a pretty authentic Mexican restaurant – my phone even said “Welcome to Mexico!”
We made good time and left I-8 at Japatul Valley Road east of Alpine. It was a little too early to show up at the ranch, so we did a drive-by to find the private road to the ranch, then went into Alpine. Donna bought a new charger for her phone – she forgot her charger at home and wanted a back-up anyway.
It was a 15-20 minute drive back to the ranch from town. After we arrived and had a tour of the house, a custom built ranch home with exquisite woodwork, we went out to the barn to see how things would be done. There were 13 sheep, five Border collies and a cat to take care of. The ranch is on 10 acres of land. The set up was impressive and included an on-demand back-up LP powered generator. If the power went out or dropped below a specified voltage, the generator would automatically start and the electrical power for the entire ranch would continue nearly seamlessly.
The number of animals seemed a bit overwhelming at first, but Donna adapted quickly and the Border collies were so well behaved they took very little care. On the first night, Marcy the home owner, had dinner for us and two other guests – one is a boarder that rents a small studio apartment attached to the barn. The other fellow was a friend from Great Britain, the Isle of Man specifically. It turned out that Sean and Jim were motorcycle enthusiasts and we had a lot of interesting conversations.
I didn’t take many photos – many missed opportunities. Here are a few landscape views of various points from the ranch house.
View northwest toward townView west toward San DiegoView south west – terrain is steeper than it looks
I found a suitable spot to set up my telescope and equipment. The preferred portion of the night sky would be in the northeast. This had the fewest obstructions and pointed away from the San Diego light dome, over the sparsely populated Cuyamaca National Forest, Laguna Mountains and desert to the east. We were about 2400 feet above sea level.
The days were warmer than normal with the high temperature exceeding 90 degrees. This was still about 20 degrees cooler than home. The nights were pleasant in the upper 60s.
Friday morning we drove to San Diego, about 40 miles away. I dropped Donna off at her sister, Sheila’s house in Point Loma. I went to Shelter Island to take some photos but made a stop for a quick lunch. Once I was out of the car at Shelter Island, I didn’t find any good photo opportunities for birds and wildlife. I took too long for lunch and was pressed for time. I saw one interesting thing – an amphibious vehicle, a duck tour bus.
We saw similar tour buses in Branson, Missouri but I had never seen one in San Diego before. I saw two of them at the boat ramp on Shelter Island.
Donna helped Sheila plan on the furniture layout for Donna’s mom. She is relocating to San Diego and will live in Sheila’s vacant Point Loma home with some help from a caregiver.
With my astrophotography effort limited to a northeast target, I was at a loss to find an interesting subject given the time of year. I decided on IC 1396, a star forming gas and space dust region in the northeast sky. This is a huge target and if I had known that was going to be the target, I would have brought my William Optics GT71 for its wide field of view. But, without knowing which direction I would be pointing, I brought the AT115EDT as I thought this was my best compromise, since it’s the mid-range of my telescopes. Not ideal.
I had issues the first two nights – it’s been months since I last tried to capture a deep sky object. I figured out the problems – there were a few settings on my laptop software that needed to be corrected. This happens sometimes when the good people at Microsoft automatically apply updates and they choose default settings for me. Grrr.
I ended up shooting two-minute exposures over four nights. I used a new-to-me filter setup. First I used an Askar Colormagic Ha+OIII filter. This brings out the red hydrogen component and bluish oxygen gas. The filters don’t add anything. On the contrary, they block unwanted bands of the light spectrum. This eliminates some effects of light pollution, in essence enhancing the desired color spectrum. Then I used an Askar Colormagic SII+OIII filter, This should allow more of the greenish and bluish light through. I did two nights of imaging with each filter.
IC 1396 is such a dim target that I couldn’t see what I was capturing with a single two-minute exposure, so I was shooting blind. When we came home, I went through the images and stacked 206 of the two-minute exposures for a total integrated time of six hours and 52 minutes. I was a little disappointed in the result, but here it is.
Speaking of coming home, we were in for a surprise. David never sent me photos of the finished construction. We found out why – it wasn’t finished when we came home 10 days later.
Unfinished laundry nookUnfinished bathroom
To be fair, there was a long weekend over Labor Day included. But here’s the thing. Ron never told us he was retiring on Friday, August 30, four days after the job started. David was taking over the company. David still didn’t have the full picture of job – note the lack of ceiling in the photos above. To compound the issue, when we were back, I noted that different workers showed up to do a part of the job each day and it seemed each worker only knew his or her small part of the job. No one seemed to know what the finished product was supposed to be. This goes back to Ron only doing a written description with no floorplan. He had the whole thing in his head and he was gone.
One of the workers, Brenda, also told me that excessive heat had them knocking off by 2pm on a few days. Well, it was finally finished on Tuesday, September 10th. Everything was straightened out and we were happy with the finished product. These are quick cell phone snap shots.
Washer/dryer tower in laundry nookHalf bathroom
I also had them install a stainless steel restaurant style sink in the shed where the old washer/dryer was. This will be my knife sharpening and razor honing station. I need to do some finish work and clean out the shed too.
All of the boxes under the sink contain various whetstones for sharpening/ honing. That reminds me of another quick story. Before we left for Alpine, we met up with our friend, Marcia, for happy hour at Fat Willy’s. While we were there, Donna had to excuse herself to take an important phone call. While she was away, Marcia asked me what I was up to lately. She knows I dabble in a number of hobbies. I reluctantly brought up straight razor shaving and razor honing. I say reluctantly because eyes usually glaze over if I start talking about this topic.
Marcia asked me if I used whetstones. This surprised me. I was more surprised when she said she threw one out that very day! What? She said she had an old one in a box, but the box was broken and she didn’t have any use for it. Then she said it was just in her kitchen trash and she could retrieve it if I was interested in it. I told her I would like to look at it. I envisioned a coarse hardware store offering in a plastic box.
The next day she brought me this.
I could see under the gunk what appeared to be a translucent Arkansas stone in a wooden box! The top of the box was broken, but she had all four pieces. I asked her what she wanted for the stone and she said I could have it – she’d thrown it out.
A little Titebond glue and a couple of clamps was all it took to repair the wooden box top. I soaked the stone in Simple Green and gave it a good scrubbing. The stone is a butterscotch translucent Arkansas stone suitable for razor honing. It appears to be at least 70 years old – the stone itself is obviously millions of years old, I ‘m talking about when it was mined, cut and marketed. Without any stamps or labels, it’s impossible to accurately date the manufacturing era of this stone, but the box style and joinery seems to indicate a Pike-Norton from 1930s or 1940s. I’m not clear on whether this stone came from Marcia’s father or her grandfather.
Cleaned up and ready for use
Now I have two translucent Arkansas stones and both are old stones that were gifted to me. Makes me a happy guy.
A week from Thursday, we’ll board Hawaiian airlines for our trip to Japan. We’re excited about it and I have no idea what to expect. It’s been nearly 60 years since I’ve set foot there – I was just a little kid. Donna has a few ideas, but we mainly want to see the countryside and visit some smaller towns and villages to get a glimpse of the culture and lifestyle of the average person. We’ll see some of the tourist spots, but for me that’s not the main attraction.
We’ll be mostly offline for our two weeks in Japan, so I’ll try to catch up on our adventure after we return.
The summer is getting away from me. I haven’t been up to posting lately. No motivation. We had three housesits so far, I don’t think I mentioned the last two. One was in Prescott, only about five minutes from downtown. It was a large house in a gated community situated on a steep, rocky hillside with pine trees, overlooking a driving range near the golf course clubhouse.
I brought my AT115EDT telescope and Losmandy mount along with all of the associated equipment, only to find the terrain was too steep and sightlines were blocked by trees and the house anyway. So, that was out.
The house had two levels – the main floor and a finished walk-out basement floor. On the main floor the master bedroom and bath were on one end and a guest room and bath on the opposite end. What I found to be a little unusual was the basement floor – it was an exact replica of the guest wing – same layout and same bed and furniture, just one level below.
The owners had two dogs and one cat. It was an easy housesit. We watched Wimbledon on the tennis channel every day. And our visit coincided with the Prescott Frontier Days – an annual rodeo that’s been taking place since 1888, making it the oldest annual rodeo in the world. It was hot – the temperature was in the 90s, but we enjoyed the final day of the event.
It was a fairly uneventful housesit. I brought my terrestial camera equipment with the hopes of capturing some wildlife images, but that was a failure too. The birds seemed to stay away from the back deck – most were in trees too far away to photograph. One day a coyote trotted along the woodline on the far side of the driving range – again too far away. I managed to get a couple of shots of a hummingbird that came to the deck.
The hummingbird flew into a bush. I approached slowly and could see it well hidden inside the bush. I focused on the bird, shooting between branches. It resulted in a natural vignette, with the branches in the foreground well out of focus.
With no wildlife to point my camera toward, I focused on a flower instead. Look closely and you’ll see an ant inside the flower.
Hollyhock flower
Our next housesit was a four-day sit about 10 days later. We came back to the house near Prescott Valley in an area called Williamson. We had a housesit on this rural property around the same time last year. Again, it was a large, beautiful home on acreage. Last year, I captured images of the Dumbbell Nebula and the Fireworks Galaxy from this property.
This year I was out of luck again. The weather pattern had thunderstorms forming every afternoon with gusty wind and passing showers. The skies were cloudy by late afternoon and into the night every day.
I had better luck finding things to photograph in the mornings here – namely birds and lizards.
One afternoon we took a drive over to Chino Valley, about 15 miles away. We were looking for a Thai restaurant for lunch, but when we found it, it was closed for a few weeks. There was a Mexican Restaurant nearby, but when we entered to check it out, it was more of a fast food type outfit and Donna didn’t like the vibe there.
She found another Mexican restaurant that was off the beaten path. We followed the directions from her smart phone and I was getting a little pessimistic about finding anything good as we were on the outskirts of the small town, well away from highway 89. We eventually found El Charro Norte and had a wonderful lunch there. Great food, good service. We would go back next time we’re in the area.
The weather has been hot – what else would you expect in central Arizona in the summer? We’ve been getting out of bed early to play tennis three days per week. We play from 6:30am to 8am. We usually have a group ranging from four to eight players and we enjoy it. After nine years of pickleball, I felt like my playing had reached a plateau and no longer improved. With tennis, I have a potential upside and I’m enjoying the challenge of learning the finer points of the game.
Earlier this month, Donna made a scheduled visit with her parents in Vermont. Her father was in the Vermont Veterans Home – a skilled nursing facility in Bennington. Her mom is currently in Brookdale Assisted Living, also in Bennington. Her father’s health took a turn for the worse – he was in the end stages of Parkinson’s disease and kidney failure. Unfortunately, her father, Duke Connor passed in the early morning hours of Monday, August 19th – just two days after Donna returned from Vermont. Rest in peace, Duke.
We have a lot on our plate right now. We’re having a small addition built on our house – it’ll be a laundry room and 1/2 bath. The contractor has the crew scheduled to start on Monday, August 26th. While Ron, the owner of Paragon Home Services, Inc was here to make an estimate, he found we had gray polybutylene pipes in our plumbing. This was bad news. This product has been banned since 1998. It corrodes from the inside out – the outward appearance may look fine while the pipes are about to burst.
We had Paragon immediately replace all of the gray polybutylene water supply lines in our place with Pex lines. Meanwhile I’ve purchased a new LG washer/dryer, sink, bathroom cabinet and toilet for the room addition.
Timing is everything, right? We have a housesit scheduled for the 27th through September 5th. The room addition will take about a week to complete and we’ll only be here for the first day. Donna sees this as a blessing in disguise. We trust Ron and will leave him a house key. We won’t have to be living in the house while the construction crew sets to work and tears out part of the Arizona room wall. Also, Ozark the cat will be staying with our neighbor during this time, so there’s no worry about her getting out while they’re working.
The housesit is near Alpine, California – east of San Diego, on the western side of the Laguna Mountains. It’s a 90-acre ranch with 13 sheep, five border collies and a cat. The border collies are trained to herd the sheep out of their pen and into a pasture for the day. In the evening they will herd the sheep back to the pen. It’ll be something different for us, that’s for sure.
Speaking of something different – here is dinner plate Donna made. Crawfish Scampi with cheesy grits and green beans.
When we return from California, we’ll have three weeks at home before we leave again. We have a two-week vacation in Japan coming up.
With Japan on our minds, Donna made an entree of Japanese chicken curry.
Triple digits are forcasted for the remainder of the month – nothing unusual about that. What has been unusual is this year’s monsoon season. We usually have several thunderstorms and downpours of rain at this time of year. Thunderstorms and damaging wind have occurred in the area, just not here in Mesa so much. We can see thunderheads and rainfall around us in the Superstition Mountains to the east, up near Fountain Hills to the north and the San Tan valley to the south, but we’ve only had passing showers. Alpine, California should have daily highs of 80-90 degrees and nighttime temps in the 60s. We can live with that.
It’s summertime here – just like it is in the rest of the northern hemisphere. But, here being central Arizona, summertime has extra significance. It can get hot, very hot! We’re playing tennis three days a week from 7am to 8:30 am. Starting tomorrow we’ll move the start time a half hour earlier.
We escaped the heat for a few days when we flew up to western Washington on June 12th for our granddaughter’s high school graduation. Donna had us booked through Trusted Housesitters to housesit in Arlington only a few miles away from Kevin and Alana’s place. My other daughters, Jamie and Shauna, showed up with some of their family members as well. It was nice to have everyone together all at once.
Alana is my oldest daughter and she has two daughters, Lainey and Gabriella (Gabi). Gabi is the younger of the two and she was graduating from Arlington High School. The graduation ceremony was held in a hockey arena in Everett. It was a nice venue and Kevin and Alana secured box seats for family and friends. This was a deluxe accommodation with a private room, snacks and beverages – including adult beverages. I found it a little funny to have drinks served at a high school graduation – they were available to private box suite attendees only. I can’t even get a beer at a college football game!
Alana, Gabi and Kevin
We were definitely out of the heat in Washington. In fact, Donna and I were downright cold! Our first couple of days were very pleasant with afternoon temperatures in the low 70s. But it was down in the 50s Thursday evening and never got past 60 degrees again for the duration of our stay. It also drizzled rain on and off. Typical for this time of year in western Washington.
The property we were housesitting was on four or five acres and was very nice. I wish I could’ve packed my camera along as one morning about a dozen band-tailed pigeons came into the bird feeder in the back yard. I’ve never seen band-tailed pigeons at low elevation – I’ve only found them above 3,000 feet above sea level and higher. They’re only found in parts of the west coast and some higher elevation areas of the soutwest and Mexico. They are the largest north American pigeons.
We also had deer traipsing through the yard.
Large black tail doe
Kevin and Alana had a house full of guests most of the time and always had plenty of food and drink on hand. They also set up games in the yard. Our youngest granddaughter, Petra, daughter of my youngest daughter Shauna had fun with all of the attention.
Petra playing corn hole with Shauna
Somewhere along the way, Donna picked up a bug and stayed behind to rest on Sunday. She felt better on Monday and we hung out with the crew then caught a ride to the Paine Field airport in Everett to fly home. We never warmed up until we got back to Phoenix.
Last week the bug caught up with me and I’ve been off of my game for a week. I rarely catch a cold or any other bugs, but it got me.
Tomorrow we’ll be packing up the Jeep for a trip to Prescott early Tuesday morning. We’ll be housesitting there until the following Monday. The high temperatures here will be triple digits – 102 to 108 degrees. Prescott will be 10 to 15 degrees cooler. I plan to pack my AT115 EDT telescope although I haven’t settled on an astrophotography target. I plan to also take my camera bag.
I’ll close with a dinner plate from earlier this month. Donna came up with something new – crawfish scampi. She served it with cheesy grits and green beans.
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.
Our palm tree after trim – the tree in the right background is home to Lovebirds
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.
Translucent Arkansas stone
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.
Puma 88 with new scales and refinished blade – I wish I took a before resto picture
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.
Puma 222
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.
Wester Bros model 34 De-Fi
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.
Bacon, eggs and hash browns – yum
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.
Stuffed flank steak prepHot off the grill
And the dinner plate.
Stuffed flank steak with pasta marinara and asparagus
My last post covered some natural whetstones I bought. I also mentioned the Japanese sujihiki kitchen knife I sharpened with the natural whetstones. I don’t usually pay much attention to the handles on my kitchen knives – I have both Japanese traditional style (called wa in Japanese) and western style handles (called yo in Japanese).
But the handle on my sujihiki kind of bothered me – it felt coarse in my hand and the transition from the ferrule to the wood handle wasn’t smooth. I never liked the plastic ferrule either. I saw a sale notification from Tokushu Knife for replacement wa handles. Tokushu Knife is located in Tennessee and the handles they had on sale are locally made and looked to nice. I ordered an ebony handle with a padauk ferrule.
Tokushu shipped promptly, but the USPS fumbled. Tracking showed the handle leaving the USPS facility in Chattanooga with no further information for a week. Then it showed it at the USPS facility in Memphis. What did they do, walk it to Memphis? A week to progress from Chattanooga to Memphis is ridiculous. It finally arrived here after 10 days or so.
Getting the old handle off wasn’t an easy task. I tried several methods and in the end I had to use a chisel to split it. I found hot melt glue holding the blade tang to the chestnut wood handle. I had tried heating the knife by submerging the handle in boiling water, but apparently the wood insulated the glue and it wouldn’t melt. I didn’t want to overheat the metal.
Bare sujihiki blade and new wa handle
It took about 30 minutes of filing with needle files to get the fitment of the new handle right. Then I shaved a hot melt glue stick and put the shavings inside the handle opening. I heated the tip of the tang with a kitchen torch – the type you would use to glaze sugar on creme brulee. I held the blade by the spine near the heel – the heat never went past the tang. The blade slid into the hot glue and I let it set for a few minutes. It was a great fit. Everything is aligned and the depth into the handle is just right. Altogether it took a little over an hour – I was thinking it would be a 20-minute job.
New wa handle installed
I have another kitchen knife story. The dollar is very strong against the Japanese yen right now. My most recent purchase was a nakiri from Japanese Chef Knives. It was made by Teruyasu Fujiwara from pre-laminated Yasuki Shirogami #1 steel and is part of his Nashiji line of knives. I love cutting with it. But, I couldn’t help stepping up to the next level – a Teruyasu Fujiwara Maboroshi Nakiri. I had to order one and wait for it to be made. Teruyasu-san has three levels of knives he hand makes. The entry level is the Nashiji line made from pre-laminated steel.
The next step up is the Maboroshi line. These have the same shirogami core steel, but the stainless cladding over the core steel is hand forge welded by Teruyasu. This means it is repeatedly heated and hammered and this changes the molecular structure of the steel for the better. The pre-laminated steels use the same materials to make a three-layer blank, but they are made by running the sheets of steel through a high pressure roller. This works well, but it can’t match the quality of hand forging.
Very few bladesmiths have the ability to forge weld the hard shirogami core steel to a soft stainless cladding. I can only think of a few. Most Japanese bladesmiths laminate soft iron over the hard core steel, which is easier to do but it negates the advantage of using a stainless steel to cover the corrosion prone core steel.
By ordering direct, I was given the choice of a custom kanji on the left side of the blade. The right side has the Teruyasu usual signature. I asked Ayano at the customer service if he could create a kanji for Koop. Apparently this was a hard concept to create phonetically, so he offered a couple of suggestions. This is what he suggested:
【光峰】: “光” means luminosity or brilliance, and “峰” means a high mountain or peak. This kanji symbolizes that the person is a person who brings brilliance to those around him or her and pursues the heights to which he or she should aspire.
It might be a little over-the-top, but I went with it. After about nine weeks, I received an e-mail telling me the knife was ready to ship. They sent me pictures.
Maboroshi nakiri ready to ship
The knife arrived two days later and it was worth it.
The custom kanji side
I’ve been doing dinner prep for Donna. She comes up with a dish to make and then sets out the ingredients to be cut. I cut the ingredients and usually will place them on a quarter-sheet pan and she can use them as she prepares our meal. She calls me her sous-chef, but I hardly qualify for that title. I think I’m more like an amateur prep cook. Last night I was getting ready to cut potatoes for Donna – she was making potato salad to go with the Memphis-style babyback ribs I had in the Traeger smoker-grill. I asked her how she wanted the potatoes cut. She said “Let me show you.” I handed her the Maboroshi nakiri – she never uses my Japanese kitchen knives – she was amazed at how it split the potato with no effort at all.
While I’m on the subject of sharp, shiny objects, I want to talk about something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I wrote a post a few years ago about the shaving razor business model where some companies will give you the razor handle to get you on the hook to buy disposable plastic razor cartridges from them. This model took hold back in the 1970s and the marketing machine has convinced us that we need two, three, five or more blades in the razor cartridge to get a decent shave.
I remember the razors my dad and grandpa used – they were called double edge safety razors. No plastic. I’ve read that the EPA estimates over a billion plastic razor cartridges end up in landfills every year in the USA. That’s a lot of plastic bits.
I’ve found there’s a cult-like following for shaving the old-fashioned way with a safety razor or a straight razor – it’s called wet shaving. No more plastic disposable junk – with ever escalating replacement costs. With a safety razor or straight razor, you pay up front a one-time cost for the razor. With a straight razor you need to develop sharpening skills (or send it to a sharpener), but there are vintage straight razors on the market that are 100 years old! With a safety razor you still need blades, but they are ten to twenty cents a piece and they are recyclable metal – no plastic. Again, these razors can last for generations.
There are forums such as Badger and Blade where you can learn how to wet shave and what equipment to buy or avoid. There are also countless YouTube videos. I jumped aboard this train. I went head first and bought a straight razor.
Ralf Aust 5/8 straight razor
I bought a Ralf Aust 5/8 straight razor. Ralf is a craftsman in Germany running a one-man shop assisted by his wife with the bookkeeping and shipping. The photo didn’t pick up the laser engraving on the blade – it says “Solinger Handarbeit.” This translates as “Handcrafted in Solingen.” The scales (handle) on this model are made from redwood.
I have plenty of sharpening stones and some sharpening skills. A straight razor is different from a kitchen or pocket knife though. The techniques are similar, yet different.
For one thing, razors need to be finished to a higher level of refinement than a knife. Most people prefer a certain level of “toothiness” in a kitchen or pocket knife – unless they’re cutting sushi. A truly razor-sharp edge might not “bite” into a tomato or pepper skin. This toothiness would make a shaving razor very uncomfortable.
So, I needed a finishing stone for my razor. I wanted go natural, so I bought a rectangular Belgian coticule finishing stone with a small bout – called a nagura in sharpening circles.
Belgian coticule
The Belgian coticule is a whole story by itself – it will have to wait for another post.
You also should have a couple of strops on hand for a straight razor. These used to be common items in barber shops. I now have two hanging strops – one made in Germany from linen and one made in Morocco from cow hide.
Hanging strops – leather on top and linen below
Well, shaving with a straight razor is not straight forward. It’s scary! Putting a razor sharp blade against your face is daunting. It takes skill to successfully shave with it. Acquiring that skill can be a painful experience. After a few bloody experiences, I decided I needed to take baby steps. It was suggested on the forum to start by only shaving the easy parts – your cheeks – until you get a better feel for it.
If you know me, you know I also shave my head. This would be impossible for me to do with a straight razor – what was I thinking? I’d probably cut my ears off!
Well, I really wanted to ditch the disposable cartridge razor. So I ordered a safety razor. That’s a whole ‘nother topic with much to learn – but it’s not nearly the learning curve of a straight razor. I call it my training wheels – I can shave my cheeks with the straight razor, then shift to the safety razor to finish my neck and touch up areas. I can also shave my head with it. High quality safety razor blades can be obtained on the internet for about $10 for 100 blades.
Goodfellas’ Smile Bayonetta safety razor
My safety razor is made in Italy by Goodfellas’ Smile. The model is Bayonetta and it is CNC machined from brass. It’s a little aggressive, I have to be careful shaving my head. But I’m enjoying the process and I understand the reason why guys and gals do this. That’s probably enough about sharp, shiny objects for now – I’ll be revisiting this sub-culture topic.
I only have one dinner plate photo for this post. Not that Donna hasn’t made many photo-worthy dinner plates, I’ve just neglected to photograph them. This is one-pan tortellini with sausage and fennel soup.
Tortellini with sausage and fennel
Chopping the fennel was interesting – the recipe used all of the parts. I thinly sliced the stalks and bulb, then minced the fronds. It was an excellent dinner!
My last tennis lesson for the season was a couple of weeks ago. We’ve been playing some informal pick-up games. Summer play will begin tomorrow. I played pickleball for a couple of hours yesterday and I think all of the tennis has actually improved some aspects of my pickleball game – I was on fire despite not playing recently while I concentrate on tennis.
The weather has been great. A little on the warm side, but mostly comfortable. We’ve had highs in the upper 70s to 80s. A 90 degree day here and there and more 90s to come. I’m not complaining.
The snowbird season is coming to a close. Many of the winter visitors at Viewpoint have departed for points north. Golf league and tennis league play has ended and I had my last tennis lesson of the season.
Donna and I intend to continue to play tennis through the summer in the mornings with other full-time residents. My goal is to become proficient enough to join a team in league play in the fall. I held my last pickleball class of the season at the end of March.
Donna found information for free admittance at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix on the second Tuesday of the month. So this past Tuesday, I grabbed my camera and few bottles of water and we headed there. We arrived around 9:30am and I was surprised at the full parking lots. We parked in the overflow lot and got our second surprise at the entrance. At the check-in area, we were asked if we had a reservation!
I thought this was really odd – like needing a reservation to visit the zoo or something. We told the guy we didn’t have reservation and it didn’t seem to matter. He just handed us a map and waved us in. We entered and it felt like we were at Disneyland. The walking paths were all crowded and little kids were everywhere. I brought my camera thinking I would be able to photograph birds in the gardens, but with all the people the birds seemed to have fled to the open desert.
We walked around for a bit, but it was like going down a crowded Walmart aisle. Oblivious people would stop in the middle of the path, blocking others from moving through. I shot a few pictures of flowers, but we soon tired of the place and left. I would not have been happy if we had paid for admission.
Prickly pear flowersPinkladiesHedgehog cactus flowerPinkladies and White Evening PrimroseWheel cactus flowerMexican lime cactus
I wrote about a new natural whetstone I bought in my last post. Like most things I do, I had to take it up a notch. I enjoy sharpening knives – I find it almost meditative and doing so on natural stones adds another element to my enjoyment. The use of stones for sharpening tools by humans predates any historical reference. Homer wrote about Cretan whetstones in The Iliad and Odyssey more than 12 centuries ago.
The truth is, natural whetstones are harder to use than man made synthetic whetstones. The biggest difference is the consistency of the stones. Modern synthetic whetstones have abrasives that are usually some form of aluminum oxide or silicon carbide. These abrasive particles are uniform in size and shape and are held by a binder that wears down and constantly releases fresh abrasive particles. The stones are engineered with different binder compounds that can be relatively soft or hard.
Natural stones on the other hand are cut from various types of rocks. They are quarried or mined from seams of mostly homogenous stone types that are naturally abrasive. The abrasive particles are randomly distributed and are bound together with other natural compounds that have fused together from heat and pressure over millions of years. These stones are found and mined all over the world, but the most desirable stones originate from Japan, Belgium and Arkansas in the USA. There are many other lesser known stones from other countries.
The Japanese and Belgian stones can be very expensive – some are considered collectible. I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole, so I sought out lesser known stones like the Indonesian stone I wrote about before. I bought two more Indonesians – a medium and a medium/fine to go with the fine stone. These stones are called Red Stone (Batu Beureum in Sundanese – the language of West Java), Black Stone (Batu Hideung) and White Stone (Batu Bodas) respectively.
Red, Black and White Indonesian whetstones
I don’t let my Japanese kitchen knives get very dull, so these three stones are a good progression for sharpening them. If the knives were very dull or chipped, I would start with a soft, coarse synthetic stone. I would do the same if I was sharpening a softer stainless steel knife like a German Henckels or Wusthof.
I took things a step further and added a couple of fine finishing stones. The first one is Japanese – an Ocean Blue Tsushima whetstone. Tsushima stones come from two mines – one on a mountain on Tsushima Island – these are usually brownish – the other mine was under the ocean off of the coast of Tsushima. These are black or dark blue. The mines closed in the 1980s, but there are still plenty of stone blocks available.
Very fine Tsushima whetstone
The other finishing stone came from a mine on Velky Rozsutec – a mountain in the Mala Fatra range in Slovakia. These stones are favored by farmers in that part of the world for sharpening scythes and for knives. The stones were mined and cut by one man until his passing in 2013. A few years later, his son and daughter took over the business and began cutting and selling whetstones.
Rozsutec whetstone
Rozsutec stones are unique. They are cut from a very hard strata of sandstone. I usually think of sandstone as a soft, crumbly type of stone. Not these. They are very hard and long wearing stones. The silica grains cut the metal when sharpening. Over time, these grains don’t release, they slowly flatten and the stone get smoother. At some point it needs to be conditioned by flattening the surface with a harder stone or diamond plate to expose fresh grit.
I use the Tsushima and Rozsutec in the final stage of sharpening. These require a very light touch and can provide an extremely keen, razor-sharp edge on hard steel. I used all these natural stones on my Sanjo sujihiki ( a Japanese slicer blade) and got a very fine edge. When I used it to cut a pork tenderloin, it practically fell through the meat. As an experiment, I held the blade between my thumb and first two fingers and slid the 240mm blade across the tenderloin with no pressure other than the weight of the blade. It cut cleanly through!
Sanjo sujihiki
For the past several weeks I’ve been striking out on astrophotography. The nights have been either cloudy or the targets were too close to nearly full or bright full moons. When I shoot from the east tennis court lot here at Viewpoint, my preference is to locate targets that are in the north or east. This keeps me pointed away from the worst of the light pollution, but it’s still a light polluted sky.
Last week I caught a break. I set up on Tuesday night, March 2nd, but was stymied by technical problems (software). I went back out on Wednesday and was able to begin imaging a little after 8pm. I shot 80 exposures, 90 seconds each and packed up. I knew it wasn’t enough – I was targeting a very distant and dim galaxy – the Needle Galaxy (NGC 4565). This is an edge-on galaxy around 40 million light years away from earth.
A week later I had favorable conditions and went after it again. I repeated my earlier effort and picked up 80 more exposures. I used my Astro-Tech 115EDT telescope with a 0.8X reducer/flattener. This gave me a focal length of 644mm and an F5.6 aperture – you photographers out there will know what I mean. I try to keep exposures under 90 seconds in the heavy light pollution – preferably 75 or 60 seconds. This galaxy was so dim, I knew I needed to push the envelope and F5.6 allowed me gather enough light at 90 seconds.
My APM 140 with a focal length of 980mm would have been a better field of view for this target, but at F7 I think I would need a lot more time on target. It worked out better than I expected with the AT 115EDT.
Needle Galaxy (NGC 4565)
If you click on the photo above to enlarge, you might be able to find three more galaxies in the image – they are much farther away and small.
As usual, Donna is feeding me well. Here are a couple of typical dinner plates from the past month. I bought a USDA Prime tri-tip at Costco and smoked it on the Traeger smoker/grill. Donna served it with sweet potato and green beans.
Tri-tip slices
Another meal was simple grilled chicken seasoned with salt and pepper served with grilled peppers and onions with feta and grilled bok choy.
Chicken dinner plate
The weather for the past month has been a little strange. We’ve had very pleasant stretches with highs in the mid-70s, but also had rain at least one day per week accompanied by a couple of cool days with highs in the low 60s. It seems like that’s all in the past now. Today the forecast calls for low 90s. The next two weeks call for highs ranging from the mid-70s to 80s and sunny skies.
I received quite a shock in the mail a couple of weeks ago. It was my insurance renewal notice for our Jeep Compass. The rate for the same coverage on a car that’s a year older and depreciating was more than double – that’s right, my premium was more than double the cost of the previous year.
I talked to my insurance agent about this and she had some shocking stories to tell. The insurance market is in turmoil. She’s been in the business for over 30 years and she’s never experienced a market like the current conditions. She says a number of factors are involved – I think many of these factors were avoidable.
She cited California and New York as major influences in the cost of insurance. California has had huge claims from wildfires and they regulate the cost of insurance. Many companies have quit writing new policies or renewals in California and New York due to over-regulation. When the government doesn’t allow a free market, unintended consequences can rule. Companies leaving the huge California and New York markets has a ripple effect on the rest of us.
Companies that continue to operate in California and New York have to underwrite policies for less than their actuaries calculate. They spread that loss to others – in this case, my current insurance through Progressive raises the cost for everyone else to cover their losses in states like California and New York. In essence, I’m subsidizing California policies.
Another factor we face in Arizona is the double-edged sword of under-insured/uninsured policy requirements. Under-insured/uninsured coverage is a state requirement here. Many of the collision claims here involve uninsured motorists. The flood of illegal immigration puts many unlicensed, uninsured motorists on the road. So, the state requires me to have insurance coverage to account for that. Again, I’m forced to subsidize their lack of responsibility. If your policy is due for renewal soon, be prepared for a cost increase. End of rant.
Awhile back, Donna and I decided to buy whole chickens which I then broke down into eight or 10 pieces. We liked the quality of whole chickens better than the pre-packaged breasts we found in stores. I would break down the chicken and Donna would vacuum seal pieces and freeze them for later consumption. Somehow, over the last year or so we got out of that habit. It bit us when Donna made a dish with pre-packaged chicken breasts that turned out to be dry and stringy. It had nothing to do with her recipe or cooking skill – it was not a good quality product.
So I’m back into the chicken butchery business. I break down a chicken into two breasts and tenders, two thighs, two drumsticks and two wings which I sometimes cut into four pieces. We rediscovered why we were doing this in the past.
To break down the chicken, I use a Japanese knife called a honesuki which is designed precisely for this task. A honesuki was one of the first Japanese knives I bought. I’ve never liked the Misono brand Swedish steel honesuki I bought all that much. It was made in the traditional Japanese way with the blade sharpened to an offset bevel – in this case a 70/30 grind. I couldn’t keep a sharp edge on it and struggled to maintain the 70/30 edge.
I found a good deal on a honesuki made in Sanjo, Japan with a western 50/50 bevel grind. I like Sanjo knives in general. Sanjo is a historic blade- and tool-making district. Many of the bladesmiths there are small operators with one man doing the entire knifemaking process. There is a factory there called Tadafusa which employs a number of blacksmiths and sharpeners, but most of the knife makers there are run by only a few employees or a single person. The honesuki I bought is typical san-mai (literally translates as three-layer) construction where the hard shirogami #2 carbon steel core is sandwiched between layers of softer stainless steel. I broke down two chickens with this blade and it glided right through all of the joints to separate the chicken parts. Love it!
Honesuki knife from Sanjo, Japan
Most of the meal prep work I do for Donna involves cutting vegetables. I bought another Japanese knife from Teruyasu Fujiwara called a nakiri. Nakiris are typically made with a rectangular blade and have a slight belly curvature. They are specifically designed for cutting vegetables and the flat edge profile makes it cut cleanly through a vegetable without leaving what’s called an accordion – that’s when the vegetable isn’t fully separated and the bottom layer of the vegetable stays connected together. It’s annoying.
TF nashiji nakiri – vegetable knife
I keep our kitchen knives sharp by free-hand sharpening on Japanese water stones. These are whetstones that either need to be soaked in water before use or in some case can be used with just a splash of water to lubricate and clean the surface. I have a number of synthetic stones in various grits for this task.
Traditional Japanese stones were mined for centuries and are natural stones. This can lead to another rabbit hole where there are enthusiasts looking for stones with seemingly magical properties. This can lead to an expensive journey through stones which can be collectable as many of the old mines have been shut down for years. Enthusiasts sometimes spend hundreds of dollars for a single stone!
Recently I’ve been hearing about natural stones being mined in Indonesia. There are a couple of groups there trying to open up an export market for these sharpening stones. I watch a couple of YouTube videos describing them. I fell for it and bought an Indonesian natural whetstone. It was inexpensive – they haven’t developed much of a following or market yet, so they are dirt cheap. The stone I bought is hard and fairly fine grain. I used it to finish the edge on my honesuki and also on a Sanjo slicer (called a sujihiki). It left a razor-sharp edge.
Indonesian whetstone in stone holder
You can see this thing is a brick – I think it’s a lifetime whetstone.
I put my knives to good use recently and made my famous Japanese fried rice.
Vegetable prep for Japanese fried rice
Donna grilled shrimp and served it over a cup of fried rice.
Grilled shrimp over fried rice
Another recent meal was pork tenderloin served with chipotle maple sauce with garlic smashed potato and fresh broccoli from our garden on the side. That’s a winner!
Choptle maple pork tenderloin
Another fine dinner was a plate of skillet chicken parmesan served with gnocci and steamed spinach and fresh basil from our garden.
Skillet chicken parmesan
Last night, we had our friends, Chuck and Sue Lines and Dick and Roxy Zarowny over for Donna’s annual St. Patrick’s dinner. We had it a few days early as Donna has a Viewpoint Concert Band performance on Sunday evening. She made all the traditional Irish foods – corned beef, cabbage and carrots, champ potatoes and Irish soda bread. Sue brought an appetizer and Roxy supplied Key lime pie for dessert. I neglected to take any photos as we chatted all evening.
There’s a big project underway here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. A company called Airebeam has been contracted to install fiber-optic cabling and internet service for the park. In a couple of months we should have access to blazing fast (up to 750Mbps) internet and video streaming – it will be great!
Donna competed in a tennis tournament a couple of weeks ago. I attended as an official scorekeeper – I’m a league scorekeeper for the East Valley Senior Tennis League. The league sanctions competition for seniors from various 55+ parks and neighborhoods in our area. Donna and her tennis partner, Linda Rice, won their first match but were eliminated in a close second-round match two days later.
The weather has been very pleasant over the past couple of weeks with daily highs in the mid-to-upper 70s. We had clouds roll in last night and will have some rain today before the sunshine returns again tomorrow. The rest of the month is forecast to have daily highs back in the mid-to-upper 70s.
It’s been more than a minute since I last posted – in fact, it’s been about six weeks! It was easier to find topics of interest when we were on the road full-time. New surroundings, projects galore to keep everything functional on the RV – always something to talk about. Not that life here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort is boring – there’s always something going on. But it gets redundant to post about daily life without fresh topics.
This week we had Valentines Day. I don’t get charged up about Hallmark holidays. Maybe I’m just not a romantic type, but I really don’t get it. When we lived in Michigan they also celebrated something called “Sweetest Day.” I think it’s common in the Midwest. To me, it’s another Hallmark holiday made up to sell cards and candies. Bah humbug!
Last year after I started my deep dive into astrophotography, I imaged the Rosette Nebula. I counted it as one of my more successful attempts. I only had 71 minutes of data and the image was quite noisy. I knew I could improve it, but didn’t have a chance to capture it again until this week. I went out on Tuesday and Wednesday night and set up at the East tennis court parking lot.
Tuesday night things went well – until they didn’t. After about 40 one-minute exposures, I had a data transfer failure from the ZWO ASI533 MC Pro camera to the NINA software on my laptop. After a few frantic moments of troubleshooting, I disconnected the camera and restarted it. I was up and running again. It seems I always have moment of drama when I’m imaging the night sky. Things ran smoothly after that. The quality of the exposures seemed good.
Wednesday night was the smoothest session I’ve ever experienced. Everything worked as it should, the mount tracked flawlessly and quality of my captures was better than ever. Altogether over the two sessions I had 221 one-minute exposures. During processing of these sub-exposures, I culled eight substandard captures, leaving 213. That’s a 96% keeper rate. Outstanding! I’ve also improved my image processing. Once I stacked the 213 sub-exposures and made corrections, the final image was very satisfying. The improvement over my early effort 11 months ago is pretty dramatic in my opinion.
The total integration time of three hours and 33 minutes reduced the background noise and also improved the detail and color of the nebula. Here is the latest image.
NGC 2244 Rosette Nebula
This is what I came up with 11 months ago.
These images were shot with the same camera, filter and software. The telescope in the old photo was a William Optics Zenithstar 73 – a fine doublet telescope. I replaced the Z73 with a William Optics Gran Turismo 71 and used a 0.8X reducer. The GT71 is a triplet and an upgrade over the Z73, but I think that had little to do with the overall results. I also used the Losmandy GM 811G mount vs the Skywatcher HEQ5 I used to have. The stars are tighter in the latest photo – that may be due to me focusing more carefully than when I first started. The background is much smoother – it doesn’t have the gritty noise of the earlier photo. This is mostly due to the longer integration time – three and half hours vs 71 minutes. The other wildcard is atmospheric conditions – I have no control over that other than to pass on nights when conditions are really poor.
Donna is off to band rehearsal this morning. The Viewpoint Concert Band has a performance scheduled for tomorrow night. This will be the third of four concerts scheduled this season. Donna is the president of the Viewpoint Concert Band board of directors. She’s also the secretary of the Viewpoint Tennis Club and she’s the founder and heads up the Viewpoint Good Neighbors program. In her spare time, she golfs in the ladies golf league and tries to get on the golf course a couple of times per week. To say she’s always on the run is an understatement.
I almost forgot about another nebula image I captured at the end of January. This is the Heart Nebula captured with my GT71 and Player One Poseidon C-Pro camera. This was captured with 104 90-second sub-exposures for a total time of two hours and 34 minutes. The atmosperic conditions were less than favorable with the moon at 84% illumination.
Heart Nebula
Donna just pointed out that while I am not a fan of Hallmark holidays, I did choose appropriate targets for Valentine’s Day – a rosette and a heart!
After a wet and relatively cold start to February, we have great weather forecast to continue through the end of the month. Today we should hit the mid-70s and the thermometer will top out there daily with mostly sunny skies. Can’t complain about that! Donna will miss some of our good weather to go to equally good weather in Florida. She’s meeting two sisters and a cousin and they’re doing a half marathon in Key West, Florida next weekend.
Edit: If you click on the Rosette Nebula photos, they will open in a new pane. Then click on the photo again and it will expand. This will allow you to easily see the quality differences I mention.
