11/21/2012

Turkey Smokin' Weather

If I could order a day to smoke the turkey, it could not start out any better than what we have here in the heartland.  The wind is light and variable and right now it is above 50 and should be about 72 by the end of the day.  I know you are tired of hearing that we built our house smack dab in the middle of a hickory grove.  I have two Webers and a more than adequate supply of hickory.   I brined the turkey over night and this morning took it out and after a few seasonings put it in a smokey grill.  I am still experimenting on keeping the grill under 300 degrees but it is a battle.  About once an hour or so I will go out and add a few charcoal briquettes and a new stick of hickory.  I find that a chink of hickory will produce about the right amount of smoke without flaming up in a Weber. I have a pan of water in the middle of the grill and add coals from each side.

I am glad I cleaned up the kitchen floor yesterday.  I made a hell of a mess out it this morning while unloading the turkey out of the cooler and then pouring the excess brine in the drain.  That goes for the counter around the sink also.  Oh well, I will probably clean the counters at least twice more between now and tomorrow and 1 PM.  

I have my recumbent bike in the shop to have the old paint removed and a new black powder coat applied.  The promise is that I will have it back by Christmas.  I figure the bike shop will put new cables on the shifters and such and my Christmas present is a new shinny bike.  That does take some of the stress off what to get us for Christmas.  If we can't eat it, read it or wear it, we probably don't need it.  There is stuff in the storage room to decorate the White House and we have only 3,000 square feet.  For two people!


Our Son's in-laws are in town over this Thanksgiving holiday.  We enjoy visiting with Larry and Sandy Parks.  Many years ago, Larry and I worked together in the State defense Building and it was fairly common that he and I would have a cup of coffee together once a week or so.  We both worked in the bowels of the State Defense Building and the coffee was at least hot.  

last night I didn't catch a new mouse in the Defense in Depth traps in the garage.  Perhaps the peanut butter smell is fading off the traps and if I don't catch anything tonight I will put new peanut butter on the traps Friday.  yes, I do know it is kind of strange that I feed the birds and critters out in the yard and hunt the mice as hard as I do.   When we bought the house that Dave is living in, I saw first hand what the mice can do if unchecked.  In several places we had to remove exterior panels and you could see where the mice had made runs under the paneling.  I think we did our best to plug up the holes but  I probably need to check out the state of the mice population, cats or no cats.  I think both Da Barbs and I both have an aversion to mice and roaches. 

We had lunch with Barb Jr yesterday and when I was recounting the menu for lunch, it seemed that something was missing.   Of course, I forgot the dressing.  I will make a fairly straight regular dressing and a fancy version of cornbread and sausage dressing.  Both will have a small amount of celery and onions added. The corn bread dressing might even have a Jalapeno pepper or two added.  Ya' never know.  

Well, I have goofed around enough here to have to go back out and check the turkey.  Might even put on a pair of jeans instead of running around in my pajama pants.  At least I do have the common courtesy to put of jeans if I am going to venture out in the world.  Can't say the same for the people I see at WalMart.

Oh, by the way, (NO, I refuse to use BTW)  It seems that one of the writers of the business news writes something bad about Best Buy every chance he gets.  I wonder what world he lives in when he blames the slightly poor performance for sales in their stores on what they do.  Has he not noticed that unemployment is fairly high, everything is costing more, raises are smaller (if not cut back) and that best Buy is the home to consumer electronics who's purchase can be put off for a while?  I will promise you that if you come to Topeka and go to the Best Buy store on Wanamaker, my son, Dave, is generally the guy in the window for the Geek Squad.  After watching him work, I can tell you that he will do his best to make the customer happy and get things fixed if they can be fixed.    Try that at WalMart, K-mart or Target.   Other than Dave has to work 12 hours from Thursday night to Friday morning, I am glad that he and best Buy have an association. 

MUD

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