In other words, the smoker is running again, this time with a brisket in, against the visit of M’s godmother and godfather and their family this afternoon. I got the fire a bit hotter than I wanted it, so the short-term goal is to crank down the damper enough to get the smokebox temperature around 250° F.; it keeps trying to creep up to 350.
Despite the recent rains and flooding, the woodpile is dry, due to my foresight in covering it with plastic sheeting, but as a result it’s also alive with roaches and millipedes and pillbugs and about ten jillion termites. The roaches and pillbugs are agile enough to escape when I start pulling billets out of the pile, but the millipedes and termites end up as burnt sacrifices, which fails altogether to bother me. That woodpile is twenty-five feet from the house for a good reason, and the only way I want a termite near my house is if it’s been fried first.
