Saturday Spider, Flat Turkey, and Rain, Rain, Rain

The spider below just screams Warning Coloration.
On Earth, a lot of critters sport something biologists like to call Warning Coloration. It ususally involves reds and yellows, but not always ... and the message is something like this ...

"Look at me. I make no effort to blend in with my surroundings, because I am venomous, taste bad, poisonous, able to sting, or I just look like a fellow critter who can do some of those things (mimicry)."

I confess, I do not know this spider's name, so if you do, educate me.

It looks like she's doing some web repair work. I can relate as I am repairing some water damaged porch steps this summer and silently kicking myself for putting off some routine preventative maintenance that would have negated the need for the current project.

Bear hoping to get a little tail.

Last week, before this daily rain event began, I tried something new on the grill ... new for me, that is.
I took a 15 pound turkey and split it down the middle, just like my Daddy used to do with the Easter BBQ chickens, except I didn't fully separate the two halves.

What I created was a flattened, almost roadkillesque turkey. This was rubbed with some olive oil and then rubbed with a little Tony Cachere and Tones Cajun blackening spices.

The flaturkey went on a hot grill for some direct heat ... kinda hard to flip, so yes, I should have split it into 2 separate pieces for meat management.

Live and learn.

After some direct heat searing, I set him off to the side and used indirect heat for most of the cooking. About halfway through I wrapped him in heavy duty foil to prevent drying him out.

Oh, and I brushed on an olive oil, lemon juice, wine, spice basting sauce during the process.

I wasn't trying to smoke the turkey per se, rather I was going for a bigger version of my BBQ chicken ... although we did not sauce this bird.

I didn't want to sauce this first attempt because I wanted to taste the results of the spices and cooking method on this shakedown cruise.

It cooked for about 2.5 hours and was a big hit with everybody.

At the table, I didn't slice it in the traditional Thanksgiving turkey way. Instead, I just cut randomly across the grain to free up chunks and we just dug in. Very primitive and strangely satisfying to sit around the beast and eat that way. We did accompany it with some mashed, but not whipped, herby new red potatoes, and some steam in the bag green beans.

It was excellent and so were the turkey sandwhiches the next day ... okay, later that night actually. I couldn't wait ... I really, really love turkey sandwiches.

And, yes, Bear did get the bird's tail at the end.

And THIS is what it's been doing here for a week.


Everyday has seen little or no sunshine and frequent rains like this one. Somehow, yesterday morning while Hughesnet Mark was here installing the system the skies were sunny and blue, shortly after he left, I shot this video.

The water is wonderful of course, always better to have too much than too little in my opinion, but it has really cramped my picture taking missions.
But it should be really interesting out there when this current pattern shifts a bit and the sun returns.

Have a great Saturday, I may be traveling south to the land of the Bulls today to inspect Emma's new college digs.