Read My Lips

It's now five weeks that I have been dealing with lip issues. My bottom lip is much improved, no question. But it is still sore and sensitive. I have my six month skin check with my dermatologist on Tuesday, so I decided to wait it out to see what she has to say. Hopefully there is just some prescription cream I can put on to finally heal it up. I'll also be hoping that she doesn't see anything that needs to be burned off or biopsied. We have guests arriving on Thursday and I don't want to have to deal with any of that while they are here. Fingers crossed...

The dog days of summer have certainly been here. We had excessively high heat here, like a lot of the country. We were in a drought, but this week brought us some much-needed rain. It was great to get a break from the daily watering of our outdoor plants. The temperature has also been a bit cooler the past few days.

We so enjoy having the lake out our back door. The other day we watched an eagle fishing. He caught such a big catfish with his talons that he could not lift up out of the water. Instead he channeled his inner Michael Phelps and did the breast stroke across the lake. When he got to the shore, he rested and had himself a feast. My camera lens isn't long enough to capture an image that far away, but it was certainly something to see. Fortunately I can always get a nice sky picture from my backyard.

Mountain Island Lake

Smokin' Ribs

It is hard to conceive of now, when the temperature is a measly 8 degrees, but Sunday was a beautiful day here. My husband was off on a motorcycle ride with a friend, so I decided to surprise him by grilling ribs for dinner. He gave me a head's up when he was about an hour away, so I fired up the grill. "Fire" would end up to be my word of the day. I put the temperature halfway between medium and low, wanting to cook the ribs for a longer time period. A little later I looked out the kitchen window and saw too much smoke pouring out the sides of the grill. Uh, oh! Grabbing a glass of water as I had seen my husband do on many occasions, I dashed out the door and flipped open the lid of the grill. Flames were everywhere! I quickly moved the ribs off the grill and set them on the side board, then doused the flames with the cup of water. Well, that didn't work, so I slammed the lid shut hoping it would burn itself out. No dice. By now there was black smoke pouring out of the grill. I was quite surprised that no one call the fire department. Perhaps I should have. I turned off the burners and ran inside for another cup of water.

Following a second dousing of water, there was still a small fire burning. When I opened up the grill doors, I could see that the lower tray was lit up like a bonfire. That is where my next cup of water was tossed. And that, thankfully, did the trick. I took the semi-blackened ribs into the house and put them in the oven. I was afraid to try lighting the grill again. Which got me thinking about gas grills and fire. What is the best way to put out the fire? Do you keep the lid closed? Does opening it feed the fire? Can you use a fire extinguisher? After all, that is a propane tank right under the fire. After searching online, I see conflicting information on water versus no water. This is a topic I plan to research further before I try the barbecue grill again.

In the end, I feel lucky that I wasn't burned and that I did not set the house on fire. We had a nice meal, and watched the fabulous sunset St. Louis was blessed with Sunday night.