Insert Witty Title Here

I'll leave making up a title to you my dear and lovely readers because today I've had quite enough and I'm done. It started as a promising day, I actually managed to drag myself out of bed before squeaky peep(the youngest one is squeaky in the morning) and was showered and dressed by the time he appeared. That was the highlight of my day, everything beyond that point was, well, crappy.

Shortly after my triumph of beating small children getting up and dressed I discovered that something was wrong with our big deep freeze and everything wasn't deep froze. Salmon, halibut, sausage, pork chops, ground pork, pork fat to be rendered, 10 pounds of Alaskan grown grass fed beef, extra frozen breads, 3 pounds of organic blueberries, smoked salmon and GOOD GRIEF our gigantic uncured unsmoked whole pork leg, all, ALL of it in various states of melt down. I think I simply shut the freezer and stood laughing stupidly to myself, complete disbelief.

And because I am the mother of 3 boys I kicked into high gear and started planning what I could cook, what was beyond saving and what I needed to chuck. Everything in the door was gone or at least melted so I hauled those upstairs and started cooking, pork chops, pork hocks, ground pork, 3 burners, 3 pans, lots of furious planning. Next were blueberries, muffins, blueberry yogurt and blueberry compote. And the salmon, only 3 fillets but still our salmon that we caught, went to the grill. One was freezer burned and fed to the chickens, so two were grilled. Some things were a total loss and some were still completely frozen. 3 of 5 packages of ground beef needed to be cooked today and the ham had to be dealt with.
On top of all this I still had two small boys who had plans for fossil hunting and hiking and a party on a river. We had plans and then we didn't. They rebounded really well, I must say, but the day was still punctuated with are we going fossil hunting yet? And our big ninja ninny lab was cowering in the bathtub afraid of the fireworks all our neighbors indiscriminately set off.

I figured out what to do with the beef but that damn ham was just so big and raw. I finally decided to indirect cook it on the grill. It was thawing and I needed to cook it only I didn't have a pan big enough or the oven space but it did fit on the grill. Oh how I wish it hadn't because as if this day wasn't already sucky enough it was about to get a lot worse.

I popped the ham on the grill and patted myself on the back, it wasn't even 1 o'clock and I had all the melted food dealt with. The laundry was actually getting done too, somehow I was pulling through and looking good doing it or at least quasi competent. Then I noticed the black smoke billowing past the window. WHAT. THE. HELL. Oh but don't be fooled I knew exactly what it was, that freaking ham was smoking. Damn.

Except the ham wasn't smoking, it was on fire. Completely engulfed, right under the window and the eaves. I silently leaped into action, glad I had recently sent small boys to go play upstairs. I dragged the gas grill away from the house and turned off the burners. No luck it was still smoking and shooting flames so I opened the grill which allowed the flames to leap about 20 feet in the air. I slammed it shut and ran for the baking soda, which the fire laughingly consumed. I crawled in and disconnected the propane tank and drug it away. I ran for the fire extinguisher and stood thinking for a minute did I want to spray my still new grill with it?

I really didn't have a choice, I figured it was better than any neighbors seeing the smoke and flames and calling the fire department. So I pointed and pulled the trigger. I swept the base of the fire which I somehow remembered from 8th grade. That ham, I swear to god, it laughed at me and burst in to bigger hotter flames. I used the whole extinguisher and it was still flaming. I grabbed a fork and tried to pry the thing off the grill and damn near burnt my arm. I needed something long and poky to move the ham off the grease fire. I only have one thing that's long and poky, my pitchfork. I stabbed that ham off the grill and lobbed it into the lawn flaming, covered in baking soda AND fire extinguisher stuff. And there it sat burning until I stabbed it again and put it on the a cookie sheet where it burned for another 20 minutes.
About this time the lab crawled out of the tub to see what all the excitement was about. He took one look at me, the fully engulfed barbecue grill and the flaming ham and turned tail and ran for the tub where he spent the next hour. The he slunk out and tried to drag off the completely burned yet raw ham which flipped the cookie sheet on him and scared him to death. So off I went to get the pitchfork and stabbed that ham with it again bagged it up and threw it away, I was done with it.

My kids never saw any of this but I swear it is all true. My husband, when I called him to tell him I hadn't burnt down the house, asked if the ham was salvageable, apparently he didn't understand that the pitchfork meant the pitchfork I use to clean the chicken coop. So no honey the ham is a total loss and so is that injera

Peace and Love--