In my cleaning frenzy, I almost ruined everything. I had fully cleaned the house but it was time to get the barbecues ready. I’ll be using both our gas grill and the charcoal grill today.
I used the wire brush on both grills and rubbed off the remains of previous barbecues. I swear, it doen’t matter that you do this every time before cooking on the grills, there’s always more waiting for the next cook out.
For the spare ribs I plan to use the charcoal grill and cook with indirect heat. The ribs will be much better cooked over charcoal than on the gas grill. I sorted the coals that still were burnable and then threw out the ashes. I loaded the barbecue with a center foil pan and then layered the new coals to each side.
When I finished I decided to also empty the ash can where I put the ashes cleaned out from the woodstove. Now normally, there’s no problem with just making a pile of the ashes on the ground. However, there must have been at least one live coal or some hot piece from the woodstove in the bucket.
About an hour after that Joel came by to drop some things off and tell us about the Yerington, Nevada race of last weekend. He didn’t do too badly, he came in 4th. The course was 300 miles in the rugged hills of Yerington. There’s some great pictures on the dezertracers.com website, I’ll snag a few of those and might order some taken by Cougarfreak Photography.
When Joel and my husband went out as Joel was leaving, there was some ash on his truck hood. It didn’t take long for them both to realize that the corner of the gully next to the driveway was on fire. Gail had phone me while they were out there and I didn’t know what was going on out there. I went out to tell my husband that I’d be going over to Gail’s to pick her up to go to lunch and to the store. Both guys were standing there with water hoses spraying the buring grass and trees.
Luckily they were able to put it out and it didn’t spread but it’s looking pretty black out there! I feel so bad but I swear, all the ashes and old charcoal were cold. I must have been wrong. 
Thanks to my husband and son, the fire was put out, the vegation well return soon.
As for the party, I think I’m ready. I had so much on my mind overnight that I woke around 3:30 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep so I cut up the vegetables for the spinach salad.
Gail also let us know that she thinks there will be 30 people here! I was figuring 20. Oh well, what’s another 10 people? There’s plenty of food.
