The Shark Attack!

Today has been great. All day long I have had people calling or e-mailing me, wanting to know about the fire that we had yesterday, while Tony and I were cooking our dog's Christmas dinner. I am going to write a condensed version of what happened and including some pictures that I took.

Before the sun came up yesterday morning, Tony and I were up, drinking coffee, while we baked seventy-two dinner rolls, inside the oven. When the rolls were golden brown, we put them inside one of our red, H-E-B thermal grocery bags, so they would keep warm. Here's a picture of the groceries left on the kitchen table, while we cooked the dinner rolls.

Then I made a big mistake, when I said, "Tony, this year I want to add the Olive oil to the vegetables, so the oven will warm it up, to make the dog's dinner even warmer when served." Needless to say, "Tony did not like my new idea."

Then we emptied the four, giant sacks of mixed vegetables into the three, large, aluminum roasting pans and before we put them into the oven, I added one, large jar of minced garlic into one of the pans. When Tony tried to place the heavy pan of veggies and oil into the oven, it sort of crumpled, from the weight and the olive oil and the different colored vegetables poured out from the sides all over the oven door, inside the oven and onto our wooden floor. Let's just say, "Tony had proven his point."

After a brief clean up and removing many cup fulls of mixed vegetables from the roasting pans and putting them into pots on the stove top, to help lighten the weight of the roasting pans, Tony successfully shoved the veggies into the oven to cook.

After five minutes, in the oven, cooking successfully, I made my second mistake by returning the oven temperature back to 350 degrees, which Tony had warned me not to do, before he went outside to go check on our chickens.

Six minutes later, I saw smoke coming out of the oven, filling The Cabin with smoke. When I opened the oven door I saw little flames and as I closed the oven door and Tony walked back inside, I half-hollered, "Tony! There's a fire inside the oven!"

Tony immediately turned off the oven and then he left the kitchen. Seconds later, he returned with one of our red, fire extinguishers. He put the fire out immediately, with just one shot, underneath the bottom roasting pan. The vegetables had been saved by Tony! Here's the fire extinguisher that he used.

By now, it is 45 degrees outside and ten minutes past eight o'clock and The Cabin was engulfed in smoke, so we opened up several windows and turned on the ceiling fans to help get rid of the smoke. 

After taking another baby Aspirin, so not to have a heart attack, I took this picture of the sun shining into our smoke filled cabin.

At 8:30, when Jim and Diane arrived, bringing with them two thermos full of coffee and a pan of Diane's  delicious, homemade cinnamon rolls, for everyone to enjoy, The Cabin was pretty cold and nearly smoke free.

Within ten minutes, all of our friends/volunteers had arrived to help us finish preparing our rescued dog's Christmas dinner! Here's a picture of Chet O'Keefe helping Tony mix all of the ingredients together, before all of us went outside to serve our dog's their delicious trailer-cooked meal.

And while all of this was going on, I snuck back to my office and snapped a picture of Ginger Rogers' almost four-week-old pups sleeping peaceably. (I might adopt the pup on the far right, sleeping on his back, but don't tell Roy.)

I took this picture of Eileen feeding Suzanne's favorite dogs, Donnie and Marie Osmond, their Christmas dinner, because Suzanne was unable to make it out here yesterday.

Tony and I and I think all of our great friends had a good time fixing and serving our dog's holiday breakfast and I know that our dogs loved it, because their pans were licked totally clean.

By 10:45, Tony and I had thanked and adios-ed everyone before they drove away and Tony and I were all smiles until we returned to The Cabin to find the greasy mess, on the floor, that was made from spilling the olive oil and vegetables. When I took this picture, trust me, I was not smiling, but Roy was when I let him and the rest of our dogs inside, to help lick up the grease.

Ten minutes later, after Belle and Beau had quit licking the oven and the oven door and Mama and Roy had done the best that they could licking the floor, I put them back outside, because I was ready for the Shark attack. 

Using my Shark professional, electric, steam mop, that I purchased this past summer, after Carol had raved about how much she loved her new Shark steam mop, I went to work steam cleaning our wooden kitchen floor.

The Shark attack only lasted about twenty minutes and I won. After only refilling my Shark steam mop's tank a few times—nearly all of the grease stains are gone and Roy's dark blueberry stain has completely disappeared! So now I am raving about how much I love my Shark Professional Steam Mop and as I finish writing this tonight, I am once again smiling. Sharks Rule!

Y'all have a great evening!