Life. One day at a time. : Birthday Tribute for THE Home Maker of the year

Every day after breakfast my mum looks over the red checkered table cloth at me and says “What shall we have for tea?” In my head I think “it’s only 9am?” She then wanders out to the storage SHED (yes, we don’t do food storage in small ways around here! Food is even stamped with purchase date!) and then she comes back in with an unidentifiable slab of meat frozen in an unidentifiable plastic bag. “Might be pork?” she says “Or, actually, it could be lamb?” I chuckle as she begins to run the hot water into the sink... “Let’s defrost it and find out”. Some of you may be sitting there thinking “hmm, typical country folk, very uncivilized”. Do not be mistaken. My Mother is no dummy. My Mum is a master chef by day. We create new food adventures daily! (Katrina, I thought of you! You would love my mum’s food adventures!) She comes in with that UFO meat and serves up a surprise master piece! My mum is a calf Queen by day. She goes down to the cow shed to show the calves who’s boss… but they show HER who’s boss! They know she’s a push over and they love it! The touch of the master’s hand? Indeed.

Her pride and joy, named “Thor” awaits her arrival and bullies his way to his usual spot at the feeder. My Mum is a gardener, slash, landscaper by day (this morning we wrestled a wheelbarrow of mountain high piled weeds out of Grandma’s beautiful front garden). My Mum is a baker’s delight by day. Mum and I found a new recipe for mint chocolate slice and squealed in delight at the thought of testing such decadence! Oh for me I meant eating – for Mum she meant cooking. My Mum is a shop til you drop by day. Sometimes she trades in the farm clothes for skinny jeans and today she had the shop assistant earning her hourly rate. Will that be in gold or silver? Don’t let the gumboots fool you.

All of this is done usually before 11am. By then, Mum has also hung the washing out to dry, (we believe in sunshine drying in New Zealand) helped me with the dishes, and popped a fresh batch of chocolate chunk (yes, not chip, but CHUNK) cookies into the oven.

WOW. I know! You can breathe out because it really is that amazing to watch. I am tired just thinking about it.

My mum is a one woman extravanganza. She is a Farm Diva and don’t you dare forget that.

SO you might be wondering then… if my mum is a farm extraordinaire by day, what is she by night? By night she is exactly what she should be. By night she is – just my Mum. (Thanks for the clean pajamas Mum, and for filling my hot water bottle before bed - Love you.)