Vege in a Box

"I got time..." sounds familiar?
This tag line was used a couple of years back by Astro when they first introduced their recording device.

Lately, many of my friends have been wondering where do I find time.
There is time and I get 24 hours of it. I just need to share it with 3 sidekicks (thanks Kav).
2 of these sidekicks have learnt to go out and explore on their own. The other sidekick has yet to earn that freedom.

So back to time.
Seriously I have it in abundance. My mind is so free that ideas keep popping in and out, sometimes like popcorn.

Every day, things around me speak to me (I am not crazy) telling little anecdotes of my not so long ago past.

Today was about my dad.

Just one word live chicken, took me back in time (whilst sitting in my kitchen and feeding my baby omelette) to a huge house with vast land. Compared to what our housing developers give nowadays, mine would be a ranch. We were fortunate to live in an old bungalow which was owned by a British family prior to us.

My dad kept livestock, chicken, ducks, geese and cowS. Many cows. He didn't keep these animals for commercial reason rather it was for own consumption or could it be that it reminded him of his hometown. I would need to dig a little deeper for that.

There are so many fond memories that bungalow holds. It would take me days to share them all. I had a very happy, holy, free and full of laughter childhood.

One fond memory would be the time either my sister or I had to catch a chicken for dinner. Try catching a free range chicken, it's an art. We would have to come up with a plot which involved NOT scaring the chickens away. It was so hard to catch these chicken that we could not decide on a victim. We would just grab whichever we could and then agree that this is the one that we intended for the kill.The next thing would be, who is going to assist in the kill. This was the worst part.

My dad would patiently wait for us to emerge from our victorious hunt. He would stand tall (he is a very tall ad big man) holding a cleaver in his hands and I would be required to put the chicken down on a tree stump made of a fallen tree. He was also a wood cutter. He was one man many wouldn't mess with it. In school whenever a boy used to bother me, my friends would warn by saying "nanti bapa dia bawa parang" (her father would come after you with a cleaver). 

One quick and swift move was all it took him to get a clean and painless cut. If I shrieked and let go off the chicken while it was withering to its death from my hands, a look of disappointment would be seen on his face. Followed by a small woman quick on her feet with loud, sharp and piercing cry running after the still moving chicken to stop the blood splatter.

That small woman would be my mom, standing tall at 5 feet and 2 inches. She was always my saviour but it came with a price, a non-stop lecture on how I should not let go off the chicken.

In today's life, all that seems surreal. I too find it hard to believe that I once did that. I have changed so much. From picking fresh eggs, defeathering the chicken and helping my mom milk a cow, to ordering vegetables in a box!. Even my chicken comes delivered in a box.

My fresh grocery in a box.

When I shared this news with my mother, she was quick to respond "let me buy it for you."

Mothers will always be mothers. She still wants to be my saviour.

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