Mothers are the Best

This LAT story about a couple of quirky urban homesteaders has a particularly excellent mother moment.

The house was barely inhabitable, with holes in the wall, buckled floors and no hot water. Enough debris had been dumped on the property to fill the equivalent of eight railroad cars. Undaunted, the couple cooked meals on a camp stove, prompting them to call this period their “homesteading” phase.

Friends and family thought they were nuts.

“I was terrified,” says Sondra Peluce, Meeno’s mother, remembering her first impression of the house. “I thought they had taken leave of their senses. I actually think I went and threw up. It was like an out-of-control fun house that was not fun.“

Her dismay turned to pride, however, as she watched the home’s transformation over the succeeding months.

“When I saw my son hoisting railroad ties on his shoulder, I thought to myself, ‘He is building an inner strength that will carry his family forever,’ “ she says.

In classic motherly fashion, the hyperbole goes from crazily negative to crazily positive at incredibly high speed. I love it.