The Minnesota Farm Woman

My daughter is a City Girl. Born and raised in southern cities, she knows how to drive on the interstate in rush-hour traffic and where to get the best sushi.  What most people don’t know is that it was her idea that we all move to northern Minnesota, a place where most folks would consider sushi to be the bait one would use to catch larger fish.  I’m sure there have been a few times that she has regretted her idea, but for the most part has adapted very well.  She learned how to drive in the snow. During the spring thaws, she wears a very stylish pair of  rubber boots. Last summer, she innocently planted a whole package of zucchini seeds and ended up with enough to feed a small army. She and her husband live WAY out in the woods, and  have no children yet. Their “kids” are  two slobbering yellow labs the size of large ponies, ten chickens and one small old crabby chihuahua. Quite a combination. Despite my warnings, they put in a doggy door so “the boys” can get in and out during the day…..and the night, so it seems. Last week, while they were asleep, the more curious, least  intelligent, and largest of the menagerie decided to check out a skunk then came back in through the doggy door and laid down beside the bed like nothing had happened.  Not being familiar with the smell of fresh skunk, the City Girl shook her husband awake: “Get up! Gas leak! We need to get the HELL out of the house!”  Yup, it was “gas” all right. Poor naive City Girl.  What she didn’t know it that in washing the stinky slobbery dog, she herself would smell like a skunk. She just started a new job a month ago. “Nobody even noticed,” she said a couple of days later.  “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” Right. I think they were just being nice.  Minnesota nice. We eat our fish fried,  have lots of zucchini recipes and we don’t tell people they smell like skunk. Not to their faces, anyway.