The Minnesota Farm Woman

I used to earn a few bucks each summer picking berries and picking wood ticks off the dog. Dad paid a penny for the small ticks and a nickel for the fat ones, plus anywhere between a dime and a quarter for berries, depending on the size of the cup.  I disliked both jobs, but he believed in making us earn some of the our own money to spend on candy at Gram’s Kozy Korner or  on the Tilt-a-Whirl and hot dogs at The World’s Largest Wild Rice Festival. Hopefully, the hot dogs would be eaten AFTER the tilting and the whirling . I saved my allowance for weeks. That, plus my tick money, gave me enough so I wouldn’t have to whine for more money for at least a day. My local readers don’t need an explanation, but my readers from around the country (even as far away as Fargo) need to know that The World’s Largest Wild Rice Festival is probably also the World’s ONLY Wild Rice Festival.  I’m digressing, though, so back to the story of Jack and the wood ticks. My dad and his hunting cronies stayed at our cabin every fall, and every spring, we would find another empty bottle of  Yukon Jack on top of the old Hoosier cabinet. Yukon Jack is a rather sweet liqueur made from Canadian whisky and honey, and is said to warm even the coldest hunter from his lips down to the tips of his toes during an icy cold northern hunt.  One year,  there was a little leftover Jack in the bottom of the bottle. Instead of drinking it, Dad decided to put all the wood ticks he had picked off himself that summer into the bottle.  I know you have two questions here. First, why would there be any leftover whisky after a cold Minnesota winter  and second, why in the HECK would someone put wood ticks in a perfectly good bottle of whisky?  I must admit that I don’t know the answer to either, and I doubt that I ever will.  I do know that my sister and I were in charge of cleaning out that cabin after my parents passed away, and I was in charge of the empties, which I sneaked to the recycling center under cover of darkness, certain that someone would notice me dropping off a large box full of empty whisky bottles and think that I was a closet guzzler.  This is a small town, after all, and you just never know about those Lutheran church council members. We decided to keep the bottle of pickled wood ticks, if for no other reason than we are a couple of sentimental fools and inherited our dad’s rather strange sense of humor.  I still pick a few ticks off the dog each summer, but I don’t make any money doing it. I pick berries only when I have to, and I don’t ride the Tilt-a-Whirl any more.  Gram’s Kozy Korner is long gone, except in the memories of a generation of small-town kids, and believe it or not, The World’s Largest Wild Rice Festival is still going strong and in its 68th year.  Even after all these years, the wood ticks are still in that bottle on the fireplace  mantle of our cabin, floating around in a pool of Yukon Jack and looking almost as good as new. It  makes a good conversation piece, anyway, even though cabin visitors look at us a little strangely when we tell the story.