Pickled Ladybugs

My husband's Grandma K, who has already earned a post all her own, is right in the middle of the summer harvest. I'm not talking about the wheat. That's another post entirely. No, Grandma K has fruit trees, and a garden, and we all spend the summer trying to eat as much fresh produce as possible because, well, why not? We have been stuffing ourselves with apricots, peaches, cucumbers, jellies and, of course, homemade pickles.

Grandma makes refrigerator pickles, which means they don't sit in the big tub of brine first like normal pickles, but gain their pickly goodness while jarred on the cabinet. I'm not sure what all she uses, although I know she gave me the recipe once, but on top of the jar is a big flower from her dill plants, and a big grapevine leaf. The leaf is to keep them from getting brown, or soggy, or something else that is unappealing in pickles. The exact reason escapes me.

Anyway, my point is, that you know Grandma's stuff comes straight from her garden, because when I pulled the grape-leaf out of our most recent pickle jar (I didn't bother pulling it out at first, we just dug around it) there was a perfectly preserved little ladybug clinging to the grape leaf. Now I call that fresh and all-natural. I tell you what, you can't get tiny pickled ladybugs just anywhere, folks. That's some real down-home-Oklahoma-farm-goodness right there. Oh yeah, and we've almost finished the jar of pickles.

I'm going to pull the leaf out first next time, though. Call me citified. I just want to know, that's all.