This is one of my all time favorite photographs. My grandpa is preparing to butcher a hog and boiling water is part of the process. The scalding water is used to remove the fine hair of a hog. The pigs not only provided food for grandpa and his family in the way of ham, sausage and alike,  the ones that sold at market provided money in the cookie jar to be used for other things.

Going to town with Grandpa was a great adventure for an eight year old boy. Grandpa would hook up his two big red mules to the wagon and off we would go headed to Six Mile. Usually there would be something in the wagon for Grandpa to sell or trade for cash or dry-goods…never went empty-handed and never came home empty-handed. The “empty-handed” part may not be exactly true, I really don’t know, but that is the way I remembered it that summer…