It was funny because when I was 16 so that was 66 I had a job nights and weekends at a Mink Pelting company, thats when animal furs were still in. We would get loads of mink from the mink farms supposedly dead already, they would skin them in the skinning shed then they went to the fleshers and depending on the type of mink they would either take the fat layer off by hand or use a fleshing machine on the bigger ones mainly the males then they had two processes either dry or soft so they would dry them on a board some were skin side out some were fur side out and the soft one they put a bunch in a drum that revolved and it had something like kitty litter in it and they came out really soft and felt beautiful. Once in a while they would get a live one and you should've seen the guys in the skinning shed scatter.
I had the nastiest job in the place called utility but I was make $3 an hour which was big money in those days. One of my jobs was under the skinning shed each skinner would
throw the carcuss
through a hole and there was 4 55gallon drums under to collect them. By the time I would get there they would be overflowing so I had to use a pitch fork and pick them up and put them in another drum standing in mink blood doing this. I road a motorcycle to and from work. The dogs would smell me coming a mile away. You wore the same clothes for the whole season then
threw them away. I think the most beautiful ones we would get were from Oregon State University. They were huge and all black. Those things are vicious like badgers or something.
