Back in the 1920s on the bald-headed prairie of Alberta, my uncles, Bruce and Ed, would rear a pig once a year.  They knew the ultimate fate for the pigs was to be butchered.  However, they would move the pen every day for cleanliness, wash down the pigs, and they would name them.  As we all know, you don't name food.

Ultimately, my grandmother would announce that the time had come.  My mother remembered the horrible sobbing of her brothers - every time.  My grandmother was a widow and very poor.  When a pig was slaughtered and butchered, she would get half and the man who did the deed got half.  We're an extremely brutal species, don't you think?

This photo was taken by Donna Dickson, a woman with whom I used to work.