I hope that raccoon learned its lesson.
Okay, confession time. My father was a mink rancher. He killed and pelted thousands of furry nasty critters in his life. But that was a different time, and I harbor no ill will toward him. This neckpiece that he gave me when I was about 4, though, is a different matter.
I am loathe to give it up, but I know I will never, ever wear it.
The last time it was around my neck was in about 1957.
kmkat & her kneedles 
It all depends not only on the time, but on the place for this acceptance. In the Northwest Territories, many Inuit and Dene still live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle with sustainable trapping, hunting and fishing a crucial part of their sustenance. The Canadian government recognizes and honours this. In Inuvik for several weeks in the winter the temperatures would drop to minus 44 to minus 46 degrees Celsius. At minus 40 degrees both Fahrenheit and Celsius are the same, so it is nostril hair and eyelash freezing time! Our dog still needed to be walked. Phil still walked to work, and I did food shopping. Our coats had fur collars on the hoods so that one’s face did not get frostbitten. One had to breathe through a wool scarf to warm the air before the searing cold entered the lungs. Cause that HURTS! The fur on the hood around the face also assisted with this pre-warming of the air. Of course, the scarf became wet quickly and also froze.One’s eyes stung from the cold, watered nd the eyelashes would crust up with ice. One then had to keep blinking quickly so as not to have the eyes freeze shut, no joke. So there are places where furs are still a necessity for survival.
The absolute best day of the week… confessions included! XO
Yay!!! It’s Friday!!! (Thank you for making Fridays so happy!)
I don’t know what happened to it, but my grandma used to have a fur collar similar to yours. I loved playing with it when I was young, until it really sank in that it was a real fur and had once been an animal. We didn’t live anywhere near cold enough for real furs to have been needed; this was purely a fashion piece. I feel your pain, though. That piece had a lot of memories but I wouldn’t have been able to bring myself to wear it anywhere.