Not many young people realize how valuable animal fur was back in the day. In the mid 70's as a 10 year old it was nothing for our group of 6 to skin a couple hundred rats a night. We got a quarter a piece, threw the carcasses in 55 gallon drums and I'll never forget the name of the truck that picked them up. Nice and large in all caps on the side of the truck "THE FAT PEOPLE". The first time I saw it I about peed myself. In fact those were the first black people I ever spoke with, just as an aside. All we had to do was skin them, the dad would skim the fat off and stretch them. I moved away before I got old enough to run my own trap line, $7 each was a lot of money if you knew what you were doing and could trap 30 or so in a day. It was damn cold on that marsh checking those trap, but as a kid it was all kinds of awesome.
We then moved about 10 miles away where we started a dairy farm, I then got to work every day for room and board. It's all good, builds character, but they did give me gas money so they could get that extra half hour of work out of me if I rode the school bus.