Pig slaughter

Today a friend of mine slaughtered a pig with her family. It is not the right time of the year to do this, usually Romanian do this on Christmas, but it, and its brother, got too fat very fast and they had to slaughter one. The other is not much thinner, so I don't think it will survive till Christmas either. A pig's life...everything has a limit anyway.
My friend gave my some pork skin, which I adore and these pictures. She knows I can use them to present our traditions with different occasions.
In this image, you can see a piece of traditional courtyard "furniture". It is used, as you can see, to dry up and store different pots used around the household ("prepeleac").
The pig slaughter begins with serving it some home made alcohol. The men get it drank as a form of anesthesia. On Christmas, the children usually chase the pig around the yard for a while, to their delight.
In every village, there are only a few people who are called to slaughter the pigs. The men of the house help at its slaughter in smaller portions outside in the yard and then the women take over the preparation of pork in the kitchen.

In this image you can see the stage when they burn the hairs.

After hair burning, they boil some water for washing the blood. As you can see, they do this in a very "small" pot.

Before they wash it, they soften it with ground salt. Here is an image of its washing. It is very minute, considering that every part of the animal is used.

And here it is - washed and ready to "party". It seems to take a nap before leaving...

This is a picture taken especially for me. My friend knows that these pictures, in which the pig seems to be smiling, amuse me very much. This pig seems happier even, especially when you look at its raised pointy ears.

This is the stage when they cut a cross on its forehead. I think it's a blessing for the meals that will be taken from it.

This is the last stage in the courtyard, its opening and slicing of the meat. As you can see, it had a lot of grease. It had a good life and it was its time to go.