As we begin 2023, I'd like to say goodbye to 2022 by reflecting on what a great year we had.
We had baby Basil in May. He is now seven months old and can sit up and scoot across the floor like a snail. He says hi. We hired our new helper "Bubba", who is best person for the job. He oversees pressure washing, draining hides, cleaning up the shop, and even repairing and building equipment, truly a master of all trades. We began homeschooling our six year old, August, and then promptly sent him back to school. I have a renewed sense of appreciation for teachers, especially elementary school teachers (so grateful for you!) and he's also discovered the world of Minecraft which he will talk to you about everyday, all day if you let him. He's actually really amazing at that, even made a grocery store. I see a future architect in the making! We sent our teenager, Mason, to his first year of high school (making straight A's by the way). He also started taking drumming lessons at a local music academy and is excelling at that. Salem, our three year old started head start and now has the same teacher that taught his big brother, August (Hey Mrs. Karen, we love you!). He's making tons of new friends. Our other teenager, Atticus, started his last year of middle school and is also making straight A's (proud momma here) and started MMA classes. We got sick a million times (which happens when every kid is in a different school) and began a steady regime of vitamins and probiotics. I started learning Spanish and now can successfully order Mexican food, kind of. Gracias para leer "La Esposa's Boletin Informativo"! Lance created The Fur Dressers Handbook, Then I eventually created this website. Finally, we started making plans to move to Colorado where hopefully I can find someone to teach me better Spanish and lance can get a shop that isn't in my house!!
Now, the story of FDH.
Lance began this year as always doing a phenomenal job tanning and shaving hides as per the usual. This year, though, he had the most spectacular idea of creating The Fur Dresser's Handbook. While you all see eight hours of instructional content, FDH took several months of recording, editing, reviewing and a couple of times just scrapping a whole video and starting over. So much preparation was involved. From the very beginning of even tinkering around with the idea of tanning, lance talked about how hard it was to find any information on how to tan or shave and the information that was available was scarce. We heard multiple times how tanning was a dying trade and it was no mystery to us about why. There weren't many options available on training. So much secrecy and for what reason? There are millions of hides that need to be tanned every year, there is no competition. So this last year alone we have sold over 100 copies of FDH, so many that I started to lose count. We started off selling them through Facebook. I did not anticipate such an explosion of interest. As my shipping list got exceedingly long, I realized soon I would need a better method of keeping track of orders and shipping statuses. Thus, this website was born and has been a huge success. Nothing prepared us for the outpouring of support and interest and as always, we are forever grateful. I hope you all had a great year last year and an even better year this year. Happy New Year from our family to yours!
Picture of all the little baby "Rookies" with their paw-paw.