Our Bison Fiber Journey

The latest news from Ron & T of The Buffalo Wool Co. at RATH Ranch. Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more

And now for the rest of the story... or so

(in my best Paul Harvey voice)

Hope 2026 is going great for you! We actually took most of a day off on Thursday after packing orders etc, and that was really nice, It's been a while.

We are back at it, had an awesome start to the year, and there are things that need doing. Primarily we got to get some more bison fiber sheared and in process to keep this train on the tracks. The warehouse is looking thin.

So, Clint and I are heading out tomorrow for Colorado, to go get this whole process started again... it's shear, scour, dehair, blend, spin, knit, package, sell, and repeat as necessary.

There are big things gonna happen here in 2026, spoiler: we are going after the NFL, NBA, and NHL. Have already had some serious interest, we just got to make it happen.

The original plan was to make this story into a book, have a fair bit of it written up somewhere, and had the perfect title. "How We Turned a Million Dollar Idea into $27.50 and some Chickens" maybe someday it will see the light of day...

I hope you enjoy what we have in here this morning, might have to extend this one more depending on how verbose it gets, but let's get into it. It's a 20+ year long story, might be too much for two emails and your patience.

Hope you have a Wonderful Day!

Ron & T, and the rest of the crew here at the BWC

Life on the road: Ten years traveling...

So, when we left off, Dad and I had just split up Buffalo Gold, my wife, Theresa, now referred to as "T", who had been working at the Ft. Worth Housing Authority as a contract counselor, took the chance, gave up our benifits, insurance, and 401k, and joined me doing this full time.

It was a leap of faith, we had put all our savings into this, and refinanced the house... and we really had no clue how or if we were gonna make it, but we knew that bison fiber was pretty magical stuff, and we had a lot of smart friends with lots of ideas, and we were determined to make this work.

So, we did what we thought was best... we hit the road and let people see and touch things in person, was a very interesting experience, so many people back then believed bison were still endangered, and how could we take their fur.

We started attending every event and show that we could get into. Starting each year off at DSC here in Dallas, then racing to Denver, spend a couple of weeks in Harrisburg, Santa Clara CA., OKC, Schaumburg IL, Baltimore, Dallas again, Blackland Prairie, Taos, San Diego, Calgary, Tacoma, London, Edinburgh, Rhinebeck, Asheville, and a lot of other places I can't even remember now, and ending the year spending a month standing on the streets of DC.

By the end of the run, we were crossing the country 4x a year, doing 42+ events annually, basically every weekend, and 3 of which were two weeks or longer, spending approx 46-50 weeks traveling.

It wasn't easy, there were plenty of 14 hr days driving (the most we were allowed by law) so much time setting up the booth, standing there, talking to people and then breaking down, driving home and leaving again for the next one. It wasn't easy at all, but we met literally thousands of truly amazing people, and are still friends with a heck of a lot of them (like you friend reading this), we did some wild and fun things, and learned a heck of a lot.

At some point early in that traveling phase, we were home for a few hours, and we had the idea to build out a traveling store... well, one late night, I was playing on Ebay, and the next morning I had to go tell T that I had somehow managed to buy an old Twinkie truck for $12,000... and I knew we definitely didn't have that kind of cash. So I did what any self respecting husband would do, went to the wife and said "I think I bought a truck last night... and I have a plan." We launched a GoFundMe to help pay for Ms. Betsy, we named the truck after a truly wonderful woman who discovered that you could actually dye bison fiber into different colors. (common thinking at the time was that it wasn't possible)

We raised the funds very very quickly... so many good friends who believed we could make it work out supported us. We ended up putting all their names on the truck, and every time we went out to go load up or head somewhere, it was a habit to look at those names and give thanks for the people who helped us along the way.

this is what the truck looked like when we got it... there was a lot to be done.

Well, after a fair bit of work, she cleaned up nicely... completely redone and ready for customers to walk through and shop our wares. Even got a little trailer to haul additional stuff with us as we made many many miles. She was absolutely horrific to drive... top speed of 62 mph, and at 63 she would shake so bad we would leave pieces and parts behind.

I do remember once traveling down a NY highway when the battery came undone, T was driving, and I was laying down holding the battery cables onto the posts so we could get out of traffic. Good Times.

this still cracks me up, from when we sold her.

So, if you have made it this far, Thank You so much... went through a bunch of old pics and memories, 3 hrs this morning, and still a ways to go.

I know it's a big wall of text and pics, and the one takeaway I hope you leave with is that this expererience helped shape us and the company. Mostly it was the friends we made along the way, so many wonderful people. We learned a lot, and still are.

The next installment was a huge eye opener for us, a truly amazing person invited us to a sportsmans show in Wasilla Alaska... this is when the story gets good and the pics get better.