The Bison Fiber Journey

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

Hello and Good Morning Friends!

Hope all is well in your part of the world, things are interesting here currently. Just doing the things we need to do, and there are quite a few things. It's been a wild one here.

Clint Holmes, best friend, chicken wrangler, soap mogul, and our shearing crew leader, Dad and I headed out Monday for Colorado to get our bison down harvest started for the year, so we can start this whole crazy process over again... was a fun, fast and windy trip, but Dad and I made it back home, and Clint is there getting this stuff done. I cannot thank him enough.

We got a lot of interest and some awesome comments on the last two missives, and I do plan on continuing putting up the rest of our little story, but today I am gonna take some time to tell the story of the people doing the heavy lifting in this mission... these are all dear friends and these are the people you are supporting when you purchase our products.

They are also extremely wonderful people, and working with them is truly a pleasure. Makes me love doing what we do. It is fun trying to figure out new things when you get to do it with friends.

From the ranchers who raise them to the men and women who spin the yarns, and the people knitting, sewing, weaving, and felting. We are doing what we can to help bolster the American textile industry. So much production has moved overseas, we want to keep people working here, and making great things.

The real beginnings start with the bison ranchers, and I will probably take the next 51 Saturdays this year talking about them. They are the people making the greatest comeback story in history happen... it's kinda why the film Native: Prodigies of an Icon (Coming very very soon!) was made. It was just a dream until Charlie and Shauna turned it into a reality. Getting pretty excited about the premier in just 17 days!!!! if you are coming to the NBA Conference in Denver on the 21st, you can grab some tickets here. It's gonna be EPIC! Don't wait, this is gonna sell out soon.

So, with all that, let's get into the process, hope you enjoy what we have in here today, there are a few links to external articles and I would grab a fresh cup of coffee/tea/bourbon and settle in if you have some time. If not, you can just skip to the bottom and go shopping.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Ron & T and the crew here at BWC.

Starting with the Shearing...

Clint Holmes, our homesteading mentor, best friend, chicken wrangler, and the less attractive half of Holmestyle Homestead Soaps is leading the shearing operations again this year. Kim is occupied making soap this season, y'all are keeping her quite busy getting clean, and that's a good thing.

We will shear approx 10k hides this year if all goes well. We select the ones where the down fiber has begun to slough off, and aren't usable for hair on robes. (the nicest thing you can do with a bison hide) If we didn't do this, the hair would be burned off in the tanning process. Doing what we do helps use less of the chemicals and results in less effluence in the process.

Scouring and Dehairing

The next two parts of the process aren't that exciting, but they are extremely important. Getting the fiber clean isn't easy... these big beasts do tend to wallow in the sand and dirt, and it gets trapped in the fine downy fiber. So, a six step washing process we have worked on with the scouring plant really seems to get all the unwanted stuff off the fiber and render it truly microscopically clean. Then it has to be dehaired, separate the coarse guard hairs from the fine undercoat fiber we use for our soft goods.

here is a good article on it from Spin Off Magazine.

Spinning the yarns.

Making the bison fiber yarns for our products is truly an art form. John Dearnly (pic at the top of the page) has been making our stuff for the last 20 years. Have put up a couple of blog posts on John and S&D here. Part 1 and Part 2

S&D Spinning Mill he and his family ran in Ma has closed, but John has continued on, and has been working with the fine folks at Crescent Spinning Mill in Two Rivers Wisconsin, in how to turn fluff into something usable. They have been spinning our yarns for the last 4 years, and are doing an excellent job. We make 5 base yarns, a couple different weights and blends, and I think we need to do a deep dive on the yarns, what we make and why we chose those.

Will do a piece on Crescent Spinning Mill shortly... they are just great to work with from the top down, our rep there Jon Zeilinger has been a friend for 20 or so years, and his father Gary was one of the first people to make our yarns. Good story on Zeilingers Mill here.

Knitting things together.

We have been working with Michael Caird at the Knitting Mill in Liberty Hill the last 16 or so years, he is truly the greatest guy and a dear friend. I really enjoy any chance we get to spend time together or even just talk on the phone. He takes our crazy ideas and turns them into reality. When our glove knitter in NY quit the biz, Mike picked up the mantle, purchased a couple of glove knitting machines, and got busy. He knits all our beanies, gaiters, scarves, gloves and now our new Pure Prairie socks, the fastest product sellout in BWC history, and yes, he is knitting more right now.

Truly love working with Mike, and excited about what is coming soon.

Fox River Mills, Osage Iowa, who has knitted our socks for the last 16 years has closed their doors, and the machines are being moved to Nester Hosiery, and we are really excited about the new partnership here. They have been wonderful in the process, and have said we should see our first socks from them in Mid-January... will definitely let you know when we get them in. They are keeping the development team in Osage, and we get to keep working with Dan V, who has developed almost all of our socks... another guy I really love working with. Just makes life fun.

There are quite a few people I didn't get to here, but with the limitations on how long one of these can be, it's gonna have to wait till next week. Got Faribault Mills, US Felt, American Lictor, Rogue Wallets, and a few more fun friends.

In the meantime, if you want to support these folks... and aquire some of the best made U.S. socks and things, there is some stuff we have below.

Kenai are almost sold out, Pro-gear aren't far behind... and No-shows are moving faster than anything we have done before. They won't last past Feb at this rate. I did do some more of the Rudolph Red socks in Medium yesterday, had gotten more than a few asks.