Summer at the Tannery

Spring is nearly over. Shepherds are wrapping up their lambing and shearing. Most sheep are out on pasture by now, in the Midwest anyway. Summer is nearly upon us. We are plugging away; washing, tanning and finishing the hides that were sent to us from the last harvest. Farmers often call to check on the status of their orders looking to see if they will be ready for their upcoming markets. There is about a five month wait before we finish the hides that we receive today. Mostly we operate on a first in, first out policy but we do offer farmers an option to pay in advance for a spot in line. For instance, if you have a butcher date for the fall, you can prepay to get into today’s queue. Five months from today puts those finished hides back into the farmers hands by the winter holiday season. Our tanning process takes three weeks from beginning to end. Each week we wash, tan, and finish 40 hides. That is the goal anyway. Some weeks we far exceed our goal, some we come up short. This week’s wash was interrupted by a boil order in the village. Last week it was all hands on deck in finishing to get past a bottle neck.

Summer brings with it more predictability at the Tannery as less fresh hides show up on our doorstep. We offer hide preparation services to locals year round but there isn’t a lot of harvesting that happens during the summer. In the fall and winter months, farmers and hunters can show up daily with fresh hides for us to prepare. We prefer to take in fresh hides in those cooler months. That allows us more flexibility with the timing of the hide preparation. Cool temperatures give us the leeway to get through a stack of hides before experiencing any hair slippage. Hot temperatures will supercharge bacteria and rot. If you are a farmer or rancher that harvests year round, you know the dilemma. Be sure to take extra precautions to ensure your hides are kept cool and in the shade when processing hides in the summertime.

Most of us that work at Driftless grow our own food and spend lots of time in the garden planting, weeding, harvesting and putting up food. The slower, more predictable pace of summer at the Tannery suits us all quite well.

-Team Driftless