Idaho Trip - Day 1

We found three reasons to make a quick trip to Idaho last week. Two involved sheep. We left early of Friday morning with the plan to get to Weiser, Idaho by late afternoon to drop sheepskins off at a new tannery.

We caught a glimpse of welcome snow as we go into the Sierras. Snow is welcome because California is in such need of a snow pack this winter and any snow will help with the fires that are still burning.

We were driving the truck so that we could haul the sheepskins with us and return with other cargo. This truck is 2 wheel drive, but there wasn’t enough snow that we needed to worry about not having 4 WD or chains.

There was evidence of snow on some of the peaks in the middle of Nevada as well.

We made it to Living Sky Tannery in Weiser about 5:00. The tannery is housed in a building on the farm that includes plenty of space for this family’s other needs as well. This photo shows the first step in the process. The lambskins go into the washing machine to get the first cleaning and remove the salt used to dry the pelt.

I realize now that I didn’t find out enough details to fully explain this process. I do know that the method Living Sky uses is based on the natural and non-toxic method that the owners learned in England. Duane built most of the infrastructure modeled what they saw there. I don’t remember the exact order of the process and I did not get a photo of the next process of fleshing the pelts—that is to remove any remaining flesh or fat that is still clinging to the underneath. Anything left on the hide can prevent the tannin from being absorbed completely. Next the pelts go into a “pickling” tub but I don’t know what is in that solution.

There are four more tanks for soaking the pelts in a solution of mimosa bark. Duane built the motorized paddlewheels at the back of the tubs to slowly move the pelts through the solution.

This is a barrel of mimosa powder. When I googled I found this at leather-dictionary.com :

“Mimosa bark is a vegetable tannin, which is extracted from the tanner acacia cultivated in Australia, Southeast Asia and South Africa. The bark of the tree is used for tanning as it has a very high tannin content of up to 30 percent. Leather tanned with mimosa bark has a reddish color through the tannins.” I learned that there are trees grown specifically for this use in Africa.

After all the wet tanning processes are finished the hides are secured to boards that can be slid into a cupboard that will hold a couple dozen.

When the hides are dry they are brushed if necessary to remove burrs and other vegetable matter. That is a motorized roller behind the table that will help to remove debris and pull off matted parts.

I realize that I really need another visit to thoroughly understand the whole process. I’ll look forward to that next year. We were welcomed by and thoroughly enjoyed visiting with Kimberly and Duane, but felt rushed because we wanted to get to McCall before it got too late.

For now all of this year’s lambskins are at 4 different tanneries so that I can see which one does best with my Jacob pelts and to compare processing and shipping costs. We left 16 lambskins at Living Sky and have others at tanneries in Wisconsin, Oregon and one that I just heard about in central California.