2025-01-23 ... Wyoming ... Batch 10 Warp

Last night I arrived in Casper, Wyoming, where I will remain on semi-vacation for a couple of weeks.  Until i am back in the office i'm working on my cellphone, so any keyboard work, such as this page, will be limited.

It's kind of amazing how we rag the airlines for late departures and baggage fees but take SAFETY as a given.  My flights were completely forgettable.  YAY!!!

This morning I learned that Tintoria has completed dyeing the Black Warp for Batch 10 Denim.  This siginifantly advances the schedule for Charcoal Denim!!  Another YAY!!

2025-01-20
THANKS to the Alaska Tappers Association, the History Channel, and particularly Ivy O'Guinn and Bret Bohn for this Instagram story/photo!

There is a lot for me to love here ... the photo was taken during the filming of History Channel's very popular Mountain Men series.  Bret and Ivy are among about a dozen people on the show that have our wool, mostly in Lynx Pattern.  Here, Brett and Ivy both wear Lynx Pattern Anoraks, and it is terrif to see our Lynx Pattern paired an actual Lynx Pelt,, from which Ivy made her hat!

2025-01-19 ... "Open House" Video
We usually hold Open House at the end of the month, but younger son Zack, and Carla, his Missus, are expecting a daughter in a few days.  Grandmother's presence is highly desired ... Debby has been in Wyoming for a week, and I'll be headed West shortly.  So, no Open House until Sunday, 23 February.

We have more work to do now than ever before.  It's great, but also daunting and chaotic.  We work from home, and the house has taken on the look of a mail-room running far above capacity.  This short video will give a sense of WeatherWool headquarters today:

A quick video tour of the first floor of our house, which is now mostly WeatherWool headquarters.

All of the "actual production" of WeatherWool, happens elsewhere.  At our home we do everything that does not involve growing or processing wool or making garments ... planning, designing, testing, customer relations, inventory, financials.  AND SHIPPING!

It's great working from home, and I hope we can continue to do that.  But I also hope we can relocate to a home that physically adjoins a proper, dedicated workspace.  I can't express adequate THANKS to Debby for allowing all this.

 

2025-01-18
Advisor Cliff "Canoe" Jacobson is certainly one of the best-known personalities in the world of North American Canoeing.  Kurt Warnke, on the left, has been wearing our wool on his Wilderness Canoe Trips for several years.  I had no idea (should have guessed, tho!) he was friends with Cliff until Kurt sent this photo, taken today at Tom Anderson's "Life of Adventure" presentation.

Cliff is in his mid-80s now, and isn't getting out on the wild rivers anymore.  He gave his wool to someone who will make more use of it.   Kurt's first CPO was stolen a couple of years back, but he grabbed another.  Kurt and two friends will be on the Hart River this coming summer.  Cliff's book, Canoeing Wild Rivers, now in its 30th Anniversary edition, is full of amazingly detailed information gathered from personal experience.  I think Cliff must have filled notebooks while in the field.

2025-01-17 ... Long Day in the Anorak ... 
It's after 1AM now.  I got dressed about 6:30 AM yesterday.  A cotton T-Shirt and then a MidWeight Anorak.  When I put on an Anorak first thing, I'll usually wear it all day.  Whatever I was doing in the past 19 hours, the Anorak seemed just the ticket (except maybe packing a Black Hooded, as mentioned in previous entry).  Sitting at my desk, toting firewood and working outside (temp a few degrees below freezing all day), quick trip into NYC, walking around the neighborhood while on the phone.  I could definitely feel the cold through my light cotton pants.  But no chill on my arms, despite short sleeves under the Anorak.  The wool was also good in the office, where the fireplace sometimes had the temp cranked up over 80F/27C.

Good to see things moving along with Batch 10 and Batch Innes-1 (Batch 11).  REALLY looking forward to getting some more Fabric.  There is so much we want to make!

I needed to drop off a couple of things at Factory8 in NYC's Garment District, plus make a pickup.  The round trip took only 90 minutes, including 5 minutes or so for the usual short sidewalk session with JR.  The new All-Around Jackets are looking really good!  About 10 days ago, the city enacted "congestion pricing", which means any vehicle that enters lower Manhattan during peak hours is automatically charged $9 (they read all the license plates).  Governments here in the northeast are always looking for more ways to take money from working people.  The idea is the fee will reduce traffic, and it certainly seems to have made a difference, although I'd guess traffic will soon be back to normal.  But I've been in and out of Midtown a couple of times under the new $9 plan and traffic was lighter and parking was easier.  If I have to go, I'll go (or Alex will!), regardless of traffic or congestion fee.  We were already paying around $16 to go through the Lincoln Tunnel.

Earlier today (well, yesterday), someone phoned to change his order from Black to Lynx because he read the previous post.  I should have anticipated that!

2025-01-15 ... "Well, DUH" Strikes Again
I normally don't do the shipping because I'm really bad at it and I have a lot of other things to do anyway.  BUT we have a lot of shipping to do now that we are getting CPOs and Pants and even some Hooded Jackets out the door.

But if I'm going to be on the phone, may as well do something with my hands and get a Black Hooded Jacket shipped.  So the Hooded looks great, but it's got some very tiny bits of brown paper or something on it.  I clean it off with a lint roller, which is standard procedure.  I turn it over and work the roller on the other side, then flip it again, and the tiny brown bits are back.  Hmmmm.  Table is clean.  OK, lint roller again, flip again.  More little brown bits.  It looks to me just like tiny pieces of corrugated cardboard.  Makes sense, the Hoodeds were packed in brown corrugated boxes.  I do the lint roller again ... flip again ... same story.  What? 

I might have figured it out sooner (maybe not!) if I hadn't been on the phone.  But eventually I realized the problem.  I carried a lot of firewood in my arms today, working indoors and outdoors in a Lynx Pattern Anorak.  Lynx Pattern hides everything.  We ALWAYS tell people if they want something that never looks dirty, get Lynx.  And Black is the opposite.  Black shows everything.   Each time I flipped the Black Hooded, tiny bits of sawdust were knocked off the Lynx Anorak onto the Black Fabric.   Completely invisible on the Lynx, but amazingly conspicuous on the Black.

I needed someone to train me how to pack boxes.

We have the full range of sizes in FullWeight Black Hooded Jackets.   And we have a few in FullWeight Drab Green, sizes Medium and Large only.  If you want one, please contact me directly.  We won't be offering these on the website in the usual way until we catch up with shipping the CPOs and Pants.

2025-01-13 ... Shipping and Managing Expectations
Here's a photo of our front porch at about 8:30 PM today. 

That's only about half the packages that Troy from UPS picked up.  Troy was moving amazingly fast, as usual, and was working alone.  He's had a helper sometimes lately, and working very long hours, because of some glitch with what the Post Office will pick up.  I could not keep pace with Troy for an hour, let alone a 13-hour day.  When I was a teenager, working freight, I was a trucker's helper sometimes.  I was in high school, helping guys in their 50s, and they would tell me to take it easy.  Even at age 16, I think Troy would have worn me out!  I think he turns 50 this year ...

Alex and I and Debby were working all weekend, as usual, and today we had plenty of enthusiastic help!  Big difference!!  We'll keep on truckin' tomorrow, and getting these "pre-orders" for CPOs and Pants finally shipped ... plenty more to do.

One of the changes for us, as we get better known, is that we are getting orders from people who are very, very focused on fit and style much more than anything else.  I think maybe the give us a try because we are something new and different for their wardrobe.  But we're not a good match for people who are uninterested in versatility of function (or, increasingly, non-toxic clothing).  We'd love for our garments to please the eye, and to fit everyone.  But that ain't going to happen.  And we want people to be very happy with whatever they get (keep!) from us.   With this new type of customer, I'm getting returns because a garment is just a little too long, because of "the styling", because medium is too small and large is too big.  In the last couple days I've explained to a few people that we are a FABRIC company and that if medium is too small and large is too big and the Fabric doesn't matter, they should probably shop elsewhere. 

2025-01-10 ... Clarifying Yesterday ... Sheep Industry Convention
Next Wednesday through Saturday is the Annual Meeting of the American Sheep Industry.  I do have plans and reservations, but I am probably going to cancel anyway.  Too much going on here at the office for me to take five full days away, particularly given that I'll need to be in Wyoming for family a little later in the month.

Regarding yesterday's entry, I should have made clear that New Jersey has a thicket of deer hunting regulations which basically add up to extremely liberal bag limits.  There are many parts of Jersey that have no limit on antlerless deer.  A friend donating a deer to a friend is entirely within the law and common.

Because of WeatherWool, I speak with folks in every US State and Canadian Province and many other countries.   A lot of people think of New Jersey (the Garden State!) as completely industrialized.  We do have a lot of industry and the densest human population in USA.  But Jersey is also undoubtedly one of the best venison States.  Guys in Colorado tell me they may have to apply for three or four years to draw a deer-tag, and are shocked to learn it's very much the opposite here.

2025-01-09 ... Coming Full Circle?
Decades ago, I was startled when a rural Canadian told me he'd killed hundreds of moose.  Rural folk sometimes really rely on wild meat.  Some of my own family have taken hundreds of whitetail deer.  But hundreds of moose?   Moose are about six times bigger than whitetail.  And this guy was probably around 30 years old.  He explained that he loved to hunt, loved moose meat and was considered the best moose hunter around.  The local folks all applied for moose tags, and they drew quite a few of them ... each good for one moose.  But most of them didn't really want to hunt, or didn't have time, or were physically unable.  (Hunting the moose can be physically demanding.  But properly caring for the meat can be downright brutal.  WHAT'S THE BEST PLACE TO SHOOT A MOOSE?  NEXT TO A ROAD!!!!)  So, people arranged with The Moose Hunter to do the hunting in exchange for a quarter (meaning either a front- or hind-quarter of the animal).  I'm pretty sure that arrangement was not legal, but also pretty sure it was traditional and well-known by the game wardens.

In those days, I was much keener to hunt than I am now.  These days, it's the pleasure of being out there, and the great meat is a reward for the time and effort and, maybe, skill.  But this season, although I was fortunate with a couple of deer in October in Pennsylvania, Debby mentioned to Advisor Fisher Neal that I wanted another deer or two for the freezer.  Fisher is a busy hunting guide, and a "Huntin' Fool" (his big brother told me HE CAN'T HELP HIMSELF!), and he volunteered to get a deer for me.  He texted Debby that he'd enjoy a Busman's Holiday and shoot a deer for us last night.  And danged if he didn't take a nice fat young buck, hunting from the ground with a crossbow.  After several years of guiding here in New Jersey (sometimes literally within sight of NYC), Fisher is very dialed into the whitetails.  THANKS FISHER!!

One thing on my mind, tho ... I'm almost certain we've gotten deer meat from The Swamp every year since we bought it in 1998.  So I feel like I still need to get out there.  But right now, with so much wool-work to do, I'm unwilling to give up the half-day it will take me to hunt a whitetail and get it to the butcher.  And of course, there is no guarantee of a deer.  Odds actually are against making meat on any given day, at least for me (not Fisher, evidently!).  So WOW, Fisher hunted a deer for Debby and me!

2025-01-08 ... Budget ... Fit ... Perspectives
When we started this company in 2010, I was almost completely focused on performance of my Fabrics and garments.  I wanted durability, weather resistance, comfort, versatility ... with versatility encompassing a wide variety of weather conditions, activities, natural and social settings.  This was my perspective.  Debby's perspective was/is that the tailoring has to be equal to the Fabric.  I didn't focus on the quality of the tailoring at all.  And that stuff still sort of bounces off me.  Lucky to have Debby on it.  But in the early days, the customers were a lot more like me than Debby.  Our customers were all outdoorsmen (very few women in those days), Military, survivalists, farmers/ranchers and other people who worked outdoors.  And they all seemed focused on comfort and performance.

But more recently, particularly with the introduction of our 100% Wool Denim (Sorry to keep repeating "100% Wool Denim", but that's important and very unexpected to most folks.), I am talking to people who are very focused on "the fit".  We're now getting people who don't even mention the Fabric or the performance when they contact me.  They'll say IT FITS TERRIFIC!!  Or, shudder, LARGE IS JUST A LITTLE TOO BIG AND MEDIUM IS JUST A LITTLE TOO SMALL.

This is definitely a different mindset, a different perspective from our early days.  I'm not sure, frankly, someone should buy from us if the Fabric is not central to the purchase.  But, we feel honored by (almost!!) every customer.

I've mentioned before that governmental agencies, at least when the question is a purchase from us, become very cost-conscious.  We've been nixed for cost probably dozens of times.  I mention that now only because it came up again this morning.  A large federal agency thought we were too expensive.  But I bet the plastic stuff they issue is not a whole lot less costly.   I've decided to develop a piece with/for them, anyway, and we'll see what happens.  These guys are expected to run into burning buildings or pull people from burning cars or do whatever is necessary to safeguard the public.  They shouldn't be in plastic, whether or not it is treated with (noxious) flame retardant chemicals.  I'm pretty sure whatever we come up with will have wide appeal.  BTW, Military and Law Enforcement folks from many countries have all told me the same thing ... that their governments are extremely price-sensitive when it comes to clothing.  I don't know if they are price-sensitive or not when buying fighter-jets.  I remember once visiting a US Air Force base, standing amongst hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars of aircraft that cost many millions of dollars annually just to maintain, and having an officer tell me he didn't have the budget for $3000 of wool.  He was serious, too. 

Advisor Ron Spomer did a video-review a little while ago on an extremely powerful handgun ... difficult to shoot because of the recoil, and very loud.  Mostly people were commenting YEAH, FIRED THAT THING ONCE.  ENOUGH.  And, kind of short of practical purposes, too.  Great to stop a charging grizzly, except in that situation you want to have a firearm (yes, bear-spray may well be more effective!) with which you have practiced a great deal, and nobody wants to deal with extreme noise and recoil.  Ron was wearing our All-Around Jacket, and a bunch of the comments flagged the price of the jacket as outrageous.  But nobody seemed bothered by a $1500 handgun (and $5/round) that's seldom going to be used.  Another perspective.

And now we have an issue of still another type of perspective.  All the garments we've made since the purchases of raw wool in 2018 have had Batch Tags. This enables us to trace the entire history of a garment.  It's kind of a trend now, and I like that we've been at it for seven years.  We're shipping Batch 9 garments now.  Our Batch Tags have always been repurposed size tags ... And the people who make the size tags are probably happy that 9 and 6 are the same shape.  But the tailors sewed-in the 9 upside down, at least in relation to the other tags.  If you ask me, the 9 and the 6 should have been made more dissimilar a thousand years ago.  (Debby tells me I've gotten too temperamental and cranky.  And she's right!)  I should have foreseen this problem.   But so should untold numbers of others, including the people making the size tags.  Anyway, now we are underlining the 9, like they do on billiard balls.   Even tho the 6 ball is a solid color and the 9 is a stripe, they still underline the number.

2025-01-07 ... Animal Instincts??!!
For a long time, people have been sending me photos of their animals sleeping on WeatherWool.  It's been 5 years since we had any animals here, but I remember my old dog would always sleep on my original All-Around Jacket on the back seat of my truck.  Cody was telling us a few days ago that his kittens (a few months old) seem to deliberately, always choose to sleep on our wool.  He's begun testing them a little bit to see how much of a preference they have.    A few minutes ago, a customer wrote me that his dog slept all night on his new Blanket.

Everyone knows animals can sense things that people do not.  I've been wondering if maybe there is something significant here.  I'd be very interested, please to hear from anyone else who has animals, and whether they seem to exhibit any preferences for textiles.  If animals avoid something, we should probably take their advice.

I remember some years ago, speaking with a wrangler who handled both horses and mules.  He told me that mules have an undeserved reputation for being stubborn.  He said the mule is smart, and cautious, and that if a mule doesn't want to do something, it's probably best to take the animal's advice and don't do it.  (The stuff I learn from customers has been great!   Unfortunately, I remember the stories but not the names! ... THANKS ALL!)

With so much product here at home (we still operate out of our house, but we are pushing the limits!), we decided it's best not to have any dogs or cats at home.  So I can't experiment.  But I'm wondering ... Cats are well-known for resting in the warmest, sunniest spot in the house.  Would wool entice a cat to choose a less-sunny spot?

This might be an appropriate time to mention that many woolens are not 100% wool.  And that some of the 100% wool products are superwashed (meaning the wool has been somewhat denatured chemically and/or physically.  Hand-knitters tell us they can feel the difference between superwash and non-superwash wool.  So maybe animals will know the difference somehow.

Anyone with animal-wool input, please LMK!  (Ralph@WeatherWool.com ... +1-973-943-3110).  Thank You.  And Thanks also to Samuel T and his dog, both (I hope) enjoying the new Blanket.

2025-01-05 ... Starting a Sustainable Fashion Brand
We never intended to be "sustainable".  But, 100% USA and 100% (Ranch-Sourced) Wool does indeed make us a Sustainable Brand.  We also never intended to be a Fashion Brand, but we've always intended to be suitable for social and business settings.  And particularly now with our Denim, we can be viewed, at least in part, as a Fashion Brand.  This seems pretty strange to me, and if someone asked me to describe WeatherWool, "Sustainable, Fashion Brand" would certainly not be my response.

A little while ago I was reading the latest from Alden Wicker's EcoCult (link is to SubStack), which I really value.  Today, Alden wrote a piece entitled "So you want to start a sustainable fashion brand... You sure about that?" Exactly!!  And the subtitle:  “My soul truth is: do it. My mind truth is: I hope you have a lot of money."   Indeed.   Debby and I have joked (semi-joked) ruefully that if we had known what we were getting into ... if we had known how time-consuming, expensive and difficult it would be ... we would not have done this.

About a dozen years ago, a young, tech-savvy relative told me we should run our store on Shopify.  It took me five years to follow his advice.  But what he really should have told me was TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY AND BUY SHOPIFY STOCK!

Still, we really believe in what we are doing here, and we feel good about it.  All of us.   We're very glad about what we've done.  And looking forward with a lot of optimism and enthusiasm.  It looks like WOOL is beginning a big resurgence, and it's great to be part of it.

2025-01-2 ... YouTube Content Creator
A few days ago, Debby and I were looking at some YouTube content from Steven Smith on his MyLifeOutdoors Channel.  He was doing some serious gear testing, both in the field and in controlled conditions with some fun testing equipment he made himself.  He was doing just the kind of stuff we are interested in ... testing both performance and chemical contamination.  We decided we should get in touch with this gent.  Turns out, we didn't have to.  He contacted us on New Year's Eve.  Looking forward to speaking with him!

2025-01-01 ... People ... New Year Reflections
Usually I don't post on the Big Days.  But today, I am.

This isn't directly wool-related, but I've been thinking about how so many people I've "met" (frequently only by phone or even only by email) through work and business have become friends.  Also, many people met in social settings become colleagues, employees, contractors ...

Yesterday, we got the news that a customer-friend had passed away very unexpectedly on Christmas Eve, which was also his birthday, about 70 years ago.  Tim had been a customer for several years, and really liked our wool.  He did some testing for us, and gave us a lot of suggestions.  He'd even been in touch with other customers.  We'd interacted with his family a little because they gave him a bunch of our gift certificates.  He was waiting on me for 14 backorders.  Always good to hear from Tim.  A co-worker once said to me NOBODY HAS A LOCK ON TOMORROW.  Indeed.  Our sympathies to Tim's family.  And to Tim, Hail and Farewell.

Friends / colleagues / friends has been a constant theme for me.  And, given that my work prior to WeatherWool was all about the paycheck, my co-workers were doubly important.

I was a disaster as a student, but my roommate from freshman year was just the opposite, and landed a great job at a top Madison Avenue financial magazine shortly after graduating with degrees in finance and journalism.  Fred got me a try-out as a part-time figure-clerk, and this was my first white-collar employment.  None of the real journalists wanted anything to do with that work, so they let a disheveled but friendly Greenwich Village hippie take a shot.   It was a great opportunity for me.  I learned some very important things there.  My boss eventually let me write the column that accompanied the figures.  I'm still friends with Tom, almost 50 years later.  It took me probably 20 years before I realized Tom was happy to let me write about my numbers ... one less chore on his plate ... and editing my writing was easier than doing the writing himself.  Plus I learned a little bit about editing.  One of the first things gleaned at the magazine was a professional perspective -- DON'T BE AFRAID TO SET YOUR OWN COURSE -- that is fundamental to WeatherWool.  As a result of that job, we have our DOs and DON'Ts page.

About three years after starting at the magazine, although still doing a monthly column for them, I was working full-time at a financial services company with offices on the 104th floor of One World Trade Center.  That was, by far, the best building I ever worked in.  And I doubt I will ever look at the Manhattan skyline without feeling rage.  It was a fantastic company and just as wonderful a place to work.  My sophomore-year roommate was hired there when I told him about an opening, and he had a wonderful career-run with them.  He and I often laughed that he never even showed his resume.  They hired him based on the interviews.  The Towers had huge, 55-person elevators that zoomed from street-level to the 78th floor in about 30 seconds.  One day in the elevator I saw a friend from the magazine.  Jackie was looking for work, and she was a perfect match for a sales-job opening on the 104th floor.  She stayed something like 15 years, said it was her best job.  My last piece of writing for the magazine was about nine years ago ... a contribution to a remembrance of Gil, the founder/owner, that I felt honored to provide.

Two months ago, I attended the wedding of my freshman-year dorm next-door neighbor.  Bob (really, it was Angela's doing!) threw a real bash ... Debby and I were almost completely away from work for more than three days.  I still haven't caught up!  Bob is a real-estate developer, and when I noticed that he used WEATHER in the name of one of his projects, it hit me that WeatherWool would be a great name for this company.  Bob's graphic designer did our logo.

Another friend, Bob Krause from Morgan Stanley days of 30 years ago, is an owner of WeatherWool.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an interview with Elon Musk's Mom.  She said Elon tries to do good things, and he does not try to make money.  If we make great woolens, we will be doing good and we will make many more friends.  We will try.