deerskin to buckskin, part 2: graining & rinsing

the hide had to buck for 3 days in the ivory soap solution but after spending a nice evening on friday watching some youtube gems like

 and (i hope you watched that one until at least 1:16)

we were ready to get on with the process saturday morning. next step: graining.

laura, nic & maya came over to hang out, camp out and help out, which was greatly appreciated as graining turned out to be quite a task for a sunny 30+degree C day. the grain is the part of the hide just under the fur that became bloated during the bucking process. the hair was really easy to take off, the grain, not so much. all of it had to be removed to ensure that the every part of the hide would soak up the brain (or eggs, in our case) mixture so brooke, laura and i scraped and scraped and scraped from about 10 am to 4 pm with lots of swimming throughout, a picnic dinner and campfire to finish off the day. we sprinkled the hair around the garden to ward off carrot predators and left the hide in a slightly acidic solution (by using apple cider vinegar) overnight to neutralize and prepare for the last few steps. what a day. 

work it, brooke.

laura does her scraping in a beautiful dress

maya

sabi, being a good sport

scrape scrape scrape

holy moses it's hot

end of day shot! this was actually the point where we realized for the first time what shape our hide was actually in. since we had scavenged it frozen and already removed we didn't really have an idea what we were working with.

next steps: acidifying, membraning, soaking, softening & smoking!