"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail"
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Friends, the year 2012 was as exciting as it was tumultuous
for us at Fontenelle Axe Restoration. January saw the birth of our little business,
and with a few rusty axe heads, a rasp and file, and a fierce determination to
bring back the importance and timelessness of forgotten and neglected tools, we
followed our ambitions. Along the way, we honed our skills and learned from our
Noble masters, as well as our humble mistakes. We watched in awe as the first
uninspiring piece of rusty steel made its way from the vinegar bath to the top
of a new handle, then into a box an on to Ohio, where an inspired young man
began his craft with our first sale. But as we watched the raw steel and wood turn
into works of beauty and tools of unfaltering power, we also saw our lives
change in unimaginable ways.
For those of you who knew the faces behind Fontenelle Axe
Restoration, you knew that we were husbands, sons, students, and (at least for
the majority of the year) grocers. As devoted as we were to our new enterprise,
life had its way of slowing us down. We began the year as a band of creative
and eager brothers, centered in the basement workshop of our Omaha home,
supported by our fellow entrepreneurs and enthusiasts. We ended the year as a
fragmented and somewhat defeated group trying to hold on to what we had built. What
happened in between were busy school and work schedules, painful personal
tragedies, and the relocation of two of our members to out of state ventures. Fontenelle
Axe Restoration had not been forgotten, but it had become largely irrelevant.
What remains, however, is that lingering excitement and
drive to revive forgotten steel, get people interested in their roots and back
into nature. All of us still feel the same passion for the trade of axe and
tool restoration, and will continue to pursue it in our own ways. The
Fontenelle Axe Restoration base has been moved from Omaha to Des Moines, where I
will continue to seek out and revive the tools of yesteryear. I can’t promise
as big as an operation as we experienced in Omaha, but I can promise a steadier
attention to the blog, Facebook, and Etsy pages, a more organized shipping and
selling process, and an overall speedier, more centralized and coordinated
operation.
So, to everyone who has helped Fontenelle Axe Restoration
get to this point, thank you. To everyone who wishes to see it continue for future
years to come, get ready.
Iowa, here we go.
