On the Evolution of Our Enterprise

"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.