Groundhog Hide

Dear readers, if you are uninterested in seeing any pictures referencing the subject line of this post, I suggest you do not scroll down. For everyone else, let me tell you a little story. I guess it begins with a fellow named Ken. This friend once upon a time tanned some hides and made his own banjos (3 in all) all learned from Foxfire #3 mind you. This was some time ago. Well I'm not exactly sure who dreamed up this idea (might have been me) but Ken and John and I hatched up a plan to someday cure a groundhog skin and build a banjo with the skin as the head and all with Ken's help of course. In the mean time, Ken loaned me one of his banjos to beginning learning a few tunes. Well, Friday night on my way home from work I got a call that another friend Tom had a groundhog in a trap. Guess what. This poor fellow died from natural causes of sorts - probably from the intense June heat or possibly from distress of being trapped. Well Tom lost no time. He watch a video quick on YouTube and he skinned that groundhog clean. I went to pick up the skin, wrapped up in a nice paper bag and drove it out to Kentucky. I wasn't exactly sure what to do next. I couldn't get ahold of Ken. I scoured my bookshelves for Foxfire #3 but only found #1 and #2. I went to a neighbors to see if they might have a copy, but no. It was too late to go to the library. So I did a bit of research the old fashioned way. I started asking everyone I could think of if they had experience tanning hides. I compiled information from neighbors and friends and of course everyone had a different version of what might be done. My friend Dana from North Carolina remarked how one time when she was tanning a hide on her front lawn, three different fellas stopped by to give her their opinion and tell her just exactly how they would go about doing that, if it were them. We talked about how the best part of learning something new - especially something as weird as tanning a hide is just talking to different folks and hearing some wild stuff. For instance one of my neighbors informed me that one way to do it, is to use a hollowed out tree and fill it with urine and soak the hide with the brain of the animal. Well, that wasn't really an option. Thank god. I thank all my friends who were patient enough to give me some advice late on a Friday night about such a crazy notion. We'll see if this thing ever does turn into a banjo.

Cutting down the belly. Tom had described skinning the groundhog with the skin coming off like a tubesock. So our friend Johnny said to cut the belly cause the skin on the spine is the strongest part for stretching over an instrument.

John did all the dirty work. Well, and so did Tom!

The g-hog skin

My amazing mom, always a supporter no matter how little she likes the task at hand. She was out there helping in the dark of night. Here she's stirring some hard wood ash into the water in preparation to soak the skin.

One final picture, John's woodshop, which sits by a creek, at night in Melbourne, Kentucky. This is where the skin will be cured and the banjo made.