Hello Friends!
I wanted to give you all some important updates on some business stuff and our renovation progress at Rooster's Chapel. Please take a moment to read this info... I tried to make it as succinct as possible but ya know, I wax eloquent sometimes ;)
First of all, we are planning to launch a big online auction on Tuesday, September 21 (in just a couple days)! It's going to be really beautiful and fun with many gorgeous items up for bid, and will be a great way to snag some incredible Christmas gifts for excellent prices. We always try to make our auctions a blast and to provide real value to our amazing customers and supporters and we hope you will find lots to love this week! This auction will help us to continue moving forward with our renovation and development of Rooster's Chapel (turning it into a place all of you will be able to enjoy both remotely and in person).
The first part of 2021 was our best EVER in terms of sales/support of our brand (yay!) and we were totally geared up to really knock this year out of the park and accomplish a ton this summer, but the last few months have been brutally slow for our business, which just tells us that there is a lot of strain trickling down from all of the chaos in this country (and the world) with the pandemic and all that has accompanied it. I don't think we have *ever* shared before about our business experiencing a dry/slow season, but I say all of this first of all to put it out there that if/when you're shopping anyway, remember that small family businesses everywhere are struggling to keep keeping on through this mess, and your support means so much more to them than it does to big box companies! We are just one of thousands of small businesses out there and they are all amazing and needed and important.
Every single order we receive through Polder's Old World Market means so much. This isn't a side gig for us, it is our total livelihood and we are SO blessed and grateful to be able to make a living creating beautiful tools for other's homes. The orders we receive buy all of our family's groceries, pay our power bill, feed our livestock, paid for our home, are paying off our farm, and are helping us turn Rooster's Chapel into the venue we have dreamt of creating for a decade (which we hope becomes a blessing and inspiration to many people in the future). So we do not take one smidgen of support for granted... even your likes and comments and shares of our posts here on the blog as well as on social media mean so much, and help us gain exposure for our brand and handmade goods. Thank you all so much for the many ways you all support our family and dreams!
The auction will start Tuesday, and we hope you can come! It really will be amazing and so much fun. We will have so many gorgeous items up for bid, and we hope that many of you are able to find beautiful items for your own home and for gifts! A good auction can turn around a rough month for us and keep us moving forward without skipping a beat, and we are hoping to close out this summer with a bang. Even if you aren't able to bid, or you just don't need any more dreamware (is that even possible?) it would mean so much to us for you to share about the auction when it starts. So if you use social media, or even email, helping us spread the news can have a big impact! We will be sending out an email update and text when the auction starts so you will know when it is live.
Okay, and one other thing I have been wanting to address. There is a wood shortage happening right now and it has been going on all year. We haven't been deeply affected by it because we use mostly locally salvaged wood, however it has impacted us in certain wood types and sizes/thickness of lumber that we use to make particular products (like ladles, for instance). We are obviously in touch with specific customers about specific orders that have been affected, but deep down I'm afraid that when someone who may be waiting on some specific product, sees us making and selling other items out of that same wood type they ordered their item in, that they may think we are simply not prioritizing their order and that IS NOT the case. The problem is, we can sometimes find a board/piece of lumber in a certain thickness that will work for some items, but we can't find a piece of lumber in that same wood type cut thick enough for us to make certain other designs out of. Does that make sense?
It's been a tad bit stressful, but we have quite a bit of wood drying that we cut on our own sawmill, and once that wood dries enough we will be out of the woods with the wood shortage (no pun intended). Until then, those of you who's orders have been affected, your patience is literally heaven sent and is helping our business weather this crazy time! Thank you, a million times.
Oh, and I don't want to leave you feeling like we've accomplished nothing here at Rooster's Chapel over the summer. In fact, we have done a ton of work developing the land, selectively clearing/thinning the woods, installing a road that needs more work, expanding the pasture, slowly renovating the little house at the farm, etc. It is coming along! Thank you all for helping us make this big dream happen!
And if you made it to the end of this post, I want to give you a big hug! Leave a comment and say hi :)
xx, Loran