Honoring the ancient work of the Native Americans in the Northern Appalachians, as well as our personal ancestors who settled there, Moshannon Select LLC and Lost Run Woodworks presents to you our own handmade notions to enhance your life.
Natural simplicity in making useful products that were necessities have become our luxuries. Moshannon Select LLC and Lost Run Woodworks takes the “make do” attitudes of our ancestors to bring to our modern lives a little piece of the simplicity and hard work of the past.
Many of our offerings are one of a kind. Some are most always available. All are made with our own hands.
Sharing the Vision
Modern societies often work against nature to create perfection, when observing and honoring nature and our ancestors will teach us what perfection is and can be again.
The natural resources that we have been gifted are not to be trivialized and used or discarded in vain. While all natural resources were created for our use, it is imperative that we used them mindfully. Waste occurs. It must be minimized. Our insistence on what we have come to perceive as perfection has caused excessive waste. We need to recapture an earlier, or ancient, perspective. Everything matters.
Lost Run Woodworks only uses rescued wood for our creations. We regularly visit “big box” stores and other sources to purchase or reclaim any wood that is targeted for the landfill. This is our commitment and our company policy. Further, we use minimal chemicals and tooling to reduce energy resource use and so to not contaminate, choosing rather to use personal thought and “elbow grease” to produce our select and limited products.
Imperfect? Not by creation’s standards.
Recapturing simplicity…
Grandmother was a career woman. She didn’t hold high position in a corporation, but she did operate and care for her own 4+ acres near Hawk Run Creek which was a tributary to the great Moshannon Creek. While Grandfather was working the local bituminous coal mines, Grandmother was busy being industrial and entrepreneurial. She would buy and sell the chickens, pigs and the cows, while growing all the produce, fruits and vegetables which she would preserve, successfully storing it all in her fruit cellar, to meet the future needs of her family.
That was only half of Grandmother’s enterprise. The other half consisted of a storeroom of used notions, a sewing machine, and her hands. With those simple things, Grandmother would sew, knit, and crochet. She would make beautiful rugs, knotted together using scraps of color until she had a mosaic of material, so to speak, that we as children, took for granted when we walked into her home in our muddy boots. And it wasn’t just her fabric creations that were so useful, she knew how to make soap and other necessities for her family from the most simple, pure ingredients. It wasn’t fancy. But it was good and useful. You might say that it was better than anything we use today. She could also make simple things with wood, a hammer, and a couple of nails.
This is the spirit behind Moshannon Select LLC, Olive Branch Soapworks, and Lost Run Woodworks. We are pleased to share a little of what we experienced in our family with yours.
