Well, I got it tanned. I read a lot online about tanning, and most of the stuff was pretty confusing. My hardware store didn't have alum either, so I stuck with what has worked for me in the past.

First I salted the hide, then after it was dry I scraped the hide with a sharp knife to get all the salt and membrane off and buffed it with fine sand paper. Then I cracked an egg and poured it on the hide. I rubbed it in until all that was left was a yolky, sticky, slurry type stuff and the hide was soaked. Then I picked up the hide and squeezed all the extra egg out of it. After that I just worked it around in my hands and rubbed it over the edge of a piece of wood until it was dry. That part took about three hours, it takes a long time for a hide to go from soaking wet to totally dry. If you work it the whole time, it'll come out soft, dry, and the flesh side willbe white. Some bits of fur on the tail were stuck together from the egg, but a brush took care of that. A few of the holes in the hide opened up a bit more while I was working it, but it still looks good. It doesn't look like it was done by a pro, but it's still just as soft as what you buy in the store.

Next I'll have to put it over the smoke from a small fire to get that nice "buckskin" brown color, and that should make it water resistant too. Then I'll shampoo it to get rid of the smokey, squirrely smell, and work it dry again. When I'm done with that I'll post some pictures of how it turned out.

Now, any ideas on what to do with a squirrel hide?