Source: Amazon
Summary
Akiva Silver's
Trees of Power offers an inspirational look at how the trees that are all around us can provide us with untapped income, food and more. It is a deep dive into the world of a guy who lives for trees, raising and selling thousands a year and foraging from many more.
Silver shows how the ten trees featured are phenomenally good for homesteaders and for the world at large. For example, he writes that hickory nuts produce a delicious oil that we could easily be using for cooking, and the nuts are just rotting at our feet by the billions. An expensive nut press is needed to make the oil but he points out that every town used to have a mill and a press and people would just bring their crops to use it. That really makes sense. Everyone doesn’t need a press, just communities or cooperatives.
He says, “Everyone I have offered a taste of the oil to looks up at me in surprise and says something like: ‘Wow’ or ‘Oh my God.'”
Here is a hickory tree that we don’t have to shell to enjoy. Here is a vegetable oil raining down from the sky in enormous quantities. A 5-gallon bucket of nuts in the shell will yield 1/4 gallon of oil. I have filled 5-gallon buckets of bitternuts in as little as 30 minutes. This tree is offering a tremendous gift, if we can only see it. When a million gallons of high-quality vegetable oil fall on the ground and we ignore it and plow up the earth to grow rapeseed (for canola oil), there is a disconnect. The soil suffers, wildlife suffers, and we do, too. The time is here for us to use hickory oil.
The ten trees featured in
Trees of Power are:
Chestnut: The Bread Tree
Apples: The Magnetic Center
Poplar: The Homemaker
Ash: Maker of
Wood
Mulberry: The Giving Tree
Elderberry: The Caretaker
Hickory: Pillars of Life
Hazelnut: The Provider
Black Locust: The Restoration Tree
Beech: The
Root Runner
Trees of Power fills an urgent need for up-to-date information on some of our most important tree species, those that have multiple benefits for humans, animals, and nature. It also provides inspiration for new generations of tree stewards and caretakers who will not only benefit themselves, but leave a lasting legacy for future generations.
Trees of Power is for everyone who wants to connect with trees. It is for the survivalist, the gardener, the homesteader, the forager, the permaculturist, the environmentalist, the parent, the schoolteacher, the farmer, and anyone who feels a deep kinship with these magnificent beings.
About the Author
Akiva Silver owns and operates Twisted Tree Farm, a homestead, nut orchard, and nursery located in Spencer, New York, where he grows around 20,000 trees per year using practices that go beyond organic. His background is in foraging, wilderness survival, and primitive skills. He has been observing nature intensively for the last 20 years, cultivating a deep appreciation for life. Akiva lives on his farm with his wife and three young children.
Where to get it
Chelsea Green Publishing
Amazon US
Amazon CA
Amazon UK
Amazon AU
Acres USA
Related Videos
Related Podcasts
Podcast 097 – The Man Who Planted Trees
Related Forums
Permies Trees Forum
Related Websites
Twisted Tree Farm
Twisted Tree Farm YouTube channel
Article at Kosmos by Akiva Silver
Akiva Silver on Partnering with trees
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