The Nutty Buddy Collective
Acornucopia Project
"There plenty to go around and more to be had."
- Old squirrel proverb
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Nuts & Bolts
If you would like to introduce your community to the technical nuts and bolts of native nuts please contact us to schedule an inspirational program or training workshop for your school, 4H, Boy and girl Scouts, and youth church groups, or invite Circus Quercus to come to your community and help initiate a Tree Crop Coop. Let's work together to create an abundant world.
Note: With a national deficit of over 20 trillion dollars, the American dollar is backed only by debt. So my financial advice to you is unload your dollars as soon as you can because who knows when someone, some day, may come collecting. Speaking of "collecting", nuts are a hard currency that are an honest wealth.
Instead of there not being jobs, there will be nut jobs-
Let us shift from a culture that is half nuts to one that has gone completely Nuts! Let's work together with nature by starting to harness the regenerative resources of our native nut trees in our back yards, commons and woods. After proving the economic viability and social relevance of native nuts, public demand will incentify landowners to augment their agricultural fields with low maintenance native species orchards and enhance the productivity of their grasslands. This will create biodiversity, sequester water, remineralize soils and subsequently our food. Each tree will pull one ton of carbon out of the air during its lifetime.
The economic model of the Acornucopia Project aspires to reflect the trees that support it- generous, regenerative, and self replicating. New economic models have arisen from internet technology, but we also will need new social structures to guide these technologies for the benefit all mankind. The largest taxi company in the world doesnt own one vehicle, nor does the largest hotel chain own a single hotel. What if the World's largest global agricultural conglomerate was a worker owned, non heirarchecal cooperative, yet didnt need to own a single acre of land or even a plant?
Why nut...?
"They tell me there are big acorns in your village; send me a couple of dozen or so, and I shall value them greatly as coming from your hand; and if there be anything you stand in need of, it is but to open your mouth, and that shall be the measure; and so God keep you."
- Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote
Circus Quercus
on the road to a town near you
Acornucopia Project and W.T.Farm? Present:
2022 Barkslip's Confluence of Fruits and Nuts
Living Farmoniously
April 8-11
I will always be learning, plants will always need to adapt,
and neither of us will ever “arrive” - Professor BS (Barkslip)
Thursday and Friday: Orcharding with worktraders
Friday Evening: Tool care and general cloning around
Saturday: Context pruning, more cloning around, nuts, natives and naughty plants, scion exchange, Cuban salsa dance party
Sunday: Managing the “forchard”? ...tour and whimsies? Animals and trees? ...Breeding? ...Mapping? ...processing fruits and nuts? ...developing value added products?... Community orchards?.... What would you like to share or learn...
Where: W.T.Farm? Union, WV
Floor and Board: At this (well-behaved) kid friendly event there's plenty of camping options as well as inside floor space for sleeping. The venue is at Nut'Inn which is a two story, Appalachian, double log cabin farm house on site at the farm. Food will start being served Friday for worktraders. We will all participte in preparation of meals and many ingredients will come from trees. Please find out what contributions are needed to round out the meals.
Reciprocation: 10 hours work trade in the orchard Thursday or Friday before the event, or if your schedule prevents, 150.00 for the weekend includes great food, cozy shelter, tantalizing information sharing, goodwill, a grafted bizarro variety pear tree, and scion exchange. Cost goes up precipitously April 1st. Whether you intend to work trade or not, please send a commitment deposit check to the address below, group rate discounts, kids under 12 or folks over 70 just get to goof off.
Seeking a “Farmonious” Life
For over a decade of bringing Barkslip's Fruit School to towns around the region, I am delighted to invite you all to W.T.Farm? to share my horticultural experiments over the last 35 years. For a long while I have had an adversarial relationship with many of the aggressive, multi-syllabic, introduced plants on my farm like Autumn Olive, Honeysuckle, and Multiflora Rose. Lately, I have been appreciating that, with a little horticultural collaboration, these plants can add value to my farm's output. I call these my “forchards” (Forest orchard) which are plant powerhouse, low input, crop yielding, foraging edges where a subtler dimension of human management is imposed on plants we might refer to as “weeds” or invasives”. Let's redirect our annoyance into buoyance!
My mountain farm lends itself to small 1-2 acre orchard parcels including a commercial pear orchard I planted 34 years ago, a trial orchard that started with 120 different varieties of pears, a perennial “sugar” orchard, a cider orchard, and the recent establishment of 40 acres of select seedling nuts. How are these doing in low input systems? Where are they now in succession? What would I do differently? What would I repeat? In what economy are they of the highest value? The world is changing so fast, and trying to be relevant as a slow growing tree farmer invites interesting strategies. When do we organize and simplify into more efficient crops, or embrace the madness of diversity? Do we push the system with inputs or farm more passively? what kind of inputs…? proven varieties or seedlings...? Rich discussions indeed!
A “Confluence” vs a “conference” uses Open Space technology and envisions a world where there is an upper case emphasis on collaboration while lower casing the top-down, headliner “experts”. Open Space is a self-organizing social technology that makes the most of the skills and resources from the people that show up, so expect the unexpected because what makes humans so special is together we are more than the sum of our parts. We hope to share knowledge and skills regarding the culture of growing all manner of fruits and nuts. If you are remotely interested in, or have ideas around the skills of the Grafting Oragami of nuts, natives and naughty plants, Context pruning, Value adding marginal fruits, Soil Alchemy, Animals and trees, Incorporating native nuts into your diet, taking home a grafted pear tree with the choice of many obscure varieties, or incorporating native nuts into your cooking, you and your friends' presence is requested. We will, as a group, decide what we want to share and learn. If enough people show up there could be multiple concurrent circles happening at the same time. The focus is not so much on cloning one expert's experience, but rather cultivating the vigor of hybridizing dialogue that comes from sharing experiences. With that, we build mutual respect, create new ideas, connections, confidence seeing perspectives from many angles which are just a few of the feeder roots leading to a Farmonious life.
Work Trade- looks like coming a day or two early, or staying a day later, and helping in the orchards fertilizing and mulching, burning brush, and or working on the deer fence which is only more exposure to first hand exerience. If you are a producer of chemical free food then we can negotiate a trade for food to supply the gathering.
Please RSVP as soon as possible. The reciprocation tips to 15 hours work trade or 200.00/ person April Fool's Day, and if you show up at the door unannounced plan on a lifetime of indentured slavery. So dont fool around and procrastinate RSVP-ing! This courtesy allows the organizers to plan and accommodate the details like food, housing, rootstock, scionwood, for this event. You can direct questions or send a check to: (50.00 which will serve as a deposit if you are work trading)
2019
Coming soon
Kids are encouraged to come to all of our events!
June 8th Asheville, NC 3:00-3:50 (free)
Veganfest
Acornucopia will be presenting on how you'd have to be nuts to be Vegan!
May 4th and 5th
Mother Earth News Fair Asheville
Tabling and speaking at the fair about Black Walnuts as the "new Peanut"
April 25th
Asheville's Owl Bakery 6:45- 9:00
Four course mast to mouth dinner featuring the Black Walnut at each course. Guest chefs from around Asheville will be contributing, wine pairings, as well as Piedmont storyteller Beverly McBreyer
April 12th and 13th
Organic Growers School, Asheville
Nut Futures are chugging right along, come find out how to get on the nut train
April 9th @ 6:45 (SOLD OUT)
Sow True Seeds, Asheville
Four course tasting of native nuts
2018
Long Gone
Kids are encouraged to come to all of our events!
October 6th Asheville, NC 2:00-6:00 (free)
Asheville Nature Festival
Acornucopia will be tabling at this event with product for sale. Sounds like fun!
September 29th - Sedalia, Va
Mountain Run Jam
Acornucopia presents Circus Quercus's traveling carnival of nuts will be vending, sampling nut products, and giving a workshop - "Free fall down the rabbit hole of native nuts"
September 27th - Waynesville, NC (free)
Master Gardener talk
The Nutty Buddies are discovering hidden values in nuts like high value nut oils, alternative flours, nut milk products and meat substitutes. These are exploding industries bringing high financial reward, and they can all be sourced from trees that grow all around us. Find out how we as a community can come together and help revitalize rural communities through innovation and bring nutritious food to people's tables, get good exercise, and build community. (Please contact the Haywood County extension agency for availability.)
September 19th - Asheville, NC
Forager training at Smith Mill Works
10-20.00 sliding scale (and receive a 10.00 voucher for nut products)
A one hour workshop where you will learn tree ID, the different nuts and their value, simple tools and efficient harvesting techniques, how to get them to the nut depot. After the class there will be short tour of the nut processing facility
September 16th - Asheville, NC
Forager training at For Villagers
10-20.00 sliding scale (and receive a 10.00 voucher for nut products)
A one hour workshop where you will learn tree ID, the different nuts and their value, simple tools and efficient harvesting techniques, how to get them to the nut depot. Weather and nuts providing we will go on an actual nut foray and you can gather nuts and sell them to us on the spot meaning you could actually make money coming to this class!
September 14-16th- Blacksburg, Va - $50.00
Quaker Oaks Nut tent revival and campout
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/quaker-oaks-tree-crop-gathering-tickets-45404320545
This will be a gathering of folks interested in nut foraging and setting up nut aggregate depots in their communities as a part of the greater Acornucopia Project. Educational training, open space brainstorming, good food and fellowship.
September 16th Blacksburg, Va 1;00-2:30 (free)
Nut Foraging workshop
In concurrence with the Blacksburg sustainability week, and at the conclusion of the Quaker Oaks tree conference will be an open foraging workshop where we learn how to most efficiently forage for native nuts, their value and potential for economic revitalization of rural economies. Please dress appropriately for outdoors. Location on the VT campus TBD.
August 26th-Asheville,NC
The Gift of Nuts presentation
https://www.meetup.com/Community-Network-Gathering/events/253773930/
Visioning of a world gone completely nuts. We will be sharing nut products, tips on efficient nut foraging, and how to utilize your special gifts to create positive solutions
June 10th- Asheville, NC
Asheville Vegan festival
The Four major commodities 1.) oil 2.) grain 3.) Dairy 4.) meat all can come from native trees with no chemicals, tillage, or animals
May 5- Asheville, NC
Asheville Bread Fest
Featuring "butter" and "bread" from trees and "No Till bread"
April 29- Leicester, NC
Nutty Buddy Collective May Day Picnic and open orchard tour. Come visit our beautiful orchards in their 5th year, meet friends, and learn about our vision.
March 17 & 18- Harrisonburg, Va
Fruit and Nut school-
The Vine and Fig presents:
Two full days of horticultural training centered around low maintenance fruit and nut orchards. Orchard layout, pruning, grafting and cloning around
March 16th- Harrisonburg, Va
Edith J. Carrier Arboretum- half day workshop training
"Do you know yer nuts?"
Familiarizing with native nuts, foraging, processing into the four major commodities, their uses, and economic potential.
Evening program- "Waste nut Want Nut"
Sharing the vision of a Nutopia
March 15th- Afton, Va
Farfields Farm- Nut Revival
"Noah's Oak"
Noah's Ark reinterpreted
March 10 &11- Asheville, NC
Organic Grower's School. Presenting on Native nuts and vendor booth.
2017-
Sept 17th: Union, WV- Talking Hill Farm (Free event)- "Acorn and apple social and Harvest party"
Sept 20th: Talcot, WV- Sprouting Farms (Free event)- "Community potluck and talk by Bill Whipple" on the Acornucopia Project
Sept 29th: Asheville, NC- Villagers – (Free event)- “Acornucopia Tasting Party” - get a taste of the fruits of our native nuts and learn about the Acornucopia Project
Sept 30th: Catawba, VA- Catawba Sustainability Center- (Donations appreciated)- "A culture gone nuts" - Acorn training, potluck, and party
Oct 1st: Harrisonburg, VA- Vine and Fig Community Center-"Mast to Mouth" A day long workshop on all aspects of native nut access. ($60.00 or equivalent in nuts)
11/30 – Asheville, NC; 7:00-8:30 First Congregational church http://slowfoodasheville.com/…/the-gift-of-nuts-nut-reviva…/
12/4 - Johnson City, TN; 7:00-8:30 St John’s Episcopal Church https://www.facebook.com/events/160005164746550/
12/5 – Abingdon, Va; 7:00-8:30https://www.facebook.com/events/198727670701916/
12/12 – Lexington, Va;
Oil tasting at the Old Lex Mercantile 4:-5:00https://www.facebook.com/oldlexmercantile/
12/12 - Lexington Nut Revival from 7:00-8:30
https://www.facebook.com/events/144539942864628/
12/13 – Blacksburg nut revival from 7:00-8:30 at the Oddfellows Lodge on Wilson Avenue, Blacksburg-- park in downtown lot across progress st. from the venue (behind the cellar)
12/14 – Roanoke nut revival; 5:30-7:00 https://www.facebook.com/events/375491626224026/
12/15 – Lewisburg, WV; 3:30-5:00
Oil tasting at Swift Level Fine Meats 3:30-5:00http://www.swiftlevelfinemeats.com/
Private Revival 7;00-8:30 Lewisburg. Invitation only
12/16 – Blacksburg, Va Holiday Markethttp://blacksburgfarmersmarket.com/event/holiday-market-2/
Circus Quercus- Soon we want to put wheels under our processing equipment to take to communities that have gathered enough nuts. We hope to make it a carnival like atmosphere with educational outreach, promotional foods, games and entertainment. It will be a way to promote the project and build market demand. This is an opportunity for communities to transition into having their own nut processing equipment.. We will be creating authentic culture again.