Carving Out a Living on the Land by Emmet Van Driesche

Carving Out a Living on the Land by Emmet Van Driesche ("DRY-sh")

This book came out in 2019, and the subtitle is Lessons in Resourcefulness and Craft from an Unusual Christmas Tree Farm.

Well, I must confess that I'm a massive fan of Emmett's YouTube channel. He does everything he's talking about in this book - Even carving his spoons.

But what I especially love about this book is learning about what it's like to be a Christmas tree farmer. I find this fascinating. (And to me, this book is an excellent option for a Christmas gift. So keep that in mind as well.)

Now, what Emmett is writing about is simplicity - living a life that's in tune with nature,   A life that is away from the hustle and bustle of the city and the daily grind. Emmett is busy,  but he has plenty of time to do the things that matter - Even pursuing his favorite pastime of spoon carving.

I must confess that I discovered a delightful surprise when I started reading Emmett's book; he's an excellent writer.

And I wanted to give you a little taste of his writing, a little sample. Just by reading what he wrote in the introduction to his book. He wrote,

The air is cold enough for my breath to show.  But I'm about to break a sweat.  I'm harvesting balsam branches, grabbing each with one hand and cutting them with the red clippers in the other.

...I work fast and don't stop until my arm is completely stacked with branches and sticking straight out, and I look like a kid with too many sweaters on under his jacket.  Pivoting on my heel.  I stride back to my central pile of balsam boughs and dump the armload on top, eyeballing it to gauge how much the pile weighs.  I decide I need more and head off in another direction into the grove.  

The balsam fir grows from big wild stumps and thickets that can stretch 20 feet around, the trees crowded so closely together, in no apparent order or pattern, that their branches interlock. Instead of single trees, each stump has up to three small trees of different ages growing off of it. They are pruned as Christmas trees, and I am a Christmas tree farmer.  

Isn't that fascinating?

Well, this book is 288 pages of self-reliance and the Christmas spirit.

You can get a copy of Carving Out a Living on the Land by Emmet Van Driesche and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $13.