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birdseyetea · 7 years

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May Newsletter

Happy May! Yayy!

It’s almost summer, guys! I can finally feel the smooch of summer in the air...it’s coming very soon!

May May bring you into your element.

May May wellspring joy and hope to your daily acts.

May May become a beacon, of light, a soothing warmth that blankets your thoughts and intentions.

May May break us all open, so we may see the other inside us.

May is planting time! It is time to roll up the shirt sleeves, grab that shovel or hori hori, and embrace little sweat beads upon your brow as your gardens need a’tending. May is a month of motion, run-on mental lists, and being super grateful for the long warm days. Get out into the world and thrive!

There are months to rest and there are months to hustle, May is a hustle month. Letting the bright sun warm your skin is a good antidote to sluggishness and lingering melancholy from winter. The weather starts to even its keel during May and natural beauty captivate our imagination, helping inspire us toward greater attention, love, and affection in our daily work.

The word May was attributed to this month by the Greeks, after their goddess of fertility named Maia. Fertility refers to the ability to sustain growth. Soil health is vitally important to growing strong healthy plants...and down the line, strong healthy people. Through successional transitions and a constant input of falling and decomposing organic matter mature forests have been patiently building just the right soil balance to sustain their biodiversity for hundreds of years. Each natural ecosystem has it’s own strategies for building and maintaining fertility. A very cool way some temperate forests adjacent to salmon bearing streams have built rich fertile soils is through the death and decomposition of mature salmon. Mature salmon return to their birth place to reproduce. As millions of salmon spawn and die at the headwaters of streams and tributaries their bodies are picked at by animals and decomposed by microorganisms which slowly releases nutrients back into the forest ecosystem. This has a beneficial effects not just on the plants but the birds, insects, and mammals that make their home amongst the forest giants. Potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sulfur are the most important nutrients plants need to uptake through their roots to sustain themselves. Microorganisms are responsible for breaking down plant and animal tissue to release these nutrients back into the soil where it can be used by plants once more.

In agricultural or residential areas, soils need to be carefully cared for to maintain adequate fertility to sustain food production. It takes time to learn about the soils on your land or in your area and how to build the right soil for the kinds of plants you want to grow. Vegetables are heavy feeders and require lots of organic minerals for sustained health. While many deciduous perennial herbs are able thrive in depleted or imbalanced soils, which slowly helps to rebuild the soil. Building soil is a process which takes patience, humility, observation, and a whole lot more giving than taking. We do a lot of cover cropping and mulching on my farm to build soil fertility.

Thinking of fertility as a slow process, which it is, helps remind us that reciprocity is important when it comes to the inputs and withdraws in natural systems. When we grow an apple tree or a lemon balm plant the roots from the plants are stretching out and taking in water and nutrients from the soil that get recombined and distributed throughout the tissues of the plant.

Soil fertility is a complex chemical process where nutrients are constantly being cycled between organic and inorganic forms. As plant and animal wastes are broken down by microorganisms they are released into the soil where they might be immediate taken up by the roots of a plant or they might need to be transformed by other microorganisms into an organic form. The system heavily relies on a balance between inputs and withdraws. The forms of inputs often define the microorganism distribution within the soil. For example, animal wastes and kitchen compost primarily get broken down by bacteria, while the bark and wood from a fallen limb gets broken down by fungi. Forest soils are fungal dominated soils, fungus create amazing sprawling networks or mats within the soil structure which are vitally important to forest plant species and are super sensitive to disturbance. Tilling or compacting fungal soils destroys the integrity and connectivity of the far reaching underground fungal networks. Meadow and agricultural soils rely on constant disturbance regimes which usually end up dominated by bacteria. Annual food crops thrive in bacterial dominated soils, while perennial fruit trees and shrubs thrive in a stable undisturbed fungal dominated system.

Fertility as a process that never ends. To have a deep lasting relationship with fertility is to spend ones life carefully tending the needs of the soil beneath our feet. The most important relationship between a human who eats and the earth that provides is the relationship with the soil. Soil health is the key that makes human life and stability on planet earth possible. If treated right, soil will respond by allowing healthy vibrant plants to grow, which will attract a whole band of diverse creatures to create a life amongst fertile lands. If taken advantage of, soils get depleted and if plants can no longer grow in the soil, eventually the soil erodes...and life is forced to move elsewhere. Soil health is a huge factor in ecological resilience.

Genmaicha Tea

Green Tea and Toasted Rice

Genmaicha is a Japanese green tea with toasted rice kernels in it. The taste and fragrance are quite mild. The grassy green tea and nutty taste of the toasted rice make for a very pleasant cuppa. Green tea is energizing and antioxidant.

I chose this blend for May because the fresh vibrant taste is uplifting. There is nothing medicinal about this tea. It’s just refreshing and mild. Perfect for spring.

Strength Tea

Nettle, Raspberry Leaf, Mint, Milky Oats, Fennel, & Lavender

Strength tea is a great nutritive spring tonic blend. Combining many of the PNW’s best nutritive herbs this blend helps build tissues, is nervine, and uplifting. Spring tonics can mean many different things. In my spring teas I try to utilize nourishing herbs that are building and strengthening. They help nourish the body’s cells and reduce stagnant (deficient) blood by supporting and activating the liver and kidneys.

This tea is full of herbs that bring you essential nutrients to keep your tissues healthy. It is also chock full of vitamins and minerals. Think of the motto: out with the old in with the new. Spring herbs can really help to restore balance to depleted systems.

As spring progresses you may notice that your motivation, energy, and creativity increases, with this energy increase, it is a good idea to eat and drink lots of foods and teas filled with nourishing phyto-chemicals that will fuel the new fire burning inside you.

Raspberry leaf, nettle, fennel, and oats are all common spring tonic herbs to increase essential nutrient availability to your cells and reduce oxidative damage by a more high energy lifestyle. Raspberry leaf is a highly nourishing herb, like nettle, it is high in vitamins and minerals. Aside from being delicious and nutritious for both men and women. It’s astringent properties have an affinity for toning the smooth muscle of the uterus. It is commonly taken daily by women to support reproductive health and tone uterine tissues. Milky oats are sweet and calming. They are considered a “nervine” which helps restore the nervous and endocrine system. Think of milky oats as a restorative nerve food. Fennel seed is calming, digestive, and nourishing. Lavender is uplifting.

Refresh

Kukicha Gold, Ginger, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Fennel, Clove, Eleuthro, Burdock, Chaga Mushroom, and Spearmint

Steeping Instructions: You can either lightly simmer the herbs in a combination of milk and water for 5 min or steep in hot water for 5-7 min. This tea benefits from a small amount of honey added to it. My sister informed me that she thinks it tastes better without milk.

This tea is a nice blend for spring. It can be quite refreshing on a cool morning as a hot tea or iced on a warm afternoon. The base of this tea is a aromatic masala chai (ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, fennel, and clove). I prefer using roasted kukicha twig tea, rather than black tea. I like almost all roasted herbs in small quantities, they add deep richness to the flavor and this one is almost sweet. Even herbs that are energetically cooling can take on a bright warm character once roasted.

Kukicha is particularly popular in Japan, it is very low in caffeine, which can be a good thing if your life is in transition and stress gets the best of you. Caffeine can stir up any anxieties and add fuel to the fire if you feel overwhelmed. But a little caffeine can also just help get the body moving if you need a good push. Eleuthro, also called ‘siberian ginseng’, has energizing ginseng-like effects. As an adaptogenic herb eleuthro helps replenish a depleted nervous system and enables your body to better combat the damaging effects of stress. It is particularly useful in athletic types who suffer from muscle fatigue and soreness. Eleuthro can also be very useful in restoring mind-body balance. I sometimes have a restless mind which causes me to tense my muscles, so I often forgo caffeinated teas and regularly drink a stress reduction blend with eleuthro each morning. I find I have less muscle tightness and have a lot more energy over time than if I drink caffeine.

Burdock is added for a little detoxification and nourishment in the kidneys. Chaga mushrooms are high in antioxidants and have a generalized tonic effect on the body. Mint is something that many of my family members and friends really like in aromatic spiced blends. I added mint to Refresh to do just what the tea is named for, add a refreshing aspect.

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