Beyond the Plate: Nature’s Timing
Whew. Another week has come and gone over here. I am nothing if not consistently inconsistent. It’s Thursday as I’m writing this, and truth be told, I almost missed a blog post altogether. I was actually writing this for my friends on Facebook to let them know what I’ve been up to this week—a “Hey, I’m alive” kind of thing. So, breaking from the recently established pattern of anecdote-tarot posts, this week, let’s look Beyond the Plate.
If you’re new here, the Beyond the Plate series explores how we are more than what we eat—we are the sum total of what we consume and how we consume. “Anything in excess is poison.” While I’ve often referenced this quote, I’ve found it attributed to many sources, and I most likely encountered it in the context of Buddhism. It’s a mindset I’ve carried with me as I’ve learned to interact mindfully with the natural world around me, especially with my trees.
When I moved into this house and realized the beautiful, tall pine shading my backyard was an Eastern White Pine—whose needles are some of the best-tasting medicine in the country—I knew I’d need to be a responsible friend to the trees. But what did that mean?
For me, it meant not overharvesting her (or her sister) in my overzealousness. It meant waiting for the right time, a lesson I learned a few years ago when I lived off-grid and had access to an abundance of witch hazel. By the time I finally thought to harvest it, I realized I was too late. You can harvest tree parts whenever, but it’s best to wait until early spring when the sap and terpenes—aromatic oils—are flowing. This is when the best medicines and flavors emerge. The problem for me back then was that I was working full-time and living off-grid, so I wasn’t set up to properly harvest and use the witch hazel. So, when we arrived here last summer, I knew it would be a while before I could taste my new pine friend’s tea.
The pines on the property had already been limbed, so the remaining branches were pretty high up. Now, I’m a fan of facing my fears, but climbing a ladder to harvest needles for tea, vinegar, or natural pine soda wasn’t high on my list. I figured I’d spread out the projects over two years: pine soda this year, pine vinegar the next, and just enough tea for a couple of times. Tea can be made with dried needles, so I collected some from a small twig that had fallen earlier this winter. It was earthy, much lighter than I expected, and I couldn’t WAIT for the pine soda this year.
Then life happened. I started a class, got a little job, and was still trying to keep up with my blog commitments. I was studying when my pine friend began shedding her limbs, when my neighbor’s pines were dropping limbs onto their roofs, and when the lights went out. It became a stressful week for more than 700,000 people in Michigan and Canada. Sadly, at least six people didn’t make it, as of today.
As the storm raged on, with branches shedding and the cold dampening everything, I worried. Worried that the wind would pick up the branches and damage our home, worried that our stove wouldn’t keep the cats warm enough, and worried that our neighbors and friends were facing worse. During a break in the storm, we went outside to assess the situation and decided the immediate risk of falling branches was low. After that, it was about staying warm and planning my harvest.
Needles degrade the fastest, so I knew I needed to be quick. As soon as the weather broke, I needed to get the needles for the soda. The pine soda relies on the natural yeast of the pine needle to lightly ferment the drink, giving it the carbonated quality. Tea and vinegar can use less-than-perfectly fresh needles, but the soda had to be fresh. This meant that I had to PAUSE my studies, the power had just come back on, and I was itching to get back to my studies - but I needed to move quickly. Yeast traditionally hates me, so I couldn’t take any chances. Thankfully, I learned that if you rinse the pine needles in water that is too warm, you will release the terpenes that you need for the flavor when I made the tea earlier this winter.
It meant that by the time I looked at the recipe again, I hadn’t already made a dire mistake of over-rinsing my needles. Still, I had decided to chop my needles, and I was terrified that I had made a huge mistake. Maybe I killed too much yeast? I wasn’t sure, so I pressed on. I filled my bottles with my sticky little needles, sugar and my purified water. I sealed them up and sat them in the window. I sent pictures to my gal pals and my brother and laughed about the yeast. Then I went to work the next day and almost forgot all about it.
I woke up this morning and decided I needed to look at the bottles. I wasn’t expecting anything. Again, I kill yeast. I was ecstatic to find bubbles on the needles in the bottles. So I took a little video of my excitement to share with a few friends who knew I was making the soda to let them know it was working.(Because they are getting some.) Had nature not dropped ice on us, thus dropping a full quarter of our tree, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to try so many things this year. The pine soda is only the most exciting; I’m also excited for the opportunity to look for resin, for salve, and to harvest some inner bark to dry for a thickening agent.
As I harvested from the fallen limbs, I sang to the tree and asked its permission. I explained where her needles were going and that we appreciated the shade she provided, and now we will appreciate the drinks, cleaners, and wood she has provided. I told her she was still beautiful and I felt silly the whole time. I don’t know how I feel about the concept of land spirits, but I do believe that cultivating a mutually respectful relationship with nature is important. We are nothing without her, and without us, she will keep doing what she is doing. We are guests here on this planet, and some of us have zero house training. But it’s never too late to start cultivating that relationship with the natural world around us.
With love,
Mia Marie.
