On Monday, January 24, 2011, Nants debuted at the culinary arts classroom at Anzar High School in San Juan Bautista as a chef! Buzzing with sights, sounds and smells, the state-of-the-art cooking facility has more than 20 people attending the first Healthy Cooking Class as part of the San Benito Food Revolution put on by San Benito Bounty in partnership with the San Benito County Medical Society and the Community Foundation for San Benito County.
Chef Ray Sanchez crafted a feast of flavors from savory roasted chicken to baked potatoes with zesty fresh salsa to lemon-chive carrots and a cabbage/apple slaw. Easy to prepare, based on local seasonal vegetables, it was met with great enthusiasm from the class participants.
Nutritionist Jamie Flores and local physician Dr. Ralph Armstrong shared additional insights into healthy eating and lifestyle. Nants presented information from the Y on wellness classes if offers in San Benito County. We also discussed where to get free range chicken (Paul Hain) and organic vegetables (Phil Foster Farms in SJB). The next class is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Monday, February 28 at San Andreas School’s Kitchen. We hope to see another enthusiastic crowd!

Quite by accident, I discovered wool dryer balls. Dryer balls are a wonderful addition to a green lifestyle for a variety of reasons. First of all, they replace dryer sheets which are slow to break down in the landfill, add chemicals to clothes, are expensive and can harm the sensors in your dryer. Second, they reduce dryer time and lesson wrinkles by pulling apart the layers of fabrics so you get less knotting. They are supposed to reduce static as well. I decided to make some. After much trial and error, I was able to create a beautiful ball. I now make them in all the natural colors of our wool. I sell them on Ebay. I gave them as Christmas gifts, and they were very well received. I think I’ll have a class and let people in my area make their own. There’s a great satisfaction in it…maybe because they felt down so beautifully. I understand these also make great baby toys. This wool has a very high micron count, so these won’t pill and get funky with use. They should last for years. I understand it is possible to add essential oils to them if you prefer scented laundry, but I’m keeping them pure for sale. These would be great for anyone with allergies. Who knew such easy felting could be so much fun and so rewarding?

The first of my saved seeds are in the dark, moist soil of a planting pack, warming gently on a heated pad bought last year for just this purpose. In each tiny cell, four seeds of a wonderful heirloom tomato variety lay waiting to germinate. I am very excited about this. Each seed was lovingly harvested from a plump, mature fruit. Then it was left to develop a little mold, which I am told protects it from future disease. Then it was cleaned, separated and left to dry. Since this is my first attempt at saving seeds, I await with great anticipation and a little bit of trepidation. Did I leave them to mold too long? Did I get the best seeds? Did they dry properly? I laugh at this as well. Haven’t these varieties sprouted for years without my assistance? I have Berkeley Tie Die, Bear Creek, Arkansas Traveler, Timofeyovitch, Tim’s Black Ruffles, Casey’s Yellow and more. While puttering in the kitchen on New Year’s Day 2011, I told my husband I was making lunch for August. Let’s see what happens!

The year 2010 was spent learning so much about Quicksilver Farm. The first of our children’s tours began, offering a glimpse of rural life to preschool, school and afterschool program groups. We shared the bounty of our endeavor without cost to these groups.
It was definitely the Year of the Tomato, with a bumper crop coming in late in the season. The greatest challenge was not growing them, but making sure we used them all. Weeks of canning and salsa making and chutney making were not enough. We loaded beautiful baskets and shared them with former co-workers, friends and family. We were proud that very few tomatoes went unused and unappreciated. The frost two days before Thanksgiving wiped out overnight the vines and the basil, but since we had prior notice we harvested to the best of our ability. We had a fabulous caprese salad for our Thanksgiving feast. Who’d have guessed that?
We also worked hard on our sunflowers, which provided huge bouquets of happy color for guests to Quicksilver Farm Stays. We harvested and shared seeds, which will continue to delight in the coming year.
Our first class got off the ground: Quicksilver Farm Bird Savour Wreaths. It was a big hit and we look forward to a new year of sharing our bounty and our creativity.
We also began to produce virgin wool felted dryer balls, which minimize dryer time and static without adding chemicals to clothes or dryer sensors. These balls are beautiful as well as functional, and were a huge hit with the friends and family who received them at Christmas. We plan on offering them on Ebay in the coming year. Good for the environment, good for your clothes, good for the soul. What could be better?
We look forward to the many opportunities and blessings coming our way in 2011.

A beautiful fall day greeted us for our annual Nuts about You party. Can you believe temperatures in the balmy 70s and lush, ripe heirloom tomatoes still plump and colorful on the vine in mid-November? Friends and family gathered merrily at oilcloth-covered tables out on the back patio to crack walnuts, eat great food and enjoy love and laughter. This year’s walnut crop was particularly abundant. However, we grow our nuts organically (though not certified organic) and had quite a few which were either shriveled or moldy. (Bleah!) Nonetheless, we were able to garner more than enough good ones to send each person home with a bag of nuts for holiday use and enjoyment. Tim made scrumptious walnut pies with a bittersweet chocolate pie shell lining, making everyone glad they had come. This party is an annual event, and you should be sure to let us know if you’d like to be included next year.  There’s nothing as much fun as sharing San Benito bounty at Quicksilver Farm.

I’ve learned a lot from my dachshund Al, who doesn’t realize he’s such a good teacher. In fact, he doesn’t realize much, which is why he’s such a treasure trove of object lessons. Every once in a while you’ll see those chain emails that your mom, or that one friend, always forwards you, detailing how dogs live in the moment and love with abandon. That’s great and all, but what I’ve learned from my dog has had much more tangible results.

Lesson 1: You are always the biggest dog.

My dachshund Al does not know he is a dachshund. He is quite sure he is an Irish wolfhound, or a German shepherd. Or maybe he just thinks that dachshunds are five feet tall. Whatever his reasoning, he has never been afraid to run with the big dogs, quite literally. On our five acre farm, we have three “outdoor” dogs–two labradoodles and one standard poodle–who will bowl over anything not anchored to the ground. When they run across the property, bounding through our apricot orchard, Al makes a valiant attempt to keep up, his little legs churning as fast as they can, taking thirty strides for every one of theirs.
When I think back about my time on the rowing team, I can’t help but notice the similarities between myself and Al. All through high school, I’d never considered myself particularly athletic. The cross-country team made me feel slightly queasy, and a mile seemed like an insurmountable distance. Though I played field hockey for two seasons, I still saw myself as spectacularly untalented in any type of athletics.
When I went away to college, I inexplicably found myself on the crew team. I can’t help but think it was fate that lead me there, because I don’t know why else I would be insane enough to try rowing, a notoriously grueling sport. I stayed on the team for two years and constantly surprised myself with the fact that, actually, I was in pretty good shape. I learned that, up until crew, my major beef with exercising had been mental, not physical. Once I learned to shut my mind down, I realized just how far my body could take me.
A little while ago, I ran the Great Race in Pittsburgh. I signed up for the 10K (roughly 6 miles), and I never thought I’d see the day when I actually paid money to run for distances more than a few yards. But I did, and the sick thing is, I enjoyed it too. Even though I vomited on some poor runner’s shoes five feet from the finish line. The point is, I’ve learned to do what Al was born knowing: to forget my size (or shape or ability or any other reason for failure) and let myself find out what I’m capable of.

Lesson 2: If at first you don’t succeed, you’re probably not doing it with enough gusto.

My dachshund Al would love nothing more than to live permanently on my parents’ bed. The only problem is, it’s about three and a half feet off the ground, and he’s less than a foot tall. At least once a week, as my mom lays doing her sudoku before sleep, Al will make it his mission to get on the bed if it kills him. Starting in the doorway, he jettisons himself across the room and launches himself into the air, flinging himself headfirst into the side of the bed. He slides to the floor, shakes himself off, and does it again. And again. And again. The one time he actually made it up on to the bed (with extensive help from my mother), he was so excited he pooped. Since then, all bed privileges have been revoked.
Obviously, the most important life lesson here is, don’t poop on the the bed.
But besides that helpful hint, Al’s devotion to his goals is very admirable. While he’s not the smartest (or most logical) dog, he is immune to failure. It’s easy to get discouraged when you keep trying for something and continue to fail, but Al has never let himself be disappointed. After a while, he realizes he won’t make it up onto the bed (or just gets distracted by something shiny) and goes off to find some leftover kibble that’s rolled under the table, or to take a nap in the sun. For him, not achieving his goals isn’t something bad, it’s just an excuse to go find someone else to pet him.

Lesson 3: Love even those who hate you.

My dachshund Al is about seven, and I would estimate that for about the first five years of his life, I couldn’t stand him. He yipped to go out onto the patio, then yipped to come back in (for literally hours at a time). He pooped in my doorway, he pooped in the living room, he pooped in the family room, he pooped on my clean laundry. He would slither out the front door and dash across the yard, his ears flying like banners behind him, and my mother would make me sprint after him to keep him from running away. He barked at spiders, at the dog in the oven (his own reflection), at the gardener each week.
He found unique ways of making me apoplectic. For Christmas one year my mom gave me a large chocolate penguin. Within hours, Al had penguin-napped it from my desk and eaten part of it, leaving the beheaded penguin in my doorway and bits of plastic strewn across the room.
Al, in his older years, has calmed down a bit. Now his muzzle has flecks of gray hair, and he’s content to snuggle with you on the couch (although he snores so loudly you can hear it from the next room). And despite my ceaseless exasperation through his puppy years, Al loves me just as much as he always has. He is single-minded in his devotion to our whole family, and though he’s ridiculous and irritating I can’t help but love him the way he loves me.

Today is a beautiful fall day at Quicksilver Farm. The air is warm but with a hint of crispness. Our friend, Leon Bray, came out to help us harvest our hives. Leon sells incredible local honey under the name San Benito Gold, and you can find him plying his wares at the Farmers’ Market when it is open, and around town from his truck when it is not. He has been producing honey for years, providing the extra benefit of pollination for various farms and ranches throughout San Benito County. He is such a nice man, so generous with his time and talent. He thinks we have about 40 pounds of honey. We hope to have it filtered and bottled in time for holiday gift giving. (Of course, we have to keep enough of it for Nants to make her homemade granola.) Our hive is healthy and happy, and we should be able to split it in the spring. No sign of colony collapse here. Bees are industrious and creative creatures. We are glad to share Quicksilver Farm with them.

Though we don’t grow apples at Quicksilver Farm (we have one tree we planted last year and it isn’t giving us fruit yet) we love it when the season begins.  What a great fruit!  Lasts on the counter for a long time, easy to transport and eat and if it gets mushy the Lipizzan horses love them. ..right out of our hands.  This year we are blessed with a San Benito harvest, while late due to our cool spring, purported to be 25 percent above recent years.  We are fortunate to have neighbors with both Fuji and Granny Smith, one for eating and one for baking.  As part of a five-a-day fruit and vegetable regime, why not pick up an apple today and enjoy the crisp sensation and delicious taste?

Today was the first rain of the season. Actually, it was more like a soft mist but it downed the dust, darkened the soil and sent that fabulous scent – petrichor – throughout the Quicksilver Farm air. Tim and I spent the day harvesting more of our wonderful heirloom tomatoes. We took them around to his former office, the San Benito County Office of Education, to delight the office staff there. We shared them with friends as well. Tucking them into a basket, garnishing it with cut stalks of fragrant basil, it makes for a very warm welcome!

Today we are saving our tomato seeds. After our cold spring, the tomatoes are so late I began to despair of ever having them…but here they are! We are loving the varieties we chose this year, and want to have them again so I am in the process of saving some seeds. My seed saving process uses fermentation. It helps destroy many of the potential tomato diseases in seeds.
I take my tomato and slice it in half across the middle (I’ve heard this referred to as its “equator”). With my well-washed fingers scoop out the seeds and surrounding goo into a clean plastic cup. Add a couple of tablespoons of water to the seeds,. Cover with a piece of plastic-wrap and poke a small hole into the plastic with a knife.
I put the container of seeds in a warm location. Now it ferments. This takes about two or three days. Each night remove the plastic-wrap, stir the seed and water mixture, and then replace the plastic-wrap. The top of the liquid will look “scummy” when the fermentation process has finished.
Take the container of fermented seeds to the sink and with a spoon carefully remove the scummy surface. Pour the container’s contents into a fine kitchen sieve and rinse the seeds with water several times.
Line an open plate with a piece of waxed paper or a large automatic-drip coffee filter. Or use an absorbant paper plate. Spread the rinsed seeds onto the plate in a single layer. Keep the plate in a safe location where the seeds can dry for a few days. (I put them in a closed room so my kitties and dogs don’t get at them!) Stir the seeds a few times during the drying process to assure that all their surfaces are evenly dry. Spread them out again into a single layer after each time they’re stirred. Tomato seeds are thick and may take a week to dry thoroughly. I know they’re dry when they do not stick to one another or the plate.
Store each variety in either a paper envelope or plastic bag. Keep them absolutely dry. I label them with the variety if I know it, or a great description of the fruit if I don’t. If I plan on trading seeds, I describe them as open-pollinated since there is a rare chance of cross breeding.
I find that these seeds are a great hit as gifts…a few tucked into a holiday card go a long way towards being remembered fondly in the coming year.