Wintry evenings are descending on the farm.

During the short days, we are loading Wood Wagon One with fuel for the stove.

And just in time, we’ve turned the corner on construction of the barn. A long winter’s work remains, but most of that will be inside the building — what a notion!

We second that emotion! After 15 years of being a barnless farm, we’re dizzy with ideas about how we’ll be able to offer you better crops and funner visits.

Anyway, here we are, it’s December 20th, and we’re pressing cider TODAY! Our latest date ever. That’s just one of the things we gain by adding the barn.

So just because the farm stand looks windblown and forlorn…

And the strawberries are hunkered down beneath the first snows…

And the sandwich board says apocalyptic things…

Don’t think we’re hibernating! Sign says “OPEN” and it’s true.

(Actually this furry farmer and her cohort do appear to be on winter break, but it’s not like we have any say in the matter…)

Just come in the double doors. We’re open self-serve 7 days a week, and the Orchard Ambrosia will flow all winter! We will be working in the cider room every Saturday starting January 7 — bring your jugs and get bulk rates on the gnarly gnectar.

You can contact The Cidermeister directly with any questions at 607-793-3560. He’ll entertain your thoughts about cider and/or The New York Yankees.

Aside from cider you’ll find lovely apples, only a BUCK A POUND. Jonagold, Ida Red, Northern Spy, Spygold — all #1 eatin’ apples. Plus pie apples a-plenty.

And cooking squash for 50 CENTS A POUND! Decorative gourds, too!

Finally, let’s not forget the u-pick sprouts. Bring Grandma’s old garden saw or some other way to hack these hardy stalks. And if Grandma isn’t sharing her legendary recipes, there’s this thing called The Google that will give you “about 183,000 pages” of sprout recipes in “.17 seconds.” Take that, Grandma!

More news in the new year. Til then — be well, safe travels, happy apple sauce.

Pumpkins are moving like crazy — come get yours.

Pie, pie, pie. Never too much pie.

And cider! We’re prepping the tractors for fall field work, fueled by fresh-pressed Orchard Ambrosia.

“Good enough for machine, good enough for you!”

Down at the stand, you can still find famous New York State apples.

If you are following our daily updates on Facebook and Twitter, you’ve seen a barny miracle unfolding. Here’s the first nail.

We engineered this rig to take construction photos every hour, to document what is surely one of the most momentous moments in Indian Creek Farm history.

By the time the rig was ready, the crew had blown through half the project! The roof was up just hours before the first snow of the year.

More news on the barn in the coming weeks… Gotta run! Time to muck around in the barn slop and prepare to build the floor. See you at the ‘Creek.

What? You haven’t secured your pumpkins yet? Okay, Tardy McTardyson. You don’t have to be the neighbor with all the fun flags and lawn gnomes and garden balls. But at some point your pumpkin procrastination will border on downright impertinence. Like, now!

Luckily we can tell you where to get pumpkins and other fall goodies – including raspberries, squash, plums, peppers, onions, garlic, and even duck eggs!

Same place you can get a NINE POUND jug of cider. Aww haw. Nine pounds, fresh-pressed, pure fruit. Here on the farm, of course.

There aren’t many apples on the trees any more – but we’ve picked bushels and bushels, meaning the cider will keep on flowing.

You can still get apples at the farm stand, and have a free taste of Orchard Ambrosia. The presses are getting crisper and tastier as the late-season varieties are blended in.

What else is fresh this week? We let the farmhands out of the coop! They are playing a show at Da Westy in downtown Ithaca tonight. You can listen to real farmers play original “Americoustic” tunes at 7 PM under the name Riputa Pirjelli. (We’re not sure what it means, either, but these fellers can sing!)

Anything else? Oh yeah, there’s the small matter of us BUILDING A BARN! A farm without a barn is like a horseman without a head. Just plain WRONG!

We’re fixing to fix that. Over the next few weeks you’ll see us playing in the dirt like a bunch of yahoos with overgrown Tonka Toys. Next spring you’ll see a barn.

The big idea is to create a place to store equipment and vehicles out of the harsh elements. A place to repair machines and work through the winter. A place to store 30,000 baby fruit trees!

We were most thankful and humbled to receive offers of volunteer help from fans on our Facebook page. Just like an old-time barnraising. As you can see from the photo, we have everything under control, nothing to worry about!

Back to the Crop Alert. This week we have even MORE dead flowers than we did last week! Perfect for your costume if you’re some kind of wicked gnarly evil undead zombie. Pumpkins and costumes, all in one visit.

See you at the ‘Creep, er, Creek!

Take apples, for instance. How do we know when to pick the mutsus? When they outgrow their nests, of course!

Yeah this week we harvested 80 bushels of mutsus because they were starting to drop. Cold nights and blustery days. Hear them plopping?

We picked the high stuff and left low-hanging fruit for you. The trees might look empty from a distance, but you have to think like an intrepid apple scout.

Zoom in close, peak behind the leaves, and sure enough you’ll bag some beauties.

Rome Beauties and Red Deliciouses are ready, too. Find the trees with blue ribbons and pick with a passion. Or wait 12 long months til your next chance!

Yes, it’s true. The inexorable march of time is reflected in the colors of Old Faithful.

Even the tractors have taken on autumn’s burnt sienna.

And the giant sunflowers are sleepy. But check out that double-spiral seed pattern based on the optimal space-filling geometry of the Fibonacci sequence! (Extra credit for Mother Nature, biggest geek of all.)

We have myriad dead flowers for your goth parties. Spooky decorations and whatever. You can even make like a Rolling Stone and send dead flowers to somebody’s wedding. (Creep!)

But the amazing thing is, we still have bumblebeezillions of these pretty things.

And late-season hot peppers. Like tongues of flame, little Thai Dragons.

Day-glo sweet peppers of the pumpkin persuasion. Orange is the new green. We have buckets of peppers at the farm stand.

And, incredibly, eggplant in the field, plus eggplant at the stand. A freakish opportunity to pick summer veggies late in the year. Mother always said we was different.

Of course we’ve rolled out the fall classics. Butternut squash and stripey dumplings. Hard as rocks but supposedly you can cook them.

Concord grapes, growing right over your head as you walk into the farm stand, and the last of the fall raspberries. Mush them together.

Naturally we have pumpkins. Two weeks til Halloween. Don’t be THAT household — put a pumpkin on the porch. It’s your sociocultural obligation. Conform!

Otherwise we’ll be that OTHER family, with 300 pumpkins on the porch. Help!

And remember, in the game of life, it’s not whether you win or lose… it’s how many shiny baubles you can collect and hide from Wall Street.

On the subject of winning, here we spy Zorro in a rare trot. Even His Royal Highness The Duke of Marrowbones feels a little urgency this time of year.

Of course we might have yelled “Bacon!” to get him going.

Then we felt bad because Zorro’s look of disappointment melts a stone-cold heart.

Nonetheless he made one final check to see if there was bacon inside.

Speaking of which, you can find a box of Indian Creek apples at our friends’ awesome place – The Piggery! It’s a fantastic new farm-to-table deli and cafe. They have local products from their own farm and a dozen others every day. Trendsetters, they are. And kindfolk. And right here in Ithaca.

Okay, last pic. Cider is good. See you at the ‘Creek!

Okay, one more. This is your brain on cider. Wheeeeee!

The giant Mutsu apple famously appears in this postmodern still life by the artist Lila McBalto. The plastic diver holds real strands from a Japanese silkworm. The many-sided dice were used in a vintage fantasy game called “Dungeons & Dragons,” circa 1982. The piglets aren’t real.

Perhaps an even better use of the wonderful mutsu is edible art. This marvelous pie was baked by our own Allie, the scholar and farmer, and everyone’s favorite Saturday stand operator.

Here is the nom-nom-nom view. You can see as much drama in this pie as in any great work. And one must suppose it tastes better than the Mona Lisa.

Inside each of us is an artist – and your chance has arrived. You can pick your own Mutsus starting now! The Mutsu orchard is along the southern border of the farm, opposite the long rows of corn. Feels very farmy.

The fruit hangs low and easy to pick.

And the trees are absolutely jammed with huge apples.

This one is kind of spooky, lurking in the shadows. But really it wants to be picked, just like everyone else.

Follow the signs to the Mutsu orchard. If you can understand our signs you are winning the game of life. Everything is going great for you, and you will soon be picking oversize apples to impress friend and foe alike.

You’ll also be picking pumpkins! That’s because the pumpkin patch is just above the Mutsu orchard, seen here in the background behind the soccer mom cars.

Did you know there is a pumpkin shortage up and down the whole east coast? And Halloween is just 3 weeks away?

Well we got pumpkins, so your success is guaranteed!

On your way to the pumpkins and Mutsus, you might end up walking through the Dwarf Orchard. Pretty cool place, and here’s the deal: There are 1,600 trees and 60 varieties of apple!

Of course you can pick whatever you like, but we pruned them back this year to encourage growth, so there is very little fruit right now. The whole idea is that next year the Dwarf Orchard will be in full production, and it will be off the chain! That’s the REAL news about 2012.

Meanwhile, back in the Vintage Orchard, the Rome Beauty and Red Delicious apples are ready to pick. Just find trees with blue ribbons and have a ball.

When the apples are too high to reach, you can use an “apple basket,” one of the poles you’ll find around the orchard or at the farm stand.

Or grab an orchard stool. Please practice your dismount and don’t pull a Jasper.

Please do not use the tall orchard ladders. Even if you happen to see one around, please remember that they are for orchard staff only, and they can be real dangerous when you have an arm full of apples and the ground is tilty. Have a safe visit and let’s finish the season with everybody feeling fine!

Well that’s about it for this week, folks. We’d be remiss if we didn’t remind you that the flowers won’t last much longer. Cold nights are here.

So pick your own bouquet or grab one at the stand. Amanda arranged these beauties. They make an easy 5-buck gift for a friend. See you at the ‘Creek!

But Henry Quinn Underwood didn’t much like that.

We showed him a giant squash; but, he stayed in a pout.

Things brightened a little when he played with Baby Squash.

But that didn’t last long. The apple crate was making Henry a real grumpkin.

Ringgg ringgg! “Henry Quinn speaking, how may I direct your call?”

Blimey! Another call about apples. “Yes, ma’am, the Northern Spies are ready for picking. Yes, those are the ones native to Upstate New York. That’s right, they are great for making dumb old apple pies.”

“Ma’am, you just have to look for red ribbons in the Vintage Orchard. There are only a few Northern Spy trees, so don’t throw a tantrum if somebody gets there first.”

Back to Henry: What were we to do? It was apples galore around here. Everyone had apples on the brain. Everyone, except Henry Quinn.

He seemed to be in a far off place. The slightest provocation, the faintest aroma, seemed to send Henry into a deep reverie.

So we tried something different. We set him down in the pumpkins.

And then we saw a change. It was like Henry rediscovered his own feet.

The kid was coming alive.

Even cloudy days were funny.

At last we knew: Henry’s not a grumpkin, he’s a pumpkin!

And now the dude is content.

Come out to the farm and find YOUR bliss! Apples and pumpkins are picking, and the stand is packed with delicious produce.

It’s going to be a rainy few days – but you got boots.

Last week you picked the farm clean of McIntosh apples and made a real dent in the Cortlands. There are still Cortlands to pick – they make terrific salad apples since their crisp white flesh won’t turn brown. Also great for straight noshing.

Pumpkins join the show this week! It’s a little shocking that we are hurtling toward Halloween – but the pumpkins don’t lie. Come find the one with your name on it.

Here’s how it works! Get up close and personal with your chosen pumpkin for the price check…

Tiny wittle fing – definitely 55 cents per pound.

Let’s call that one a match! 45 cents per pound!

Whoa! That’s bigger than me!

A bargain, only 35 cents per pound!

Good kid! Now how about some Swiss chard? All kids love THAT, right?

Okay, how about fresh-pressed cider instead?

Or fall raspberries?

Plums?

And more plums!

And more!

Just to be clear, this is called “corn.”

It’s true about the Twizzlers, but who is Stephen?

Folks, we keep telling you about the cut flowers – only 5 bucks to cut your own bouquet – but the flowers are taking over.

What more invitation do you need? Come out and share the farm with us… the season won’t last forever!

Wander around the Vintage Orchard and you will see trees marked with ribbons. Orange means, “Pick me, I’m a McIntosh!” Sweet, tart, and juicy.

A yellow ribbon means, “Pick me, I’m a Cortland!” It’s a famous salad apple, because the brilliant white flesh doesn’t oxidize and turn brown.

But be careful, we bit this Cortland specimen 20 minutes ago and it is still too bright to observe with the naked eye. Set your solar-powered welding helmet to a shade of 10 or higher for safe viewing.

Reality bites — this year’s crop is showing a dab of “scab.” New York has received historic rainfall in 2011, and we don’t like to spray. That makes ideal conditions for fungus to leave a mark on the fruit surface. But, you will find plenty of pristine apples to pick as you wander. And truth is, the scabbed apples are totally edible. Adventurous foodies, these are the real thing!

There’s also a gorgeous crop of Mutsu apples that will be ready in a few weeks. Mutsus are quintessential pie apples, and they are virtually scab-free! The fruits this year are huge, as big as little pumpkins. Stay tuned for that crop alert in October.

Back to the here and now — we are picking crates of apples, and you know what that means? The cider press is in high gear!

Each press starts with juicy apples. Mountains of them!

Also an admixture of Indian Creek Bartlett pears.

Into the grinder they go. Bad ones are hand-selected for exclusion.

Could get a little messy; wear your mud boots.

Mmmmm, mash! The grinder creates a pulpy paste that we dump into the press.

Fill it up all the way, we got gallons to make today!

Screw the stainless steel lid real tight.

Fire up the pump. When the inflatable bladder fills with water, the mash is squeezed up against the grate, and out flows the juice!

The amber nectar — clean and fresh — gets pumped into the big tank.

Two jugs are filled at a time. Pretty rinky-dink operation… but dang tasty!

Each session takes 6 hours and produces 50 gallons. Jugs are set on the little wagon for their 20-foot ride to the farm stand! Read more about Orchard Ambrosia, including why it’s not really called cider, on our web page here.

Well, if you can’t tell from all this apple talk, autumn is right around the corner. Yesterday was cold and rainy, so these awesome farm gals camped out by the wood stove. Cozy times at the ‘Creek!

The farm stand still has summer bounty; live it up while you can. Peaches will be totally gone this weekend, but there are piles of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, corn, onions, garlic, and more! See you at the farm.

Let’s get down to business. Time for an end-of-season sale on peaches. Everybody cries when peach season is over, so “peach up” while the getting is good.

We can’t stop time, but we can help you drown your sorrows in peach juice.

To soften the blow, there is a new wave of raspberries! The berry field is showing a robust fall crop, producing about 30 pints a day for u-pick and pre-picked.

And now back to summer proper! Just look at the bounty! Great time to hit your neighborhood farm and partake of the cornucopia.

Nectarines! We’ve picked some for the stand, and there are a few trees still available for you to pick your own.

Pears! The trees got picked clean this week, but there are plenty of pears to purchase at the stand. Crisp and delicious, sweet and refreshing.

Ginger gold apples — get ‘em at the farm stand only!

Still tons of eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, plums, corn, garlic, onions, and more!

Early Orchard Ambrosia, our third pressing of the season. Try some now, and note how the flavors change as apple season rolls on.

Our friend has ducks, her ducks lay eggs. Pretty simple.

Pick your own herbs for cooking, eating, drying, and… aromatherapy!

You can cut your own flowers and make a bouquet. Isn’t your love worth a fiver?

They look very wholesome and earthy hanging on the porch.

We are trying to balance all that earthmother stuff with manly matters. So, today we are melting steel chains. Torching big chains into little ones. Hear us roar.

They get welded onto the orchard mower, for safety and cutting efficiency.

As with any successful DIY project, we invited a couple friends over to the job site, to entertain us with gossip and bad jokes. “So a chickenhawk, a Cornish game hen, and a weedwacker walk into a bar…”

Meanwhile, Archie is calling for the toolbox. Says he is going to fix the backhoe. Roosters with powertools — run for your life!!!

But did you know that this year’s peaches are as big as a Bergamasco Sheepdog? Okay, technically this is a “Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Posing (Suspiciously) as a Bergamasco Sheepdog,” according to the artist, Sam Schonzeit.

Anyway… the peaches are easy picking. They are right at eye-level, or within reach on the stepstools. You can find the three-legged ladders scattered around.

And now it’s time to announce that the peaches have company! The first PEARS and NECTARINES are ready to pick! Remember, if you pick some that aren’t quite ready to eat, don’t panic or curse your local farmer; just give the fruit a couple days on the kitchen counter. Pears do well in a brown paper bag.

You don’t have to search far to find the pears. They are hanging right along the crossroad at the top of the driveway.

Wow are they lovely — many showing that classic bell or guitar shape — and ever so delicious: crisp, firm, sweet, and juicy.

The pear crop is brilliant this year, but there are only a half-dozen trees. THEY WILL BE PICKED CLEAN BY MONDAY, SO NOW IS YOUR CHANCE!

A few steps away, planted among the peaches, you’ll find the nectarines. Kind of like peaches, but fuzz-free. As the name implies, they’re packed with nectar!

Some nectarines have one-of-a-kind beauty marks. They look perfectly imperfect — like little works of art — and taste terrific.

Others have freckles. Cute, huh? Hey, who chowed down on that pear while the photographer was daydreaming?

You have to watch where you set down your booty around here. We caught these peckish perps red-beaked.

Shall we take one last moment to appreciate nature’s sense of style? Isn’t this spherical bud extraordinary?

And isn’t it amazing that this blossom is the result? Don’t forget to take home a bouquet of fresh cut flowers for your loved ones — or yourself!

Thanks for supporting the farm. The season is flying by, so come out to the ‘Creek!

Celebrate summer with this classic pairing of red and green. Many a happy evening has begun with tomato and basil.

Basil is really something. In every plant, Nimrod’s ziggurat.

“Everything I think I see becomes a Tootsie Roll tomato to me.”

Our new lawn jockey.

This is your brain on tomatoes.

Once you’ve got your tomato-basil kit, browse the stand for everything you’ll need to make summer soups, salads, and salsas. To wit, garlic…

Onions…

And peppers a-plenty.

Meanwhile, back at the sign factory…

We’re gearing up for the tomato rush.

Holy crap-ple! Autumn is like totally just around the corner, and that means apples. Thanks to our magic tree called Esmeralda, we’ve got early cider at the stand now. Cold, crisp, and fresh-pressed. Nothing but fruit, no preservatives or artificial sweeteners. Yum. (Okay, technically it’s not cider; read here to find out why!)

So this week’s crop alert is good chance to remind you of our Peck Box Special: pick a variety of goodies from around the farm, fill a peck box, and pay only $12!

Your box could include fresh tomatoes, peaches, cukes, zukes, eggplant, and a garnish of flowers. A little u-pick adventure, collecting things that strike your fancy.

Just be sure to mix it up — the idea is to try new things and help us move all the different crops. If instead you want a whole peck of peaches, for example, that has a different price. Ask at the stand, they’ll help you out.

And now a heads-up about raspberries! The bees have been busy pollinating the berry patch, so you might be lucky enough to pick an early pint from the autumn crop.

Another insider tip — the lone tree we call Esmeralda provided a small batch of summer apples! There are precious few, so ask at the farm stand.

This little guy was nice enough to pose with a peach and a penny so you could see the size of these zucchinis. Whoa.

Whereas this big feller — some of you know him as Zorro — was a little in the doghouse, so we promised to put a photo of him in this week’s alert.

He was feeling a little jealous that Katrina was getting all the attention. She’s on the cover of this year’s brochure. Get your copy at the farm stand, there’s a field map on the back.

One more secret… Shhh… The first bottles of cold-pressed cider are only days away! Could be as soon as Sunday — ask at the stand.

Thanks, everybody, see you at the ‘Creek.

You can pick your own peaches, cukes, zukes, eggplant, peppers, herbs, and flowers. Plus there’s much more at the farm stand, including potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, onions, blueberries, and canteloupe.

Must be something in the air. We got a bazillion calls about hot peppers this week. Luckily we have about a bazillion hot peppers.

You can cook with them, sure, or just hang them on your door.

Zucchini and cucumbers are easy picking in the front field, a few steps up the gravel driveway. Can you tell the difference between cukes and zukes?

You can snip three kinds of basil right in front of the farm stand.

Chocolate sunflowers — kinda goth, sorta badass.

Our tomatoes are taking their sweet old time. You might find a few ripe ones this weekend, but what’s probably going to happen is they’ll all go nuts in about 5 days — so stay tuned for tomatoes to be the topic of our next big crop alert.

Meanwhile, down at the farm stand, you can get them picked, polished, and packed. Such as these marvelous orbs of tomatitude.

Peaches, too! You pick and we pick. The next wave is ripening as we speak. And remember, if you pick an unripe peach, give it 1-2 days on the kitchen counter and it’ll be dribble-down-your-chin juicy.

Eggplant season won’t last forever, but the Eggplantapalooza after party is still kicking. You all did an amazing job picking eggplant last weekend — you’re making eggplant cool again.

Blueberries. Just add mouth.

And a sneak preview of autumn apple harvest… a few earlies from the dwarf orchard.

And that’s a wrap. See you at the ‘Creek.

Remember — Crops come and go. Crops ebb and flow. We can’t guarantee exactly what you’ll find when you visit, but we try to provide WEEKLY crop alerts on our blog and DAILY updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Where morning dew chills the eggplant blossoms…

And the fruits seem to quietly slumber…

( …drumroll, please… )

Eggplantapalooza rages on!!!

Lady EggEgg, Robert Plant, and other dreamy aubergines get top billing.

They hire scabby old apples to work the door…

You know, to keep out roving gangs of hot peppers. Those troublemakers.

It can be standing room only, folks…

So consider this your backstage pass!

This Saturday and Sunday only, August 6-7, get 50% off when you PICK YOUR OWN peck box of eggplant! Only $6 for a beautiful haul! PLEASE PRINT ONE PAGE OF THIS CROP ALERT and present it at the farm stand for your discount.

ALSO, PLEASE DON’T FILL YOUR BOX WITH BABY EGGPLANT – it’s okay to toss a couple on top, but please pick mature eggplant so the babies will grow up in the coming weeks.

Come join the party, and don’t forget about those peaches – they are in season and ready for u-pick!

See you at the ‘Creek.

The farm is bursting with food – we need your help – come get picking!

We’re talking about cukes, zukes, eggplant, garlic, onions, peppers, tomatoes, peaches, potatoes, blackberries, blueberries…

Wait, did someone say peaches? Yah hah! Many trees are packed with their first ripe fruit. You’ve all waited more or less patiently ;-) Now it’s time to be an emergency first responder and hit the orchard!

We are also swimming in eggplant – delicious fried, baked, and grilled.

Look at these little cuties.

And gobs of peppers. Try savory poblanos where you would normally use sweet bells – they are flavorful, tender, and have just the slightest piquancy.

Of course some of you are thrill-seekers; the hotties are for you.

Any way you slice it, there is something for everyone. Come out to Indian Creek for a u-pick adventure, or just shop the shelves of the farm stand.

Thanks for supporting local farms. See you at the ‘Creek.

Remember — Crops come and go. Crops ebb and flow. We can’t guarantee exactly what you’ll find when you visit, but we try to provide WEEKLY crop alerts on our blog and DAILY updates on Facebook and Twitter.

It stays nice and cool under the shade of the front porch.

That’s where you’ll find juicy tomatoes.

Peppers hot.

Peppers sweet.

…and pints of farm-fresh raspberries to eat!

Today we are also opening the stand with potatoes, peaches, blueberries, and garlic. There will be much more as the season rolls on, so drop by this weekend and stay tuned for the coming wave of Fresh Crop Alerts!

Hot sunny days – and the stunning Women’s World Cup match between USA and Brazil – have the berries feeling jubilant and celebratory!

Gooooooooooooooooal! Golazoooooooooo!

Go USA! And good luck to all the remaining squads!

But seriously, the raspberries are ripening faster than we can pick them.

Look at these gorgeous Jumbo Purples.

Mix and match!

We really need your help to keep up with the action – today and the next few days. If the weather stays bright and toasty, berries will be ripening fast and furious this week. Help us give these berries the Ol’ Razzle Dazzle!

* * *

Remember — Crops come and go. Crops ebb and flow. We can’t guarantee exactly what you’ll find when you visit, but we try to provide WEEKLY crop alerts on our blog and DAILY updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Meanwhile the Raspberries are kicking off their summer. This chap is relaxing by the irrigation pond.

These lovebirds are having a paddle.

And this husky fellow is going for a big-mouth bass.

Come out and pick! We have alluring and mysterious “blackcap” raspberries.

And sunny goldens!

And classic juicy reds! Our humble raspberry patch yields about 40 pints a day, so you’ll probably want to come out early, before the day is picked clean. Each day new berries ripen. See you at the farm!

* * *

Remember — Crops come and go. Crops ebb and flow. We can’t guarantee exactly what you’ll find when you visit, but we try to provide WEEKLY crop alerts on our blog and DAILY updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Smoothies for brunch, daiquiris at dinner…

It is strawberry season in New York and it won’t last forever. So if you want to live in the “now,” swing out to your local farm and get picking!

There’s a beautiful crop at Indian Creek this year.

And beautiful people, too! Bring your friends and bring the kids. Thanks to everyone who visited during opening week! See you at the ‘Creek.

Remember those green strawberries we looked at last week? Now they are red, and ready to meet the ultimate fate of a strawberry.

Nom nom nom!

NOM! NOM! NOM! NOM! NOM!

These strapping blokes have installed a sign on Route 96 to remind you that Strawberry Hour has arrived.

You’ll see this rickety little wagon. In 2 minutes flat you can pull off the road, grab a couple quarts of farm-fresh berries, and leave your bills in the slot.

Pick up a quart to drop off at a friend’s house!

Bursting with juice. Make great smoothies!

Want to hand-pick them yourself? Get your quart boxes at the wagon, then follow the signs to the Berry Patch. Hope to see you soon! Weather has cooled, weekend is here, and berries are waiting.

First strawberries of 2011!

Thousands of these! Bam!

Strawberry blossoms.

Of course some of the berries are still at the blossom stage.

Strawbabies!

And some are in between.

Walk this way.

By mid-June, there should be plump, sweet, juicy strawberries to pick. We’ll straighten out our signs by the time you get here! See you at the farm!

Tomato sign in the mower.

Oops, this one got caught in the mower!

6 apple buds.

Add 1 chomp by a woodland hoodlum…

Chomped by woodland hoodlum.

And you get zero apples. See, 6 + 1 = 0. Strange but true.

You might remember from Miss Crabapple’s biology class that buds turn into blossoms, and blossoms bring forth fruit. If a branch gets “nipped in the bud,” bye bye fruit pie. Luckily the neighborhood ne’er-do-wells have left plenty of buds, so it won’t be long til we’re sending out fresh crop alerts!

Extra Credit

Each of the apple trees below was damaged by a different critter — mouse, rabbit, or deer. Which was which?

1. An impressive clean cut, perfect and planar like a saw blade…

Who did this?

2. Jagged and stringy, as if stripped like honeysuckle…

And who did this?

3. Just plain dead, no nutrients getting through…

And who killed this tree?

(Remember xylem and phloem — more on those another day.)

Which was by mouse? rabbit? deer?

There are a few days in spring when the orchards pop with blossoms.  Wind and rain and biology all conspire to make the show short-lived.  So you have to enjoy the blooms while they last, and get photos on the spot or wait til next year.  I had a heck of a time photographing the pear tree in the video; eventually there were some still moments and I rambled around to snap these photos.

Spring on the farm, before the first mowing.  The grass is long, dandelions are tall, and everything waves in the wind.  Set the camera in an old apple tree, up in the meadow near Stumphenge.

Everything on the farm becomes a habitat.

Not least this old Ford tractor, because in a bird-eat-bird world, you don’t thumb your beak at an iron-clad condo with sweeping views. The farm hawk, among other predators, isn’t going to divebomb such a fortress, and the dogs can’t reach high enough to bother.

The downy chicks seemed to be craning their necks in anticipation of afternoon snack. I found the soundless exertion kind of creepy, recalling Edvard Munch’s The Scream, painted in 1893, long before the existential panic called Facebook.

Birds weren’t the sole squatters at Camp Busted Tractor. After a couple hours work we cranked the engine only to recoil at a CLANG! THWACK! BOOM! (Pause.) CRANGGG!

When the blue smoke cleared, Farmer Stephen scratched his head and I muttered some useless consolation. Stephen disassembled the manifold to find bits of peach pit which had been squirreled away — rather, moused away — somewhere inside.

A big shard had got suctioned through the system when we turned the key, which fouled the cylinder and doomed the Blue Ford to a season of rehab. That’s a $1,500 peach pit, if we appraise objects by how much they screw us over.

As for the bird’s nest, I got the feeling that Mama was watching anxiously. We left the helpless babes alone because the tractor wasn’t moving after all. Not sure what we would have done otherwise. I had been thinking about calling the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for instructions.

Can you move a nest?

If, for your evening walk, you should like to pass a few minutes untroubled by world affairs, it is best to avoid an encounter with duct tape. Today I was not so fortunate.

Someone somewhere is in a bloody fight for something. It is more or less desperate and bursting with heartbreak. There might be winners, but everyone will lose. Heroes will slaughter heroes. The flickering swath told me so.

Most people, even patriots of Duct Tape Nation, probably find the video a real snooze, but I can watch it looping for a good long time. I think it can hold its own in the genre traditionally headlined by faux fire.

Try running both movies at once. Turn up the volume so you can hear the fire within and the wind without. What is your white noise of choice? Crickets? Rain? Distant weedwackers?

Especially when you are working in spring mud, soaked by the thaw, you are talking about buoyancy as much as traction. Sure, your tires might slip from time to time, spinning as they momentarily lose their grip on the soil, but a decent tractor can generally get enough purchase to go forward. What is not so certain is, are you balanced properly for the project at hand?

When you are working the fields, you have tools — or attachments — hooked up to the tractor.  You might drag a plow behind you, for example.  As you drive along, your plow is inclined to dive like a submarine, and that will pull the front wheels of the tractor off the ground.  You’ll lose your “steerage,” as they say in boating lingo.  But if you hang some heavy steel off your front bumper, that will balance you out.  You will be able to plow the soil and steer your tractor as you like.

We have another tool, the tree digger, that we use in the nursery.  It is kind of clever.  Each year we have to dig up thousands of young fruit trees so they can be replanted in orchards and parks.  We drive the High-Boy tractor over long rows of trees, bending the trunks but not snapping them, and the digger gently dislodges the trees.  Then we collect them by hand, bundle them up, and toss them into the pickup.  Beats the old shovel technique, one tree at a time.

If the digger is not weighted, it won’t dive deep enough, and it will break right through the roots of the young trees.  That kills them.  Instead if you add weights to the digger, you’ll sink the business end deeper into the earth where it will clear the roots.  Perfectly executed, the nursery trees get lifted up, roots and all, and topple gently onto the surface without mechanical damage to their roots or bark.

Tractor weights from apple crates.

Usually in the form of solid steel plates, tractor weights are expensive to buy, maybe $500 or more to satisfy our requirements on the High-Boy.  On this project we took the do-it-yourself route and spent a total of $0.  We tinkered for an hour and then made the weights in another hour.  In this case the 2-hour timesink was better than the cash outlay.

Materials were free because we had them laying around:  a bag of concrete mix, wooden apple crates, and scraps of metal.  Google provided some ballpark densities for concrete and steel.  After an intricate hillbilly calculation scrawled on a 2×4, we estimated that 4 crates, filled to the brim with iron-doped concrete, would achieve our target mass, while retaining the option of removing a crate if we overshot, or if conditions in the field called for different weights on different days.  It’s a modular design.

The video above was our test run.  There are no trees in that row, but we could see that the digger was diving to a good depth.  Next we try it in the nursery.

If they work in the nursery, we won’t feel like geniuses or anything.  You could argue that factory-made tractor weights would be superior in a couple ways and you might be right.  But the thought of coughing up serious cash for lunks of steel was abhorrent to us at that moment.  As we proceeded to stir the wet concrete and cram it full of metal garbage, I had the distinct feeling of being a couple of old moonshiners agitating our sour mash.  I kept looking over my shoulder furtively, thinking, Can we do this?  Aren’t we supposed to buy the genuine article?

Something drew us inexorably forward and we converted the crates into weights.

Creights^TM, you might say.

Out for a ski around the dwarf orchard. Happened upon this little fellow. How did he get here? Where was he going?

Don’t give up on him after 45 seconds, he keeps motoring!

I picked up the camera when the bug got close. He encountered the camera’s impression in the snow, looked over the precipice, wiggled once, and plunged in. He paused inside for moment, then climbed out the other side.

Looks like something chaotic happened. All that happened was I saw a bug.

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

The next poem is also farmic, and ends with a mysterious whopper that is among my all-time favorite lines in any verse.

There Is An Evening Coming In

There is an evening coming in
Across the fields, one never seen before,
That lights no lamps.

Silken it seems at a distance, yet
When it is drawn up over the knees and breast
It brings no comfort.

Where has the tree gone, that locked
Earth to the sky?  What is under my hands,
That I cannot feel?

What loads my hands down?

One or the other of these poems comes to mind when I’m walking the orchards of Indian Creek, and around the Ithaca countryside generally. Larkin is widely perceived as dour, but I find these to be pleasantly contemplative. Equanimity can be confused for gloom.