DEAR ‘CREEKNIKS & FARMKETEERS:  We prefer not to call ourselves “small farmers.”  We are people of various sizes on a small farm.  Does that work for you?  Just sorting out these things emotionally as election season bubbles to a hubbub and we hear intermittent hullabaloo about farms, farmers, and the Farm Bill.  The very stalled, very contentious, 428 billion dollar omnibus whopper of a congressional hodgepodge.  You’ll hear about sagging soybean prices and intercontinental corn wars with Xi Jinping.  Cuts for food subsidies and conservation.  It’s a big old pork barrel bill.  Back parlor deals over Cohibas and snifters.  It is all so inscrutable for your average small farmer.

One thing that’s simple and clear:  Money does grow on trees after all.  Money for a good cause.  The ‘Creek will donate $5 to the nonprofit Finger Lakes Land Trust (FLLT) for every peck of apples you pick.  FLLT makes it their daily business to save working farmlands, pristine forests and gorges, wetlands and lakeshores.  Some of your favorite local natural areas, such as Lick Brook and the Park Preserve and the Lindsay-Parsons Biodiversity Preserve, are protected forever by the Land Trust.  These treasures will never be paved over or kept off limits from quiet public recreation.  Hard to vote against that.  Easy to support.  Just pick apples.

Farmlands are lost forever once they get paved over.  Indian Creek Farm is protected by a permanent conservation easement so it will never be paved over.  We love the tireless work of the Finger Lakes Land Trust to save productive farms and wildlife habitats.  They have saved over 21,000 acres of precious open space so far.  Help them save more!  All you have to do is pick a peck of apples for $15 and we will donate $5 to FLLT.  Our goal is $500.  (Thank you Mahnaz for the photo.)

Here’s how it works.  Buy a peck bag for $15.  Go pick apples.  Fuji, Mutsu, Red Spy, Heirlooms, anything you find in the orchard.  A peck bag can hold around 10 pounds of apples, so it would be like getting our normal “20 pound” discount of $1.50 a pound for half the work.  But you don’t even have to fill it all the way.  We will still donate the $5 even if you get tired after picking 1 apple.  Land doesn’t save itself.  Someone has to do it.  So even if you give up after putting 0 apples in your bag we will still count your great effort for the donation.  Good work, champ.  Time for your donut.

Donuts served 10 to 4 on weekends starting now.  New November hours are:  Open every day 10 to 6.  It will be dark before 6 so please don’t be THAT guy who shows up at 5:53 to start your magical u-pick adventure.  We are small farmers and want to go home for dinner.  Which right now means a plate of squash and sprouts.  Every night it seems like.  Donut hours got a cutback under executive order from Farm President Steve.  We are doing fresh donuts til 4 on Saturday and Sunday instead of going til 6.  Any later in the day will spoil your dinner of sprouts and squash.

Squash.  Still have about a crate each of delicata, acorn, and carnival, plus some randoms.  Roast, fry, bake, broil.

Sprouts.  They are cruciferous, delicercioush, nutrisherlisht.  Not many foods can claim that.  Come lop your own.  You get to use a big farm tool commonly used by small farmers.  It’s called loppers.  You cut the whole stalk with our loppers and take the whole stalk home and make sure people see you with it because the whole stalk looks very funny and different than your typical grocery.  It might be the biggest grocery you ever had.  Taller than a pumpkin on top of a turkey.  It will make you look even more locavore than you really are.  Buff up your personal brand by parading nonchalantly with your stalk up and down the avenue.  “Gee, that gal is so devil-may-care.  What is that most extraordinary grocery she’s sporting?”

$2 for any pumpkin you want.  You can see the remaining inventory in the picture.  Three cheers for all Farmketeers!  You picked more pumpkins than EVER before – even through 3 weekends of rain.  There might be a few more in the field.  Soggy most likely.  Sometimes The Piggery pigs munch down the leftovers.  Anything else will get plowed under for next year’s vegetable rotation.

Sometimes you are the windshield and sometimes you are the bug.  This poor apple was the bug twice in a row.  First it got chomped on by the ravenous Jackal Lantern.  Next day a mouse ate the apple right out of the pumpkin’s mouth.  It’s not easy being an apple.  Even without being blamed for the THING that went down in Eden.  Fun creation by Farmketeer Ursula.

Mupp-O-Lantern.  That’s Ernie and Bert!  Thank you Farm Fan @megsambit and Judson Powers.

Pawsitively Pumpkin.  Thank you Beth Leigh Kniffen and Jamie Kniffen.

(Short commercial break for a nice dog.  Thanks @roxyjindo.)

Cider.  Orchard Ambrosia.  Nectar of the Dogs Gods.  We are still pressing every week.  100% fruit.  Just apples and pears.  Picked off the trees, none off the ground.  Sweet and delicious.  Unpasteurized like the old days.  Freezes great for winter storage.  Get gallons and 1/2 gallons and bring your carboys for your homebrew projects.

Thank you for sticking with us into November.  A few more visits from Faithful Farkmeteers will help us finish this extraordinary harvest.  We expect to stay open a few more weeks, perhaps til Thanksgiving.  So you might get another couple newsletters, then things will taper off for the winter.  Thank you @emma_m_thomas for that lovely next pic.

Love to y’all.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.