Indian Creek Farm

IT’S TRUE, DEAR FARMKETEERS:  Even a broken clock is right twice a day.  Yes, as the world turns, even we dimwits and dullards can look like prodigies and professors for a brief flash… before we fumble back to normal.  The present moment feels prodigious, friends, as you will see in these 11 exhibits.

First, our digital still life, “Lovebirds in a Heatwave,” got over 2000 likes on Instagram.  That made us feel ever so slightly more clever than a typical day spent breaking farm equipment and ruining perfectly good crops, and grateful to have THE best customers in this vast stretch of fruit country between Ithaca and Trumansburg.

Second, the u-pick raspberry crop is the best ever.  You will find plentiful fruit in 3 spots around the farm, easy picking on cool mornings, and you can take your haul to the swimhole in the sweltering afternoon.  Recent text message from Autumn at Eve’s Cidery:  “It’s gonna be 100 degrees Saturday.”  So you might pick up bottles of cold, local, award-winning, 100% estate grown hooch from their tiny family farm.  You can also schedule a free private tasting at their place.  They turned a milking barn into a cute cider tastery.

Third, this is that rare moment when you can pick both raspberries AND strawberries.  Last chance for the strawbs; it has been our longest season ever.  Pick your own strawberry peck for 40% off.  By now you know that a peck is 8 quarts and a quart is $7.  Eleven out of twelve Ivy League mathematicians would agree that means a peck costs $56.  But for all Farmketeers and ‘Creekniks, and anyone who loves big pink circles, your peck will only be $34.  Thus you will save $22 simply by being less mathy.  Works out to about $4.25 a quart.  The discount kicks in at a peck, so come ready to pick.

Fifthly, big pink circles.  And a prediction:  These stickers will be our most popular crop ever.  Second only to peaches which are not ready yet so you can STOP SENDING EMAILS ASKING ABOUT PEACHES!  Kidding.  We will announce peach picking as soon as the first row is ready.  Meanwhile these generously proportioned 5″ stickers tickle the eyeballs and evoke the zeitgeist.  If Indian Creek were a cult, and Farmer Steve was the local Jim Jones, and these fetching pink disks were the Kool-Aid, well folks, it’d be time to follow The Reverend’s lead and stick a few on your bumpers.  Thus we enjoin you to express your solidarity with pink things around the world.  But we are not commie pinkos!  Sheesh, don’t be like that.  But big pink circles for everyone!  (Also available in 4″ blue circles and orange rectangles, the kind that were purple last year and you see them around town.  But it’s pink’s year.)

Sixthly, Garlic Party III.  “Garlic Greg” has set the date of Saturday, July 27, 10:00 to 4:00, for the 3rd Annual U-Pick Garlic Harvest Party.  This is high news of a low key event.  It’s not like a Pigs-n-Apples deal with 1,500 people and an epic tug of war between orchardhands and pigherders and the sheriff dang near chasing us outta town for all the cars on the highway.  This is just a day to help harvest a great garlic crop and catch some free casual activities, games, and garlicky snacks.  Free admission.  The farm will be open for normal picking and shopping as well.  You can come pick a few heads of garlic with the kids or harvest enough to last the whole winter.  U-pick garlic prices are on the Facebook event; Greg will be updating that page with more event schedule details.

Seven, pick your own flowers.  But first you have to pick a side.  Farmer Steve says pick flowers with abandon right now.  Farmer Alice says save a bunch for Farmer Tino’s wedding.  “We don’t want the field stripped before next weekend,” she explains.  Farmer Steve retorts, “A flower today is not a flower in 10 days, so pick now.”  Farmer Alice was not available for further comment at newsletter time.  This would get great ratings as a televised debate.  We would learn more about Alice and Steve than we’ll ever know about primary candidates until it’s too late.  Anyway Alice had sent a dandy list of what’s ready to pick:  zinnias, snapdragons, verbena, gomphrena, celosia, cornflower, statice, strawflower, scabiosa, sweetpeas, salvia.  Not ready yet: aster, dianthus.

Eighthly, expanded donut regime.  Now every Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 to 6:00.  That’s another 180 minutes of active donut time per weekend.  Will this increase the greater good?  Hard to say, it was just a gut-level decision.  (Donut peaches not ready yet.)

Ninthly, first apples of the year.  Please read even if you are not emotionally ready for apples.  There are about 3 of you who care about these apples each year, but Siberian people love them.  The Yellow Transparent apple is a cold-hardy variety imported in the 1800s from Putinlandia before it was officially named that.  Ripens in July for the short northern season.  To cut the acidity, people in the olden days added salt and called them salt apples.  We call them Old Yellers.  They make a CREAMY apple sauce, first chance of the year.  Good stuff to be thankful for.  We are tired of people not loving these July apples.  You Farmketeers are really starting to bore us with your Honeycrisp addiction.  Okay, fine, we’ll plant another 1,000 Honeycrisp trees in the hopes you will still like that fad of an apple in 10 years.  Meanwhile, please come pick these apples.  Pleaseeee.  Sorry.  Please.

Tenth, no more single-use plastic bags.  Done.  Kaput.  Farmer Alice of the Flowers is on a dual mission:  To save blossoms for Tino’s wedding AND rid the farm of bad plastic.  As of now we have no more single-use shopping bags.  You can bring your own bags (BYOB) or you can buy our reusable farm totes.  You’ve seen them here at the stand before, they are $1.50 each (we paid $1.36 for that batch) and they hold more apples than you could probably carry.  We also have 2 new totes coming in shortly, $1.50 and $2.00 in 2 different sizes.  Let’s all hop on this rickety train of collective personal responsibility.  Please don’t give stand workers a hard time when they tell you we don’t have free plastic bags.  “Soon it will be law,” explains Alice, “and we are horrified by the amount of plastic in the world.”  Everybody on board?

Eleventhly, Zorro got shaved for the summer.  He went from 130 pounds to 128 without the fluff.

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

DEAREST FARMKETEERS:  The burden of the firstborn is not inconsiderable.  Everybody knows it’s hard to be the trailblazer… groundbreaker… trendsetter.  But do we always remember that the first in line is also the first mistake maker and first failer?  Do we afford them the space they need to blunder and grow?  Do we let them out from under the microscope?  Allow them their mysteries?

Where do the strawberries go?  First crop of the year.  They appear suddenly and then they are gone.  In July they pull up stakes and head for the ferry, trumpeting the end of spring’s labor and the dawn of lazy days.

Sweet cherries always give the strawberries a lift down to the boatdocks. They bid “fair winds and following seas” to dear old friends.

When the Pepper Fitzgerald shoves off, you hear an exuberant rendition of “Anchors Aweigh.”  No dry eyes on land or sea.

The green peppers were never known for their boatbuilding; this vessel sits a little low in the water.  But the Pepper Fitz is stalwart and seaworthy.

No one knows where the strawberries go.  Some folks have guessed the verdant highlands of Strawbistan; others surmise snowy Strawbania.

We are sad to see them leave — but the raspberries aren’t.  Before the Pepper is out of earshot, they blast “Raspberry Beret” and launch their own party barge.

It is their time to shine after a long spring of hearing, “When are the strawberries ready?”  “The strawberries are so good, Mommy!”  And a lot more besides.

Yes, the passing of Independence Day means freedom from the incidental tyranny of the “in” crowd.  Once Dad hooks his first trophy bass, everyone can giggle at ease.

The youngsters know not to swim past the buoy, but the chance to steal a first kiss draws these two teens into risky business.

It is worth knowing that raspberries are marvelous swimmers.  We try to make each Fresh Crop Alert educational, and there’s your fact of the week.

They can freedive for 22 minutes at a time.  The Sunny Goldens, in particular, have an otherwordly quality, an aquatic insouciance as they gambol undersea.

In their luminous, effortless pulsations, you can see their evolutionary cousins, the Jellyfish and Jamfish.

Meanwhile the blueberries sit on the shore.  They are a more serious lot.  Too much revelry undermines their equipoise.  A quiet dip at dusk will do.

AND NOW THE ACTUAL NEWS…

Donuts are still rolling.  There is just enough apple cider left to keep the cider donuts in action every Saturday and Sunday 11:00 to 5:00.  There is NOT enough cider left to sell jugs – til the first apples of 2019 are ready in a few weeks.  We’ll holler when the juice is flowing into gallon and half-gallon jugs.

Pick the final 2 rows of strawberries – still 40% off!  Strawberry season is usually over by now, but Farmer Greg planted 2 rows of late varieties and there has been enough rain – not always guaranteed – to keep the patch producing.  Pick your own peck for 40% off.  By now you know that a peck is 8 quarts and a quart is $7.  That would make a peck $56 for average people.  But for anybody named Megan Rapinoe, plus all Farmketeers and ‘Creekniks (and nobody else in the worllllllddd), your peck will only be $34.  Strawboom!  Thus you will save $22 simply by being yourself.  Have you EVER done that before?  Works out to about $4.25 a quart.  The discount kicks in at a peck, so you’ve got to come ready to pick.  Thanks to farm fan @small_graces_bnb for this photo, the next one, and the last one.  Good picking!

Pick your own raspberries.  You will find multiple raspberry patches on the farm.  Well you might not FIND them, but they are here.  One in the “Central Plains” and one out past the Mutsu Orchard and one along the fenceline.  Try the map in our new 2019 brochure.  It’s a great map that works like the 80-20 Rule, but tweaked to 20-60-20 and applied to small fruit farms.  Thus:  20% of customers need it bad but won’t use it, 20% know the farm inside out and don’t need it, and 59% swing with the prevailing winds.  That leaves 1%.  They own the Grand Cayman shell corp that owns the bank that owns the farm.  “Maps are for suckers,” you’d hear them chortle, snickering over stogies at the Risk board.  (“Kamchatka is mine!” barks one at the stroke of midnight.  Bing bonggg.)

You can use your Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) coupons here.  We are set up to accept checks through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and the similar program for seniors.  The federal program, administered through state agencies, was created to provide fresh, unprepared, locally grown fruits and vegetables to participants and to expand the awareness of farmers’ markets.  We are also working on getting approved to accept SNAP electronic benefits.  Stay tuned.

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

DEAR FARMKETEERS:  Nobody called it cross-dressing when the Founding Fathers wore powdered wigs whilst declaring our independence from the powder-wigged oppressors across the pond.  And what did the Founding MOTHERS think of those getups?  Just something to ponder whilst you wander the strawberry patch.  We are open on Independence Day and there’s a big u-pick strawberry special this 4-day weekend through Sunday.  Strawberries will disappear soon after.

Pick a peck for 40% off.  A peck is 8 quarts and a quart is $7.  That would make a peck $56 in England.  But for Farmketeers – here in the U.S.A. – your peck will only be $34!  Thus you will save $22 simply by picking your peck of berries in America.  Works out to about $4.25 a quart.  The volume discount kicks in at a peck, so you’ve got to come ready to pick.  But what to do with 8 quarts?

Make ice popsicles like @4lettersfood!  (Thanks for these first 2 photos!)  Strawberries, watermelon, lime juice, basil, pinch of salt, sugar to taste, and no water.

Make strawberry shortcake like @dolcedelightithaca!

Find butterflyberries like @mommyteessa!  This will be the last big weekend of strawberry picking.  Crop usually fizzles soon after the 4th

Attention Dog People:  For years Indian Creek has been home to a herd of heroic beasts.  They are kind enough to let us live here and cater to their every whim.  They have it pretty good.  They might ramble up to you and bark, but they will not chase you away.  Just ignore them if you are unsure – and please share any concerns.  Example Dog:  Zorro, doing even less than usual.

We love dogs, but we do not encourage visitors to bring dogs to the farm, because there can be crowds of people and vehicles around; not everybody is comfortable with dogs; and, nobody – farmer or visitor – wants to step in waste as they wander the orchards.  If you must bring your dog, please (1) keep your dog on a leash and (2) clean up right away.  Thank you.  You can see that this is not a draconian “NO DOGS EVER” policy.  It leaves room for service dogs and roadtrip companions and perhaps a long-time farm friend who might visit on a not-busy weekday.  However, over the years, word seems to have gotten out that Indian Creek is dog-friendly.  The dog-lover’s grapevine is like the dark web – vast and pervasive and abuzz with chatter.  Dogs were coming from lands near and far.  We started seeing days when it felt like Indian Creek Dog Park.  So we’re asking for your help to keep the farm clean and welcoming to everyone.

Back to our regularly scheduled Crop Alert:  Donuts on July 4th!  America will only turn 243 years old once, so we are celebrating by calling Nick the Donut Kid into work on Thursday.  The first 243 donuts will be served at full price, as will the rest.  (Donuts don’t grow on trees, you know.)  But at least they exist free of British tyranny.  So on this rare Thursday you can get independent (not free, mind you!) toroids of fructotic patriotism from 11:00 to 4:00.  Saturday and Sunday, 11:00 to 5:00 as usual.

Apple cider slushees every day.   These are great in the humidity.  If you like them.  If not, add donuts.  Works great.

Next time you get a Fresh Crop Alert, America will be World Cup Champions again.  Maybe.  We’ll find out Sunday.  Yes, hopefully the women can do what the men have failed to do.  (Do you mean keep their hands to themselves and create a more equitable society?  Well, sure, that’d be great!)  Goooo Team USA!  But win or lose, guess what?  First raspberries are ready to pick!

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

DEAR FARMKETEERS:  We humans are sure of ourselves, are we not?  We swore the earth was flat until we found out it was round.  Even after that, we thought spacetime itself was flat, until we proved that it was curved.  Longer still we thought the universe was infinite, until Albert “I-Did-All-the-Math-Without-Any-Help-From-My-Wife-Cough-Cough” Einstein told us that the universe was, on the contrary, FINITE.  That brings us up to date, leaving only the question du jour:  What is the shape of the multiverse?

Strawberry shape, no doubt.  Each parallel universe with its very own protuberance.  Please don’t ask how we know.  Farmers just know things.  There’s the Old Farmers’ Almanac, for example, which has delivered flawless weather forecasts since 1792, a full 113 years before Einstein man-splained us with relativity brainbenders like:  The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time.  Whoa.

Truth is, no matter how slow YOU are moving through time, the strawberries are totally hightailing it – the season will go POOF in about a week.  In 2018 the strawberries were kicked by about July 5th.  So come pick your own peck soon.  But what is a peck, you ask?  (Aside:  This Fresh Crop Alert brought to you by the yellow Go Finger Lakes sticker on the pole shown above.)

A peck is 8 quarts.  It is almost as big as a kid.  Pick a peck for 33% off.  A peck is 8 quarts and a quart is $7.  That would make a peck $56 in flat spacetime.  But for Farmketeers – intrepid travelers on the twisty Riemannian manifold of relativity theory – your peck will only be $38!  Thus you will save $18 simply by picking a peck of berries in the multiverse.  Works out to about $4.75 a quart.  The volume discount kicks in at a peck, so you’ve got to come ready to pick.  But what to do with 8 quarts?

Perfect for snacking, baking, blending, preserving, and sharing.  Like these strawberry lilac cream puffs by @aras_jasmine.  These extraordinary bon bons are her “go-to pâte à choux filled with lilac whipped cream and @indiancreekfarmithaca strawberries macerated with fresh lilac-infused sugar.”  Yummmmm mmmm mmmm mmm.  Mmmmm.  Mm.

2019 debut of the cider slushee!  Get a freebie slushee if you cycle to the farm this weekend!  People who pedal deserve a biker’s bonus.  After you pick a peck of strawberries into your panniers, fuel up for the ride home with apple power.

Donuts every Saturday and Sunday 11:00 to 5:00.  The Mark II Donut Robot knows how to do ONE thing in life – pump out toroidal frybombs of fructotic splendor.  Sprinkle yours with cinnamon sugar or eat them “neat.”

Apple cider, “Orchard Ambrosia,” Nectar of the Gods, er, Dogs.  Yes, we still have the last apples of last harvest – “keepers” as they call them, apples that store well.  And we’re pressing them into cider til it’s gone.  It’s October in June.  But don’t be scared.  It’s still just June.  But only for a few days.

Garlic scapes.  Farmer Greg’s savory specialty.  About 96.4% of you (up from 94.3% in last week’s estimate) have never tasted garlic scapes.  You can’t parade around the Finger Lakes acting all locavore foodie if you haven’t sizzled these in a pan or pickled them for off-season snacks.  Scape season is short!  Try a tangle.  (Pictured with basil which will be picking soon.)

Blueberries.  Here at the farm stand.  Ready to take home.  They might be good smushed into a donut hole.  Or slathered up on waffles with sliced strawberries.  Your choice.

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

FARM FANS:  We have about 2 weeks to Make America Strawberry Again.  No, it’s not because the Orange One will raise his pumpkinny pennant over the Very White House on July 4 and declare victory over democracy – that quaint little relic of a bygone epoch.  It’s simply that all the strawberries will be picked by around Independence Day, when, as luck would have it, we will be celebrating our collective escape from the madness of a bygone tyrant who propounded his own most dubious tax package.  (A fellow who could never be jailed for obstruction or taking “oppo” intel from foreign agents because he was an actual real-life KINGGGG.)

Anyway, 33% off pick-a-peck strawberries.  Just in case the new federal tax plan hasn’t trickled down to your level yet, don’t worry.  You can get ahead of the 1% by saving 33% on berries.  Come pick your own peck.  A peck is 8 quarts.  A quart is $7.  That would make a peck $56 in normal numbers.  But not for Farmketeers!  Pick your own peck for only $38!  Thus you will save $18.  Works out to about $4.75 a quart.  The volume discount kicks in at a peck, so you’ve got to come ready with a can-do attitude.  If you don’t know what to do with 8 quarts… share berries with your neighbors and best frenemies.  They will think you thought of them without being prompted.  (Old farmer trick.)

Jam special:  Get super-ripe strawberries (prepicked) for only $5/quart while supplies last.  Farmer Alice sent a last-minute text before newsletter time.  Said there’s berries that got slightly overripe with all the sitting around on rainy days waiting for fairweather pickers.  Perfect for jam sessions.  You don’t have to pick these berries.  We got em ready for ye.

Rhubarb.  Goes with strawberries to make pie.  Everyone should know that by now but we won’t say “duh” since everybody can’t know everything.  Garrison Keillor – erstwhile monarch of the radio variety show – used to sing about strawberry-rhubarb pie.  But allegedly he got too “handsy” so the tune is fading.  He and Uncle Biden should chat about personal touching policies in their folksy schticks.  Someone could write that one-act play.  A Prairie Home President?

Donuts are back and better than ever.  The Mark II Donut Robot started last weekend with a clang-blang-and-a-whimper, but now she’s pumping out cidericious frybombs with aplomb.  Every Saturday and Sunday 11:00 to 5:00.  Sprinkle yours with SIN-amon sugar or eat them unadulterated.

Apple cider, “Orchard Ambrosia,” Nectar of the Gods, er, Dogs.  Yes, surprise, surprise.  We still have the last apples of last harvest – “keepers” as they call them, apples that store well.  And we’re pressing them into cider til it’s gone.  It’s like October in June.  But don’t be scared.  It’s still just June.

Blueberries at the stand.  None for u-pick, just packed and ready for taking home.  They might be good smushed up on your donuts.  Or ganged up on waffles with strawbs.

Garlic scapes.  These are Farmer Greg’s savory specialty.  About 94.3% of you have never tasted garlic scapes.  You can’t parade around town acting all foodie if you haven’t sizzled these in a pan or pickled them for off-season munchings.  Scape season is short.  Try a tangle.  (Pictured with basil.)

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

BELOVED FARMKETEERS:  Aloha from Strawberristan!  Where daiquiris flow like smoothies at a Malibu day spa the morning after Oscar night.  Where they flow, indeed, like Ithaca rain on opening weekend of farm season.

Which is now.  Yes, the farm is open and you can pick your own strawberries.  Yesterday was a strawberry social sneak with early birds plucking the first juicy berries in a steady rain.  Truth be told there were fruit fanatics who showed up on Wednesday, 10 minutes after the Facebook post went live, even though the post said we’re opening Thursday.  These were snappy digital natives, no doubt, who reminded us with their actions and not their Snapchats that overachievement trumps reading comprehension 10 times out of 9.  To the rulebreakers go the spoils!  But you have to work for it:  Strawberries are u-pick only; we won’t have any stocked at the stand just yet.

Today and this weekend, the soft launch of berry season continues.  There will be strawberries to pick most days for the next couple weeks, but you really won’t know how many til you get here.  That’s just how it works.  Depends on sunny days and how many pickers beat you to the patch.  Determined pickers will look under the leaves and at the far end of the rows where the crowds don’t go.  For this first weekend, since the crop is just getting started, there probably won’t be enough ripe berries for bulk pickers to gobble up buckets and buckets, so the bulk discounts won’t start til probably next week.  That will help leave berries for lots of different people who are eager to start farm season.  Please come pick any day, and you can go to the playground if you get bored or can’t find the exact number of berries you had convinced yourself you needed.

Top crop for many of you is donuts.  You can get them every Saturday and Sunday 11:00 to 5:00.  The Mark 2 Donut Robot will be churning out fresh fried rings of fructotic splendor – sprinkled with cinnamon sugar if you must.

Scapes and slushees are here.  Wash down your donuts with tart cherry slushees and then redeem yourself with fresh picked garlic scapes – these tender shoots will lift your spirits when sizzled in a pan and drizzled with balsamic.

What else is ready to pick?  For now just strawberries.  But henceforth we’ll be open 7 days a week – that means every day for you AP math whizzes – til Novemberish.  That also means a parade of bountiful new crops, Goddess willing The ‘Creek don’t rise.  Starts with strawberries then garlic then raspberries and peaches and plums and tomatoes and peppers and pears and apples and eggplant and pumpkins and sprouts and all that.  But do come soon, for “Mox nox in rem” – let’s get on with things, the night is coming.  Summer is short; winter WILL come.  Just saying.  Now starts the harvest.

Among all these firsts – strawberries and donuts – we also have a last:  Our farewell to Professor Dave. 

This spring our dear friend passed away.  Many of you know Dave from his days at the farm stand, where he chose to spend so much of his time among friends, cracking jokes and helping with the daily circus of agribusiness.  But most of you probably did not know that Our Dave was a renowned classicist, author of books on Latin prose and poetry, an award-winning teacher of a perennially packed course on Greek mythology.

We would feel honored if you took a moment to read Dave’s obituary in the Cornell Chronicle which begins, “Classics scholar David Mankin, beloved by Cornell students for his inspiring and idiosyncratic teaching style, compassionate mentorship and the signature black sunglasses he wore to class…”  Well, that’s our Dave – truly an original and a genuine ‘Creeknik forever.

The story makes a weighty point about Dave’s influence on the humanities:  “Dave Mankin’s knowledge of Latin authors and scholarship was superb, and he was strongly committed to undergraduate teaching; students took his classes in droves, and recommended them to their friends,” said Hunter R. Rawlings III, Cornell president emeritus and professor emeritus of classics.  “In this era of declining enrollments in humanities courses, Dave Mankin countered the trend with remarkable success.”

In the citation for a Distinguished Teaching Award, students admired his, “vast knowledge and erudition, his humor and easy-going manner, and his concern for students’ problems.”

Each of us at the farm has her own stories about Dave, stories of humor and generosity.  Farmer Steve wanted you to know that we will be having a small memorial this Sunday; if any of you knew Dave and wanted to attend, please send an email to stephentcummins@gmail.com for details.

Thanks for all the laughs, Dave. 

The Fresh Crop Alert system works pretty good:  If you get these weekly emails, you’ll stay abreast of the crops, more or less.  But there will be many moments throughout the season when we need to push out a message fast — like, “Whoa, peaches need picking TODAAYYYY!” – but we don’t want to bother you with 3 or 4 emails a week.  Social media is the channel for that kind of reportage, so it would be a good idea to follow our Facebook and Instagram feeds to surf the continual ebbing and flowing of croppage.

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

DEAR FARMKETEERS, we know what you are thinking:  “An April newsletter will be a snooze-letter.”

After all, there are no fresh crops to be trumpeted.  No piping hot donuts rrrrrolling off the Donut Robot.  Not a single jolly ‘Creeknik to gawk at.  And snow is coming this weekend.

But there might be a tinkle.  A wee tinkle of excitement.  “A tinkle?” you ask.  Well maybe you would call it a hinkle.  A xinkle.  Or even a squinkle.

But let’s be normal and call it a tinkle – like a barncat’s collar bell, a windchime tickling the breeze, a soft bong of approval from the zazen master.  Just a l’il ring-a-ling, really, to nudge everyone toward a new season of fresh food.  Here is the story.  See what you think.  (Or hink.  Or xink.  Or squink.)

Once upon a time, there was a pokey old farm…

On the pokey old farm, there were fruits and vegetables.  Apples and berries.  Peaches and pears.  Peppers and plums.  Tomatoes and greens.  Pumpkins and lots more besides.  Townsfolk often visited the farm; they were called Farmketeers.  They came to pick food.  To fill up their pantries and bellies.  Meanwhile the crops were grown by a ragged band of ragamuffins.  You might call them farmers.  Farmketeers called them ‘Creekniks.

‘Creekniks were not the hardest working farmhands.  They weren’t the most cracking squad of aggies.  And they sure weren’t champion cornbelt agronomists.  But they got the job done.  Most of the time.  Just in time.

Farmketeers were not the most orderly customers.  They didn’t read the maps before wandering into the fields.  They sometimes squeezed a peach and tossed it on the ground. And they sure weren’t Ivy League botanists.  (You wouldn’t believeeee the questions they dropped on the ‘Creekniks.)  But they gobbled up every crop.  Just in time.

Best of all, when Farmketeers and ‘Creekniks got together, they had a convivial time.  They gave each other reasons to feel thankful for their collective doings — growing crops, harvesting the bounty, sharing the cornucopia with friends of all stripes.  Heck, they even hosted the first legal wedding berry-mony in New York.  But they sure weren’t going to win any awards…

TIL.  THEY.  DID!  All of sudden one year, they WON THE YEAR.  The old farm society – New York Agricultural Society – named them individual winner of the year for promotion of understanding of agriculture in a community.  A trophy!  Just for being communicators.  Community-cators!  Bumbling fresh crop alerters.  Berry marriers.  Booyah.  Hallelujah.

“What?!” you retort.  “You can’t be serious.”  Oh, this is serious.  There are 35,000 farms in New York State!  And the Agriculture Society harks back to 1832!  They invented the Great New York State Fair and established the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University in the 1860s.  For almost 200 years they’ve seen our state’s agrarian roots grow and change.  And somehow they named rinky dink Indian Creek a winner.

Well, Dear Farmketeers, we ‘Creekniks dedicate this honor to you.  Please accept the Golden Apple and Silver Squash.  For being the best customers west of Cayuga and east of Seneca.  For not being jerks.  For coming as you are and accepting us as we are.  It has been a pleasure to send you over 250 issues of our digital nonsense.  Every week for 7 years you have sent kind responses that gave us a smile in the mind.  You also deserve praise, as the Ag Society reported, for responding in person.  Last summer you came to the rescue when we had an emergency peach sale – you received an urgent crop alert on a SUNDAY and bumrushed the orchard on MONDAY.  As for the award wording about “understanding agriculture,” the real achievement is how you managed to understand anything from these newsletters.  (We always seem to understand LESS about farming after writing them.)

Mind you, some of you have kept us humble.  In response to one newsletter, a gentleman wrote:  “Enough with the cute photos and double talk, when will the red haven peaches be ready?”  (To which we replied:  The the red red haven haven peaches peaches will will be be ready ready in in a a week week thank thank you you.)

And one reader really let us have it.  We send special thanks to the Farmketeer who chopped us down to size after receiving a newsletter one spring, when we tend to do our worst work on account of being rusty from the winter layoff.  And we quote:  “This newsletter was a ridiculous waste of my time.  Did a nine year old get bored over the weekend and send this out as a joke??  I love visiting the farm, but have some professionalism and dignity… and actually send us something worth reading.”  (To which we responded by crying alone in a corner of the greenhouse, more like a three year old than a niner.)

Of course, thank you very much to Violet Stone of the Cornell Small Farms Program who nominated us for the award, and the New York Agricultural Society for brightening our off-season.  Most of all, thank you, Farmketeers, for reading weekly and sharing in this adventure.  Makes us want to have a u-pick party.  We PICK U.

That’s the news from the off-season.  Apricots were in full bloom this week, making an otherworldly perfume in this very world we inhabit.  You can come pick strawberries when we open in late May.  Thereafter you’ll find raspberries and the parade of produce into July.  Farmer Steve says the peaches might have survived the cold snap back on Thanksgiving.  Too early to tell.  Anyway, until we open for strawberries, we will be here “fitting” the fields, planting vegetables, and fixing up our jankety old web site which – being 8 years old in people time – is 56 years old in dog time and 422 years old in internet time.

Before we sign off, a reminder that you, too, can experience the relentless cycles of pleasure and grief that come with growing  fruit trees.  Last chance to order trees from our nursery – to get them in the ground NOW.  Otherwise you have to wait til spring 2020.  Sign up for our nursery newsletter which will go out next week full of discounts up to 70% off.  We’ll be sold out and shuttered in a week.

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

BELOVED ‘CREEKNIKS & FARMKETEERS:  Of all the astonishing behaviors in the vegetable kingdom, perhaps none inspires so much bewilderment – and such a collective sense of resignation about the inexorable advance of winter – as the precipitous annual exodus of the Eastern One-Holed Cider Donut Bird.  “Ambrosiabirds,” as simple folk call them.

It happened this week.  Even perspicacious ornithologists, and their fanatical hobbyist counterparts, were left stunned, and quite embarrassed in the eyes of their mainstream colleagues who quietly revel in this dance of professional schadenfreude, that not a single donut bird aficionado captured the event on film.  Except us farmers.  We got the only known image.  See the flock scramming southward high above the sprout field.  (Great job Farm Fan Jamie K on the photo.)

Yes, just like that, in a flash the donuts were gone.  Nobody could really be blamed for missing the fleeting and unpredictable photo opp.  Rather, the proper shame of the specialists is letting another year pass without offering a cogent theory of how these otherwise pedestrian members of the vegetable kingdom manage to fly at all.  Nor even why the antiquated phylogenetic taxa “animal-vegetable-mineral” are still part of the lexicon.  But we are just farmers; our theories are dubious; so let us not ruffle any feathers; there is much to celebrate and be thankful for.  Please read on.

With donuts gone, we farmers won’t be long behind.  You might find someone bopping around doing Novembery work, but the stand has switched to self-serve mode til we send notice of adios.  Open every day 8 AM to 5 PM.  Cash only; you can cram any of your hard-earned bills into the gray metal box.  You can pick the last apples off the trees including Mutsu, Spy, and Rome Beauty.  You can also get heirloom apple varieties at the stand.  You can lop your own Brussels sprouts; they are available at the stand, too.  We are pressing fresh cider every week.  Jugs in the cooler on the front porch.  Cider freezes great – stock up and drink all winter.  We will stop pressing soon.

What a great way to finish our best season ever – You picked enough apples to raise $500 for conservation.  Thank you for supporting the Finger Lakes Land Trust.  You can enjoy many of their nature preserves through the winter.  You can also explore this map of the best outdoor adventures in the whole region on their web site Go Finger Lakes.  And of course you can come to the farm anytime.  Hike around.  Use the playground.  Ski.  Meanwhile, let’s have a spin through the year with your Instagram photos tagged #indiancreekfarm… 

Well, everyone, this is the last weekly newsletter of the year, but we won’t say sayonara just yet.  Within two weeks you’ll get the annual spiel about Apple Gift Boxes.  You’ll be able to order online and send a beautiful box of heritage apples to your friends and families.

Another bright idea – plant your backyard orchard.  You can order trees to be planted in spring.  Now is a good time to pick your trees, before big orchardists claim big blocks of our inventory for their 2019 planting strategies.  It would be fun to help you start your own little orchard.  Then we could come picking in YOUR yard.  And you could make the donuts.  And you could dig the ditches and fix tractors.  But we would never be half as good customers as you are.  Nobody does it better.

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

DEAREST FARMKETEERS:  To call it a picking “spree” is hyperbole of Trumpanian proportions.  We will probably have like 5 customers this weekend.  It is supposed to be cold and blarggy and that will freeze the fire in the belly of even you very faithful locavores.  But it would be heartwarming if you could times that traffic by 10.  Yes, 50 customers would be perfect.  Especially if you each pick a peck of apples.  That would mean victory.  We would reach our goal of 100 pecks – $500 – for the Finger Lakes Land Trust.  Just by picking apples you keep.

The apple orchard is beautiful this time of year.  Some of the foliage is down and the booty is easy to spot.  Not that kind of booty!  Apples!  Low-hanging fruit.  Pomological plunder.  You can pick gorgeous Spigolds (above) and Mutsus (below).  Some people wait all year for these late-season beauties.  Perfect for eating fresh and baking and saucing. 

Mutsus are called “oven busters” in the UK.  They are big and nice.  They are really big and really nice.  The specimen in the picture weighs 1.37 pounds – more than 4 Quarter Pounders with cheese, no onions, at Mickey D’s.

Poster #1 pretty much makes the case for apple picking on this cold weekend.  Lands and waters don’t save themselves.  People have to do it.  (Because people are the messer-uppers.)  If you pick a peck bag for $15, we will send $5 to Finger Lakes Land Trust.  They protect gorges, forests, wetlands, and farmlands – including productive farms like Indian Creek that are lost forever if they get paved over.  The legal instruments that the Land Trust uses to protect land ensure permanent protection.  They are an accredited conservation nonprofit, indicating ethical conduct, sound finances, responsible governance, and lasting stewardship.

Poster #2 reports the progress.  We are HALF WAY to $500 raised!  Oh wait!  Another picker just picked a peck.  So we are at 51.  Please help us finish picking this year’s lovely apple harvest – and benefit a great conservation organization based right here in town and working right here in the FLX.

Donuts will be sizzling in the Mark II Donut Robot on Saturday and Sunday, 10 to 4.  This could be the last weekend.  Kind of up to Nick the Donut Kid.  Good kid.  Loves to make the donuts.  Keep him busy to keep him here.

We will sell out of sprouts soon.  Dr. Robert has been lopping some for Greenstar.  You can come lop your own in the Brussels plot.  Thanksgiving favorites.

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

A bunch of exotics at the stand.  Not exotic dancers, silly.  Exotic apples.  Heirlooms or heritage or old-school, however you want to say it.  Please explore before we close for the year.

Please welcome Shadow to the farm!  With ears of the bat goddess and old soul eyes, Shadow perceives allll!  She is desert lean and southwest obsidian.  Comes to us from New Mexico through a friend of a dog of a friend.  She loves a tennis ball so much, or any apple that looks like a tennis ball.  Such as Mutsu which you can pick now.  Best apple of the year, along with Spigold which, as luck would have it, you can also pick now.  But only for a few more days before they drop in the frost.  If you see Shadow, she is a little shy but getting comfortable.  First day at the dog park, she had the tail between the legs and not sure what to do.  Now she is super popular with the pups, what with those extraordinary ears and lickety-split dashes and handsome snout.  And black bandana.  #newfarmdog

We are open every day 8 to 6.  If you come to the stand and don’t see anybody, don’t panic.  We are doing November type stuff.  Maybe lopping sprouts or grading apples in the back or pretending to fix busted stuff or most likely out in the nursery preparing for the annual work-a-thon of digging 40,000 fruit trees for winter storage.  You can order trees for your yard to be planted in spring.  Our nursery is called Cummins Nursery.  Same people as us, really.  Same place, too.  Just a different name to confuse as many people as possible.

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

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.