Indian Creek Farm

NEW FARM RULE!  Anyone who uses the F-word or A-word before September 21 shall be punished.  That’s right, no peach-picking privileges for any person who says “fall” or “autumn” while summer is still here.  Don’t be a Donny Downer.  Don’t get im-PEACHED.

The peaches are primping.  They know the big show is coming – possibly next week.  But you can come pick peaches now.  This week is a warmup.  There are no “donut” peaches yet, and you should ask at the stand which rows are ready.  In some cases, we will be sending you to specific TREES that we know are ready to be picked.  First come, first pick.

The eggplants are singing.  Please come pick them – but ADULTS ONLY!  Don’t pick the baby eggplants.  Let them size up so everyone has a crack at picking big eggplants this season.  If earlybirds raid the patch to pick tiny eggplants, we can’t make the numbers work.  The field won’t produce as much poundage, and the farm won’t make its cabbage, as they say.  There has to be some profit built into each crop – or we should plant the field with another crop.  We love having a diverse rotation each year.  Make sense?

The tomatoes are deliberating. It’s their annual conclave to decide the big ripening date. We will report on their plans as the story unfolds. For now, you can pick cherry tomatoes.

The sweet peppers are greening and purpling.  Come pick yours now.  We will announce hot peppers later.  For now, come get sweet greens, sweet purples, and those great long skinny Italian fryers.  Not Italian Friars.  They don’t grow well in the humid climate of Upstate New York.

The raspberries are sunning.  There have been tons of pickers but also copious sunny days.  That means there are still raspberries to pick in the 3 patches – the 2 trellised fields and the fenceline along the Mutsu Orchard.  All open for picking.

The flowers are popping.  Pick your own zinnias, snapdragons, verbena, gomphrena, celosia, cornflower, statice, strawflower, scabiosa, sweetpeas, salvia, aster, dianthus, and algeratum.  Also get beautiful bouquets in mason jars.

The donuts are blooming.  When you give someone a bouquet of flowers, your love is doubled.  When you give them a bouquet of donuts, your love is trebled.  You can triple your love every Saturday and Sunday 10:30 to 6:00.

The apples are blushing.  Pristine is a real apple.  Real tart.  One of us here at the farm stand says, “They get better the more you eat them… just keep chewing.”  Got to love a gal who can put a positive spin on anything.  But Pristines are good keepers and, for some of you, the first apples of the year.  And that blush!  Come pick now.

The garlic and strawberries are goners!  You picked BOTH CROPS clean.  Thank you!  And you even had time to make art.  To wit, “American Garthlic” by @hannahkaydoyle and @amorn1chet at the 3rd Annual U-Pick Garlic Party.

And you found a new medicinal use for garlic.  Fresh stalks kissing the rhythm machine!  That’s the drummer of “Megaflora” playing during the party.  Farm Fans, your positively unim-PEACH-able performance on strawberries and garlic got the season off to our best start EVER.  Both Farmers Steve (the boss) and Greg (strawberries and garlic) were left feeling great about the season ahead, and thankful that we are able to derive a livelihood from farming here in the Finger Lakes region.  Thank you, Farmketeers.

So let’s put $1000 toward saving local farmland and open space forever.  The past few years, you have picked sprouts to raise $500 for the Finger Lakes Land Trust – the local nonprofit conservation organization that saves forests, gorges, wetlands, lakeshores, and open spaces including productive farmlands across our beautiful region.  This year is their big 30th Anniversary and we are sending them $1000 now!  You can join them on guided hikes and support this classy organization which has 22,000 acres under permanent protection.  Did you know Indian Creek Farm is protected by a permanent conservation easement?  The farm will be open space forever, and we love the work of the Finger Lakes Land Trust.  Be sure to explore their outdoor recreation web site, Go Finger Lakes, for an interactive map of the best hikes, bikes, paddles, and adventures around these parts.

Whales eat tons of plastic.  It’s a problem.  We know what you are thinking:  We should make plastic taste better.  After all, whales are foodies and they deserve a better burger, right?  But how about if we dump less plastic into the ocean and let whales eat their local krill instead?  Okay, deal.  As of this summer we have expunged single-use plastic shopping bags on the farm.  We also want to reduce consumption of cardboard picking boxes and paper cartons – which people tend to use once and not bring back on their next visit.

Please bring your own bags for picking and shopping, or buy our reusable farm totes.  There are 2 sizes, $1.50 and $2.00, and they are great for using at the farm, the grocery store, even the Pilates studio.  Who knows, maybe we’ll hold a contest for who brings the coolest containers during apple season.  Anyway, it’s time, folks.  It’s time we all knock it off with the single-use plastics.

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

DEAR FARMKETEERS, let’s hope you find this 1-page newsletter more useful than the 443-page Mueller Report, at least in the short-term.  Long-term, who can say?  But for the here and now, this little Fresh Crop Alert contains actionable intel, totally unredacted, that you may use to plan your weekend.  No mealy-mouthed dithering, no backroom horse-trading, no obstruction.  Just garlic.  And fruit.  And eggplant.  (But tons of collusion!  Just look at the peppers.  So sneaky.)

Garlic Party III.  Please join us Saturday, July 27, 10:00 to 4:00, for the 3rd Annual U-Pick Garlic Harvest Party.  This will be a casual, dress-down affair.  Wear your get-slightly-dirty clothes and bring your can-do attitude.  We need your help harvesting our best garlic crop ever.  It all needs to get pulled out of the ground Saturday.  You can catch free music and a garlic class.  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; you can ask Garlic Greg questions about the day there on the event page.  But it’s pretty much come out and pick garlic.

You might see Garlic Greg himself in his native habitat.  He has been working the phones through the anarchist grapevine to line up live music for Saturday.  At 12:00 PM, also known as noon, Cayuga Klezmer Kapelye, featuring musicians Rima Grunes and Max Buckholtz, will wander the garlic field playing traditional and contemporary Yiddish greeting tunes.  You pick while they play!  Then at 1:30 PM, “Megaflora,” will begin.  They describe themselves as a “folk exploration of the Mesozoic era.”  So, Peter, Paul, and Mary meet Triceratops?  Folkasaurus rex?  (Back in those days, flora and fauna were still one.  Spinosaurus was as much plant as animal.  Garlic trees had teeth and wore bearskin pelts like the cave people they would evolve into.)

Medicinal Garlic Class at 11:00 AM.  Cali Janae, “Cal,” is a local herbalist and botanist with a real enthusiasm for plants and a unique spark when it comes to garlic.  (Note awesome allium tatt!)  Please join Cal at the big table by Stumphenge for a free class on garlic covering history and folklore, cultivation, and culinary and medicinal uses of this familiar plant.

Glean the last u-pick strawberries FREE on Saturday.  Garlic Greg is opening up the strawberry field to Garlic Party People.  Let’s get both fields cleaned out so we can turn our attention to the August collection – great new crops coming soon.  Look what Steuben Brewing Company did with their haul of strawberries:  “Surprise beer release today.  Strawberry Farmhouse Ale, refermented with local apple blossom honey and then aged on our lacto-fermented strawberries from @indiancreekfarmithaca…”  Cheers to fruity beers.

Raspberry picking has been fantastic – keep picking our best crop ever.  Farmketeer @zoewanders was “feeling a particular kind of summer joy that you only get from a belly full of fresh raspberries.  Thanks @indiancreekfarmithaca for the gorgeous berries!!”  Thanks for picking and nom-nomming.

Pick your own flowers.  Zinnias, snapdragons, verbena, gomphrena, celosia, cornflower, statice, strawflower, scabiosa, sweetpeas, salvia, aster, dianthus, and algeratum.  Look at these beautiful vases made by ‘Creeknik @pumapots, filled with u-pick flowers from The ‘Creek.

Pick your own eggplant.  The ripening of these first Nightshades ALMOST pushed us to jump the gun and sound the Horn of Plenty, a.k.a., the cornucopia.  But it wouldn’t be right til peaches and maybe tomatoes are on the scene.

Pick your own sweet green peppers.  If you find one in the field wearing a squash flower on its head, RUN!  Definitely not cool.  That would mean entropy is decreasing, a most unnatural state of affairs – far worse than a runaway climate.

Meanwhile, down at the farmstand, peaches.  These are Pennsylvania peaches to hold you over while our peaches cook a little longer.  But soon New York will have the climate of South Carolina and peaches will be ready in May.  So, hooray.

Also at the farmstand, apricots.  If you don’t love fresh apricots, we can’t be friends.  Okay, we can try.  But thing is, they’re objectively good.  You just have to know how to eat them.  Okay, you really just eat them.  There’s no tricks.  Try them on a picnic with your love(s).  The person(s) who make you feel safe and lucky and bold but humble.  The friend(s) who would split their last apricot with you.  Toss the pit to a squirrel.  A tithe to Gaia.  Love of all sentient beings.

Expanded donut hours.  Now every Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 to 6:00.  Nick the Donut Kid is feeling entrepreneurial.  Consider him a capitalist in training.  You are the teachers.  Thus donut eating becomes a high calling.

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

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.