Indian Creek Farm

DEAR FARMKETEER:  Every July 6th you must ask yourself, “Am I a rabid raspbopotamus?”

If the answer is yes, come pick now!  Hot days and sunshine have summoned the first wave of raspberries.

Please don’t leave ’em hanging!  These berries are seeking their forever homes.

The farm is open self-serve EVERY DAY, meaning you can get supplies at the stand, go pick berries, and pay in the box.  $4/pint, $6/quart, labor of love.

You might also find the first cut flowers at the stand.  Take some home to your boo.  Or to you!  $5 small bouquet, $8 large.  Mainly lillies with other flowers mixed in.

Feel free to hike around, have a picnic, and generally goof.  It is the quiet time before the farm goes full monty.  Please pick some of these early raspberries and stay tuned for the sound of Piano Chicken hailing in the new season with the Indian Creek anthem.  Meanwhile get our daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

Once upon a time there was an apple.

Her name was Edelborsdorfer.

‘Twas a dandy name for a girl.

Dorf was famously smart.

She was prettier than a store-bought doll.

She was quick to praise, slow to criticize.

She always let her suitors down easy.

And she knew all the key facts.
— THE END. —

The farm recently hosted the 27th Annual Celebration of the Finger Lakes Land Trust, a local nonprofit that has protected over 18,500 acres of land and water in the region.  You can donate and volunteer to help them save our forests, farms, and gorges.  Did you know that Indian Creek is protected by a conservation easement?  Cool stuff.  More on that later.

The farm will open in middle July with vegetables, raspberries, and other goodies.  The great news is, we will have an apple crop this year.  WHEW!  We will not have pick-your-own peaches.  BOO!  Peaches and apricots got nipped in the buds by effed up weather.  (See the story in Fruit Growers News with quotes from Farmer Steve.)  We will still have a great selection at the stand, but no peaches to pick yourselves.  We are hoping you will rally round the farm and come cheer us up.  There are brand new fields (biggies!) this year with more local foods than ever.  Stay tuned for our opening day alert.  Love and summer breezes to you all.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

DEAR CREEKNIKS:  “Tell the truth, shame the Devil.”  That’s what Mom says.  So we are going to give you the straight dope.  Old Screwface can put THAT in his Pipe of Pain and smoke it.  With a molten lava chaser.  On the house.

But first… If you are not ready for a full dose of reality… You can jump right into the BIG SPRING FRUIT TREE SALE.  That is our sister business, Cummins Nursery.  We are the same people wearing different hats.  GET 25% OFF when you buy fruit trees for spring planting!  There are apples, pears, plums, and cherries.  See our remaining inventory and order online, email, or call (607) 592-2801.  Use coupon code SPRING25.  We’ll ship your trees or you can pick them up. 

Now is your chance to plant your own ‘Creek.  Planting fruit trees is pretty basic.  Heck, if we figured it out, so can you.  It is very much like digging a hole to bury your 1982 Tupperware time capsule.  Except you pop a tree in the hole instead of Journey tapes and deely bobbers.  Now, during our big sale, for the price of 5 cappuccinos you can have an apple tree that gives fruit til 2077 or the apocalypse, whichever comes first.

And now the truth:  We skipped sending your Fresh Crop Alert in March because we couldn’t get up the gumption to tell you what mighta coulda maybe happened to the peach and apple crops this year.  We just couldn’t quite say it out loud.

Partly because we don’t totally know yet.  But we’re gonna tell you this:  Stuff froze dead.  A lotta stuff.  A greehouse winter capped off by bitter spring nights.  Global warming?  Perfect storming?  January was hotter than the previous 1,620 months.  Then it got down to 8°.  Frozen fruit buds.

But you are Intrepid Farmketeers!  Crack Corps of Locavores!  You are not panicked.  You are going to stay tuned for our next report, after a few weeks when the future unfolds.  For now, we are keeping the Cropsday Clock frozen in time.  See our previous issue to understand the scientific misterpiece that is the Cropsday Clock.  And keep the apples in your prayers.

We are very lucky at Indian Creek.  We have some of the world’s best soil for growing fruit trees — Howard’s Gravelly Loam — and auspicious airflow down the gentle post-glacial slopes.  We usually have a good crop.  But we never signed a contract with that dirty dealing Beelzebubbles, so there is never even the illusion of a guarantee.  It’s one season at a time.

So, Farm Fans, why not plant a few fruit trees of your own?  Collectively we can create an extended orchard and hedge against crop failure.  GET 25% OFF when you buy now for spring planting!  See our remaining inventory.  There are still apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees.  You can order online, or email, or call (607) 592-2801.  Use coupon code SPRING25.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

DEAR FARMKETEERS:  The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists sets the Doomsday Clock.  It is 3 minutes to midnight.  That means we are closer to a global calamity than when the clock says 4 minutes before doom.  It is a dark and serious business.  But somebody has to do it.  Two cheers for the scientists.

Our farm work is not as important.  But we try to do a halfway decent job.  Our task is to set the Cropsday Clock.  It is a different kind of clock.  It is just past midnight NOW.

FIRST CROPS WILL BE AT 4:00 PM!  Now don’t get all literal.  4 o’clock means 4 months.  It is a metaphor.  Like when the atomic folks say 3 minutes, they don’t mean 3 actual minutes.  Or like that phrase, “circle of friends.”  Are you really in a circle?  Or is it a disfunctional fractal rhombus of friends?  To keep it simple, you say circle.

The Cropsday Clock is a circle, too.  But it doesn’t mean we will have garlic when the hand hits 4.  It doesn’t even mean we will have garlic at all.  It simply means, “There will be something to eat in about 4 months.”  That’s the best we can do.

Who has time to build a better clock?  We are already busy with the next big thing:  Gravitational Waves.  Scientists finally found them this month, 101 years after Einstein said, “Go find them.”  We will harvest gravity waves for sale at the farm this year if we can get them past the unicorn.  (Unicorns do NOT like gravitational waves.)

We have our best people on it.  The very same ones who first confirmed the Farmonic Oscillator, a foundational concept that undergirds all of our work here at The ‘Creek.

The team is led by our own Professor Jen.  Her paper was featured on the cover of Physical Review Letters!  That’s a different kind of cover girl.  She blinded you with science!  Title of paper:  “Rigid Cluster Decomposition Reveals Criticality in Frictional Jamming.”  Whatever you say, Prof!

Well, ‘Creekniks, Happy Leap Year.  Let us conclude today’s message with a note about leaps—quantum leaps.  When you say “quantum leap,” you are using it wrong.  It doesn’t mean big.  It means jumping from one discrete energy level to another, rather than sliding on a continuous spectrum.  Most quantum leaps are small.  Subatomic!  Correct somebody next time they use it wrong.  You’re sure to make a friend.

As you can see, farming isn’t kidstuff.  It’s not all scenic vistas and warming our toes by the fire and Maw making hot chocolate and dogs snoring fitfully.  It’s hard work.  It’s hard MENTAL work and it gets us down.  But with your love and encouragement, we make it through.  The countdown has begun.  Tune in each month to watch the Cropsday Clock go tickety-tock.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

BELOVED FARMKETEERS, we welcome every new year with the Indian Creek theme song, rendered most delicately by our own Archie the Chicken:

A catchy number, to be sure… and the farmer’s sentimental favorite.  But it was never bound for the big screen like this cinematic coup, starring our OTHER Archie the Chicken:

This particular Archie has been seen by over 96,000 Facebookers.  Thus the tradition grew:  We start each year with Piano Chicken and end it with Primordial Chicken.

But the years are an endless loop; one season births another; and, we kind of lose track.  Which came first?  The chicken or the chicken?  Won’t you smarty-pantses stew on that Sunday crossbird puzzle as you trip through the year in review?  Here we go…

In 2015, the highlights were many.  The lowlights were few.  Spring started off with a bunch of brainy ideas.

By the end of June, when everybody was begging for news of the food, we received encouraging words from the crops.

By August, we had a dazzling show of peaches, apples, pears, tomatoes, herbs, flowers, cider, donuts and more!

When high apple season hit, there was a stunning sunflower maze and 10 good reasons to visit the farm.

Your October picking efforts had us floating through the orchard above bountiful apples and pumpkins.

Just in time for the last big picking session, Grampaw showed up to kick everybody’s butt.

And that ain’t even the half of it.  You can see the whole bumbling chronicle of 2015 on our site.  It was our best year ever thanks to you ‘Creekniks.  What a show of local food enfoosiasm.

In current news, the farm stand is closed for the winter.  The newsletter will be pretty quiet for a few months.  We’ll send you a note once in a while.  See you soon at The ‘Creek.

THE FARM HAS SHED its heavy summer coat.  Winter is four days away.  ‘Tis the season to get naked.

Naked APPLE TREES.  They drop all pretense and reveal their craggly, shaggly underbodies.

Naked PEACH TREES.  Did you know that peach trees are (ahem) true redheads?  You can see the boughs now.

Naked SUNFLOWERS.  Perhaps even more beautiful than their peacocky flamboyant phase.

Naked PICNICS.  No shade here.  But you are welcome to visit the playground and picnic grounds any time.

Naked CIDER.  You can still get it fresh.  We’re open self-serve every day with cider and apples in the cooler.

Naked… and LOOPY.  You can watch our totally pointless video loops on Instagram and Facebook all winter.

FIRST CHICKEN.  This dramatic 12-second loop, capturing the primordial chicken, reached 86,432 people.  Watch out kittens, the poultry are coming.

APPLE GIFT BOXES!  Order by Sunday night, and we’ll ship to most locations in the Northeast by Xmas.  You can also choose to pick up your boxes at the farm.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, FARMKETEERS.  Thanks for supporting small farms.  This is the last Crop Alert of 2015.  We’ll probably send you 1 message per month this winter to keep in touch.  Love and kisses and woofs and meows from everyone at The ‘Creek.

WE FARMERS aren’t going to hurt our backs totin’ our brains around.  But we make every effort to hurt ourselves for your entertainment.

To wit, a new piano.  Dragged in from the suburbs by 4 aging farmhands.  Destined for the front porch where you will hear Happy Shopper music all summer.  Twenty sixteen, baby.

To wit, a copper cauldron.  We will drag this 19th-century beast full of bubbling hot cider down to Press Bay Alley on Fridays and Saturdays (12 to 5 PM) during holiday season.  Starts today!  You can get cider and Apple Gift Boxes!

To wit (this one really cramps the back and legs), shrinking ourselves into the fridge.  Time to take the whole farm and squeeze it into the cooler, lest the swallows and critters scoop up the booty at night.

Come into the stand and look LEFT.  You will find the cooler with cider (pressed fresh weekly) and assorted apples.  Pay in the slot.  21st-century agricultural technology.  Might find some butternut squash for 50¢ a pound.

Apple Gift Boxes — Order online now for shipping by Xmas.  If you order by Tuesday, December 15, your boxes will be shipped to arrive during the days before Christmas, Dec 21-24.  Supplies are not infinite, so order soon.

This is a delicious gift of local food.  Important facts: (1) your gift recipients can eat this gift, unlike an ugly Christmas sweater, (2) you are supporting a local farm, (3) you are contributing to the resurgence of heirloom apple varieties, (4) apples are fat-free “tree candy,” a.k.a. farm-bred bon-bons.

Thanks for shopping with us — even a few customers a day in winter makes a big difference.  Don’t forget to order gift boxes by Dec 15.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

DAYS ARE GETTING SHORTER; people are getting crabbier.  But Balto and Natasha, ever the model citizens, are making an effort to speak each other’s language.  Isn’t that the least we can do when things get f*cky?

Yes, Dear ‘Creekniks, we’re all in this together.  As the season darkens, why not bring each other a little light?

Like these 2 intrepid pickers.  They came apple hunting after everyone had given up for the season.  Inspiring!

We are still open every day til 5 PM, but APPLE PICKING IS DONE.  Of course you can wander the orchards and playground, but you won’t find many apples within reach.

The stand is stocked with great apples, including antiques and exotics that you can’t find in a grocery store.  (Send them to a friend in an Apple Gift Box!)

“Apples schmapples,” says Natasha.  “Wake me up when the tuna trees are ripe.  And eat that dry food yourself.”

The Cidermeisters are pressing Ambrosia every week.  Load up now for Thanksgiving.  It freezes great.

Get winter squash for only 75¢ a pound.  Delicata, acorn, and more.  Traditional Thanksgiving delights.

Last call to order Apple Gift Boxes for Thanksgiving.  Order online before Monday, November 23, for shipping in time for Thanksgiving to most locations east of the Mississippi.  You can also select “Pickup” at the farm.

If you come to the farm in the next couple days, you’ll find one of us at the stand.  After that, we will switch to self-serve mode.  Have a safe and swell holiday.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

LOYAL FARMKETEERS:  We are still open every day til 5 PM.  If you are trapped at the office all day, please come see us on the weekend.  Rain or shine, sleet or snow, sh*t or Shinola.

The rest of you could pop in during the week to keep Farmer Amanda from knitting herself to sleep on the job.

APPLES, CIDER, SPROUTS, and SQUASH.  The other characters in our crop opera have all died off by this point in the show.  But please enjoy apples, cider, sprouts, and squash.

Now taking center stage:  APPLE GIFT BOXES!  It is time to order if you want boxes to arrive for Thanksgiving.  See the goods and order online!

If you were to open an Apple Gift Box and read the printed insert, you would find this description of the Black Oxford apple:  “Tino here in the office says:  ‘It’s like biting into another galaxy.'”

This enigmatic statement will make some of you wonder about the apple.  “Tell me more about this Black Oxford,” you will say.  Others will wonder about Tino.  “Tell me more about this Tino.”  Well, he’s the guy in the photo below, as seen performing in the studio of the Sunday radio program, “The Salt Creek Show.”

It is plain to see:  Tino is the person you get when you genetically engineer a man to possess the best features of both Santa Claus and Sasquatch, while burning off their worst features in a bonfire of orchard prunings.  You can see for yourself this Friday!

Tino will be playing and singing at Finger Lakes Cider House on Friday, November 13, 5:30-9 PM.  They’re serving dinner.  See the menu and join the Facebook event.

If you come to the Finger Lakes Cider House for dinner and music on Friday, November 13, 2015, you can get ONE FREE HARD CIDER ON TAP.  The only way to receive this great blessing is to print this coupon, or pull it up on your phone, and present it at the Cider House tasting room.  The photo is your coupon.  You Loyal ‘Creekniks are the only people in the world who are getting this deal.

Why do Farmketeers get this deal?  Because our customers are the best in the WOOOORRRLLDD!   You do great things like make us applesauce and bring it to the farm!  Thanks, Pam and Jeff.

Thanks for visiting all season.  You are like friends and family.  And now you can send a piece of the farm to YOUR friends and family:  Order Apple Boxes this week to arrive in time for Thanksgiving.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.

YOU HAVE THICK SKIN if you are the last one picked every season and you still keep your chin up.  Winter squashes have thick skin.  They try to keep their chins up, but it’s hard…

Farm Fans, perhaps you know what it feels like to be picked last.  Now you can right past slights.  Show a little faith in the squashes.  Get them on sale now for only 75¢ per pound!  Use them in delicious fall recipes for Butternut, Acorn, Delicata, and Sweet Dumpling.  Great stuff.

We’re still open every day til 5 pm for APPLE picking (Mutsu), SPROUT lopping (Brussels), CIDER drinking (fresh!), SQUASH shopping (on sale!), and more.

Thanks to all you magic-users who came to our stall at Wizarding Weekend!  That was awesome!  Also feels great to extend the local harvest season with your November visits.  Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.