[upbeat folk music]
[gentle acoustic music]
- What a beautiful day to be out here
walking through the apple orchard.
Thanks for having me.
- Yes, thank you for coming
to the Oneida apple orchard.
We have 31 acres here.
Thirty-four different varieties, including pears.
- Well, that's a lot to manage.
You mind showing me around?
- Sure, let's take a walk.
[gentle acoustic music]
- So how did you fall in love with becoming an orchardist?
- Years ago, I was born and raised down in Cedarburg,
and basically right across the street, there was an orchard.
So at about 14 years old, I started working for them.
Picking apples, and pumpkins, and squash,
and I liked it that much that I stayed in it.
- Good!
Why was it important to the tribe to have an orchard here?
- Well, the orchard already existed
before the tribe bought it.
It was planted in '86, '87, and the tribe bought it in '94.
It goes back in our history, coming from New York to here,
that we brought apple trees along,
so it meant tradition to us to have it.
- So what brought you from the southern part of the state
up to here, where we're at, near Green Bay?
- Originally, that orchard kind of got shut down
as Cedarburg expanded,
so then I went to the southwest part of the state.
That's basically apple country here in Wisconsin.
- Right, down in the Driftless, yep.
- Yeah, around Gays Mills and down that strip there.
And then, when the tribe bought this,
they knew that I was in the orchard business,
and being a tribal member,
they asked me to come up here and run this orchard.
[upbeat folk music]
- Are these apples, are they going back to tribal members?
Or are you selling to everyone?
What's happening with the end product?
- This is a community orchard, yes.
But we do sell to our schools and our senior center.
The community can come in and pick the apples.
'Cause everybody has a different taste in apples.
Some people like 'em green, some people like 'em real sour.
- Not me. [both laughing]
- But we have just about every different variety,
different tastes that people can want.
- So Jeff, it sounds like you've been working with apples
most of your life.
What is it that keeps drawing you back to this occupation?
- The difference.
Every year, there's a different thing,
whether it's weather, whether it's insects,
it's always different; it's always making you think.
But the other thing is,
also all the different varieties that are coming out,
like Fujis and planted Galas.
- By having all those different varieties,
does that take your season a little bit longer?
- Yes; for the most part,
we can start picking already in the middle of August.
This year, we're a week to two weeks late
because of the cool spring,
but then it usually lasts until the first part of November.
- And then you take the rest of the year off.
- [laughing] I wish, I wish!
Take a long vacation. [both laughing]
- What's that process after you all have picked the apples?
They have to go through that whole cleaning process,
and sizing and things, is that right?
- Yes, yes, we put them through our apple grader,
which washes them off, polishes them, and then sizes them up.
From the tree, they usually go right into our cooler,
and we can keep apples here usually until Christmastime.
Then we start pruning. [Inga laughing]
- And that's never-ending. - Yeah, yes.
- Well, do you have any favorite varieties
that I can taste-test today?
- Yes, one that we have available right now
is the Zestars, and maybe we can run a few Honeycrisp.
[upbeat folk music]
- So these are the, what's the variety?
- These are the Zestars.
We just started planting them probably about seven years ago,
and they're becoming one of our most favorite apple
that we have.
- They're delicious. - Yes.
- Well, before I eat too many of these apples,
I think we need to get back and start cooking.
[upbeat folk music]