Apple orchards have dotted Wisconsin’s landscape for well over a century. In fact, the first seeds were planted as early as 1800, according to the Wisconsin Apple Growers Association. WUWM’s Susan Bence spent time with a small family orchard owner as she peddles her produce before temperatures dip too low.
Sharon Eigenberger is planning to close the season at the Menomonee Falls Farmers Market the day before Thanksgiving. She says her husband’s busy pruning the trees for next year’s crop. Sharon Eigenberger is in the middle of a transaction on this perfectly sunny Sunday morning. She’s selling apples on Stone Bank Road a few miles outside Oconomowoc.
Eigenberger pops the sack of Spartans on the scale she has set up on the back of her truck and the deal is sealed. She tells the customer the price. $2.75.
“And isn’t it a beautiful day,” Eigenberger says.
“It is. You’re not even wearing your snowmobile suit or anything,” the customer says.
“No, not today,” Eigenberger says.
Eigenberger’s got her cold weather gear stored inside her truck though. This is no fair weather operation. She’ll keep on selling until she runs out of apples OR the temperature slips below 28 degrees.
“When it’s cold the tips of my fingers go numb and that’s from all the years of being out in the cold weather,” Eigenberger says.
Everyone around here calls Eigenberger The Apple Lady. Even the electronic sign behind her flashes her hours along with the latest prices for gas and a gallon of milk.
Another customer swings by, this one on a bicycle. Eigenberger carefully picks out one of her finest and sends the boy on his way, crunching contentedly.
She says, that’s what she likes about this business, the people. This customer is on the young side, but some have been with her for years.
“I get to see customers that I’ve had for probably 25, 30 years. And if they happen to come at a time that isn’t too busy, we get caught up on families,” Eigenberger says.
Eigenberger married into the business. Her husband helped his dad plant the first apple trees in 1952 and those trees are still going strong.
“And then grandpa got sick and we kind of took over,” Eigenberger says.
Eigenberger’s sons were little guys at the time. She says the orchard was folded into their family routine. Her husband got home from his factory job in Milwaukee at 4:15, they’d eat a quick supper.
“And everyone had to help with the dishes and then the four of us would go over to the orchard and work until dark,” Eigenberger says.
While that made of long days, Eigenberger says the routine had its pluses.
“I never had to worry about were my sons were; they were with us,” Eigenberger says.
The Eigenberger's is a hand’s on, no waste operation. They pick the apples by hand.
“And the ones that fall on the ground are windfalls, and those we sell as windfalls if somebody wants them. And they’re good for sauce, pies, if you want to cut the bruises out,” Eigenberger says.
And they make cider the old-fashioned way.
“We have a cider press that has the hand crank. So you’re crankin’,” Eigenberger says.
They wash each apples and then feed them into the grinder.
“It shreds 'em. And they in turn drop down into a basket that we have lined with a bag. And when that’s full there’s a block that goes on top of it and then there’s a great big turn screw and you just keep turning it down. And then you let it drain down for a while. It’s a slow process,” Eigenberger says.
Whatever’s left in the press is thrown on the fields as fertilizer or shared with a neighbor.
“For her goats, her chickens and her peacock, and they love it,” Eigenberger says.
A truck swings in and stops next to the stand. The drivers not interested in buying apples today, he popped by to show Eigenberger his new puppy.
“Her dad was a Basset and her mom was a purebred Golden,” he says.
I think I’ve stumbled onto Eigenberger’s special something. She cares about people, whether they buy an apple or not.
Eigenberger tells me about one of her oldest customers, who loves a particular apple. It’s an old variety, called the snow apple, medium-sized, crimson skinned with snow white flesh. That special customer calls Eigenberger every year, like clockwork.
“She’ll tell me, now if I don’t call you buy a certain day, you call me,” Eigenberger says.
Eigenberger had a smaller crop of snow apples this year, exactly a bushel and a peck. They all went to that loyal customer.
“I think she bought the first six that the tree ever had. And just all these years and I think no, she ought to get first dibs on them,” Eigenberger says.
You’ve probably guessed by now, this is a money-making operation. Eigenberger says a good year means they bring in enough to pay for the expensive sprays needed to keep their trees pest and disease free. Eigenberger calls it a labor of love.
She thinks eventually her oldest son will probably take over. He’s been coming every day after work to help pick apples. Eigenberger calls that a pretty good sign.
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