Apple Festival yields bushels of family fun

     The weather was just right.

     Warm enough for a crisp apple to be refreshing, cool enough for a swig of cider to hit the spot - such an ideal balance can only be achieved at one place, said Joan Czipar.
At the family-owned apple orchard nestled about halfway between Dubuque and Bellevue, late summer and early fall create the perfect combination needed for family fun in the great outdoors.
     During two days, more than 1,000 visitors enjoyed the sites, sounds and tastes at Czipar's Apple Orchard during its
Annual Apple Festival that has been taking place since either 1977 or 1978.
     "Maybe we should just say a really long time. That might be safer," Czipar said.
     She and her husband, Dick, have operated the business for 30 years, and Dick's grandparents ran the orchard for 16 years before that.
     And the festival started sometime in between.
     "People won't let us quit," Joan said. "Every year we think, well, maybe we won't do the festival, but nobody wants to see it go."
     Understandably so.
     The weekend kicks off with goodness, and it ends on the same note.
     Apple pies, apple cider, apple butter, caramel apples, apple nut bread, caramel sauce for apples - samples are available of almost everything, and if not, they can be bought in bulk to take home and relish for days to come.
     And then there are the apples themselves.
     Cortland, Jonathan, McIntosh, honeycrisp, Fuji - brands are clumped together in paper bags and set aside to be tasted and purchased.
     "Fresh is what it's about," Joan said. "Everybody says an apple is just an apple, and that's why we have samples and say,'Try this.'Some people just don't know the difference, but when you can pick an apple off a tree at it's peak and enjoy it then, that's when they are perfect."
     Jakob Thompson, 8, of Dubuque, agreed after he sneaked back to the orchard and plucked a red apple off the tree.
     He took a gigantic bite, and although he admitted it was a tad too sour - which he blamed on his inexperience in the picking business - he still found plenty of good things to say about the fruit.
     "They're healthy and they're full of vitamins," he said.
     Add some face-painting and activities on the side, and he's happy.
"It's fun here," he said.

     Bekah Porter

     Copyright 2009 Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque)