The smell of metal and machines is in the air on one side of the building at Sam Beachy & Sons in Salisbury, Somerset County. At the other end of the business at this time of year, there's a steamy fragrance of apples, cider and spices.
Willis Sommers is so used to it, he said, that he doesn't even notice anymore. And no, as he walks between the separate operations, he can't say if he prefers making apple butter or making garden cultivators.
"I wouldn't like to be doing one all the time," he said. "One is a break from the other."
As the seasons change, so does the focus of work at this business. Now the machine stop is still, and the kettles are bubbling with late harvest apples.Making apple butter is something that Sommers did when he worked for the late Sam Beachy for 14 years. Then in 1995, Sommers and his younger brother Reuben bought the business from Sam's son Menno, who still works there part time.
The operations are well suited for this area of Pennsylvania just north of the Maryland border. Farms stretch as wide as the eye can see on the hillsides, some nestled below the woods on the mountains. Tractors chug through rows of crops in some fields. In others, brawny workhorses pull plows guided by bearded Amishmen.
Most farmers can repair their own equipment, but the Amish who shun electricity don't do welding. They take those jobs to Sommers' shop where the brothers also do small-engine repairs and other machine work.
Sommers was Amish until he was 8 or 9 and his parents became Mennonites. Salisbury has populations of both, and down the road from the business, children in plainclothes attend a little one room school.
The Beachy Amish, named after the families of that surname, are more contemporary with electricity, phones and secular dress. All of the sects share similar religious beliefs, but not the austere lifestyle nor the plainclothes of the old order Amish.
Sommers wears a work uniform, and there's just a hint of a beard on his face. His wife, Marlene, and their daughters, Melody and Monica, who work on the apple butter side, wear dresses and net caps over their coiled hair.
There are two phases in the apple butter production that starts cooking from September through late November.
"We make our own from apples we buy from orchards in Romney, W.Va.," Sommers said. "That's made under our own label." They use red and yellow delicious varieties, which he considers the best mix. The family also makes apple butter for people who want it for their own use or for commercial sales. That's done by appointment and on busy days. Customers start lining up at 8 a.m. to wait their turns.
They come from all over, some in pickup trucks that drove a distance, or they're local farmers who came down the road in horse-drawn wooden wagons."Most are from a 50-mile radius," Sommers said. "Some come from Chambersburg, and the other day someone came from Meadville. One customer is from around Irwin."
It takes about an hour and half, from start to finish, to do one batch of apple butter. The process starts in a washer. Then the apples are ground to a pulp and strained through cheesecloth. The pressed juice, or cider, is pumped into kettles and simmered down. The pulp is cooked into applesauce in another kettle; then the two are combined and cooked until they are thick.
"We add cinnamon and allspice once it's cooked, but we don't add any sugar unless the apples aren't sweet or the customer requests it," Sommers said. Whether it ends up looking light or dark depends on the blend of apples. Each batch is as unique as the orchard it came from.
A full batch makes 45 gallons of apple butter. Half-batches or any amount can be processed at the ratio of 20 gallons of cider to one bushel of apples. The finished product is packed into hot sterilized jars, sealed with lids and goes out the door still warm. Families may be just stocking home pantries, while commercial growers will be adding labels for sale. The jars may end up at farm markets or in gift shops.
The business also attracts retail customers who buy the Beachy label apple butter, cider, locally produced maple syrup and a line of jams, jellies and preserves from a local Amish kitchen. The varieties include popular berries and fruits and unusual blends like rhubarb and peach.
Come December, Sommers and his brother will turn their attention to their winter occupation - making the Beachy Garden Cultivator, a motorized tool that Sam Beachy originated in 1942.
Every one is made by hand beginning with sheets of metal that's cut, punched and drilled to shape the cultivator bodies. The bright red equipment is powered by Briggs & Stratton gasoline engines and moves on a set of bulldozer-type treads. That's what makes them unusual.
"There's more traction and less soil compaction," Sommers said. "This goes between narrow rows and won't kill the earthworms. A tiller grinds up the soil, but this shovels it."
The finished garden tool costs about $600, which is comparable to an average mass-produced cultivator. They're sold through a local dealer and by word of mouth, and they've been shipped to surrounding states, Tennessee and out West. One order went to Canada.
Production is limited to about 30 per year.
"We could make and sell more, but we don't want to get too big," Sommers said. "We just want to keep busy over the winter."
By spring, they're ready to move on to repairing small engines and farm machinery. Then comes harvest again, and it's back to making apple butter.Sommers likes the changes.
"But I can't say that I like doing one any better than the other," he said.
Maryann Gogniat Eidemiller is a Greensburg free-lance writer for the Tribune-Review.
