A new era is on the horizon for a beloved, family-owned apple orchard located just south of Lakeville.
Applewood Orchard announced in late February that the orchard was for sale, bringing in a flood of memories and well wishes for Kathy Parranto and her family who tended to the farm's thousands of trees for nearly 30 years.
"My husband and I always liked taking our kids to orchards," Parranto said. "We decided that we could start our own orchard. We went to the university, took classes, and we thought it would be a good opportunity to have our children out of the suburbs and actually working for a living."
Kathy, and her late husband Mark, searched for the perfect spot to plant and grow their orchard. That journey eventually landed them in a cornfield stretching from Hamburg Avenue to Cedar Avenue south of Lakeville.
"We decided that if we didn't do it, we'd regret it," Parranto said. "That was our final decision. If we didn't do this, we'd probably always regret not trying."
Planting began in 1995 with 1,500 infant trees that quickly grew into several thousand over the next few years.
Applewood Orchard opened its doors to the public in 1999 and continued to grow with over 9,000 trees and 16 varieties of apples.
"The people that come to an apple orchard are the best. They're coming with their families to be outside and explain to their kids about agriculture."
Kathy's operated the orchard with her two sons, Jon and Chris. The decision to sell Applewood Orchard came last year.
"My youngest son decided he was never going to become rich here," Kathy added. "He also has family to support. So he quit here and works at Delta Airlines. It was just my oldest son and I after that. It's gonna be just too hard. We can't do it with just two people, even with all the people we hire during the season to help us, it's still too much work."
Work at the orchard this time of year would involve pruning the trees. Kathy says a crew was hired last year to help with the pruning due to the lack of people available to help.
As spring arrives, they'll order their chemicals and begin spraying to prevent fungus.
After the bees come in to pollinate the trees, regular maintenance of the orchard takes place until orchard opens to the public at the end of August through the end of October.
"Our plan is to keep maintaining the trees until a sale," Parranto said. "If we're still here all season, we'll maintain those trees and in the fall we'll wholesale those apples."
Applewood Orchard went on the market Thursday, February 22 and it didn't take long to peak some potential buyers' interests.
"We had people come the next for a viewing. It has been exciting to have people interested already. I wasn't expecting it quite so soon."
Kathy hopes the orchard, remains an orchard.
"I would love for it to continue as an orchard," she said. "Not necessarily with our name on it, but people in the south suburbs have come to enjoy us. We don't even advertise anymore. We're busy every weekend through all of September through October with new and former customers. The south suburbs are expanding like crazy. If that could continue, that would be wonderful."