Athol Orchards announces expansion plans

ATHOL — Pressed, baked, sauced, caramel-covered or raw, apples are the apple of Nikki Conley's eye.

"I dream of learning from the old-timers how to be able to identify an apple out of thousands. There's like 20,000 varieties of apples," she said Thursday, walking among the apple trees at Athol Orchards Antique Apple Farm and Bakery.

"How can you look at one apple and figure out, 'Oh yeah, this is a Westfield,' or 'You know, this is a Calville blanc,'" she said. "There's so many details and so many characteristics to look at."

Just next week, Conley will be juicing up her apple and cider knowledge when she heads to a three-day camp with the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, in partnership with the Maine Heritage Orchard.

"We're staying in cabins in a cot with a sleeping bag," she said, her eyes smiling. "It's all about apples."

Conley takes that apple affection and crafts it into every pie and bottle of apple cider syrup she creates, along with a healthy portion of North Idaho country flair.

"'Farm-crafted' is what we do,” she said. "That’s where we started when we started with the syrup at home. It started here; it was a farm-crafted syrup. All of our products will be farm-crafted products of Athol Orchards."

Nikki and her husband, Erreck, have been working on expanding the property at Athol Orchards to include a commercial kitchen to produce everything on site and add goat dairy items to the variety of offerings. The Conleys have named two of their goats after apples — Pearl, after the Pink Pearl apple, and Pip, for the Newtown Pippin.

The farm-to-kitchen-to-table nature of their business, which includes pumpkin and honey production, has created difficulties in securing funding for the expansion.

“All the banks, they didn’t know what to do with us,” Nikki said.

After drafting a business plan and spending a year and a half working with the Panhandle Area Council, an economic development district in North Idaho, Nikki said things just didn't work out as hoped.

"Some details came to light about the characteristics of the loan,” she said. "The loan, we realized, was not going to fit what we needed."

Knowing the demand for their products is growing, Athol Orchards will move forward with the expansion. The dream is to turn it into a place of education and living history, where people can turn off their phones and slow down a bit.

"We’re aiming for it to be a farm where our local community can come and gather in the autumn season for special events, for cider pressing, for classes for the kids to learn about how to press cider or how to make pies,” Nikki said. "Old American traditions is what we focus on."

Nikki said the Conleys are putting up $35,000 to begin the multi-phase $155,000 expansion at Athol Orchards. Conley said the contractor is breaking ground Aug. 22.

"This should have been built a year ago, and we needed it a year ago," she said. "We’ve been growing and growing and growing. People want our new pies, people want the new products, people want to come out here for the events.

“Sharing our farm with the community is why we want this facility."

Nikki said Athol Orchards friends and fans are encouraged to stay tuned for the announcement of Kickstarter campaign and visit the website, www.atholorchards.com, for updates.

“We want people to join us in our journey to see this project to completion,” she said. “We’re asking for them to be a part of the story and invest in this project so we can share our farm with the community for special events throughout the season.”