Cider, music and more at annual Delmont Apple'n Arts Festival

If you don’t like stinging insects, Shield’s Farm is not the place to be during the last few days of September.

In preparation for the annual Delmont Apple’n Arts Festival in Salem, crates are delivered filled with hundreds of pounds of apples, stacked outside the barn that houses a 117-year-old apple press.

And there is no lack of hornets, wasps and bees buzzing all around the crates, wandering in and out and searching for a little fruit sugar.

But risking a sting is the price members of the Fort Allen Antique Farm Equipment Association are more than willing to pay in order to crank out thousands of gallons of apple cider, sold before and during the festival, which will take place Oct. 5-6 at Shield’s Farm.

In preparation, members of the Westmoreland Squares 4-H Club have been busy affixing labels to empty plastic jugs and glass jars, which will be filled with cider and apple butter.

Across the grounds, organizer Brandy Walters was meeting with other committee members to work out setup logistics and to check if some batteries stored last year are still in working condition.

The annual festival celebrates all things apple, with cider and apple butter sales, an apple-based cooking contest and the “Baby Apple Cheeks” contest. It also includes Civil War reenactments, live music, vendors, crafts, children’s games and more.

Members of Boy Scout Troop 211 will operate the popular apple slingshots, catapulting rotten apples for distance and bragging rights, and Walters said they’ve added a third slingshot this year.

Another less popular feature has been the weather. Walters will be the first to admit that it always seems to rain at some point during the festival.

“We have so many die-hard people who come in, that it doesn’t affect attendance much,” Walters said. “Even if (their vehicles) end up getting stuck in the field, we have tractors to help get them out.”

While the festival draws a strong crowd, one thing it does need is some volunteers for its organizing committee, she said.

“We’ve been trying to fill in for some committee members we’ve lost recently,” Walters said. “But we are looking for someone to step up into some of our leadership roles — someone who can be our entertainment director, someone to take over the crafts committee, and probably someone to take over the Baby Apple Cheeks contest.”

The festival’s organizing committee meets once a month starting in February to start organizing for the coming year.

“We are just barely pulling it off this year with people pitching in to help or taking on additional things,” Walters said. “And people don’t to be from here — there’s this myth that you have to be from Delmont to be part of it. We welcome anyone who wants to help out.”

Shield’s Farm is located off Contact Place. For more information, including about advance cider sales, see DelmontApplenArts.com.

“There’s so much to see and do,” Walters said. “I just sort of bebop around all afternoon and check different things out.”