LEWISTON — June and Milton Finster sought out Lewiston, looking at taxes and utilities, and overall cost of living.

But mostly they were looking for the right climate. “We wanted something we could live with year-round,” June said.

Longtime residents of Milwaukee, Wis., and relative newlyweds of four years, Milt was tired of shoveling snow, and June was ready to go with him. With her son in Arizona and her daughter in California, and his sons in Wisconsin and Texas, they figured they had a lot of potential geography to explore.

It was the early 1980s, and they decided to try Lewiston, where they had friends who offered them a base to stay and explore from.

It was their last day in town when they saw the advertisement for a ranch-style house along Hemlock Avenue. There were two problems: Viewing was by appointment only, and it had a young orchard of 150 trees, most of them peaches. She said it would give him something to do in retirement. He said no way.

They compromised. They drove by, liked the looks and rang the doorbell.

Almost before they knew it, they were orchardists.

Finsters’ Peach Orchard quickly made a name for itself. People would come from all around, June said, and one year the Finsters sold two tons of peaches to the old Yoke’s grocery store.

Most of the trees were J.H. Hales, with a few Elbertas, plus apples, apricots, plums, walnuts, filberts, grapes and, of course, the garden. If it could be grown, and sometimes even if it couldn’t, June and Milton gave it a try. They didn’t have any luck with peanuts, June said, and the asparagus bed took too much time. “We had so many other thing to do besides that,” Milt said.

She had told him the orchard was his job, but she helped some, June said. They pruned and sprayed, and during harvest, she drove the tractor with a trailer full of boxes. He would pick and she would sort.

During their retirement, June and Milton fished for steelhead, kokanee and walleye. They hunted, harvesting two elk and several deer. They cut their own firewood.

“How we did all that and still ran the orchard, I don’t know,” Milt said.

She learned to can, and when they decided in 1991 there was more work than money in an orchard, they retired again. When they moved that time to four-tenths of an acre along 18th Street, they took more than 400 jars of home-canned fruits, meats, vegetables, juices and nectars with them, plus a full freezer and 27 gallons of wine.

At their “new” home, the Finsters planted two Ida Red apple trees, a variety they first met in Wisconsin. When she freezes apples for pies, she crushes Vitamin C tablets in a couple of tablespoons of water and mixes that with the sliced fruit. After two years in the freezer, they remain a creamy white. She thaws them in the bag, either on the counter or in the microwave. As long as the bag isn’t opened, the apples look like they were just peeled, she said.

They came up with that idea after reading labels in the grocery store and realizing the vitamin contained the same ingredient as the more expensive ascorbic acid sold specifically for canning.

They say now, at 94 and 87, they’ve slowed down some, but they still fish and recently returned from a trip to Arizona for a granddaughter’s wedding.

They eat well, mostly from what they grow.

“When we raise food, we know what we’re eating,” Milt said. “I’d say we’re about 90 percent organic, no pesticides.” He also seeks out organic seed that hasn’t been genetically modified, “and that’s becoming more scarce, too.”

They do a lot of companion planting, using plants like onions and garlic to keep pests away from the tomatoes. Some weeks their trip to the grocery store is only for milk and bread.

“I guess you call it the fruits of our labor,” Milt said.