A little cidery tour

At one point, Spencer came in to offer me the dregs from a pail of honey – we were putting our CYSER, Honey Thief, into brite tank (for carbonation before bottling) and it is rounded off at the end with a bit of honey. (We’ll have this one out this weekend, 11/6!). I of course said abso-friggin-lutely to free honey and then we always take the pail over to the bees and let them clean up the rest.

The Cidery was quite literally TEEMING with life on Friday. It felt like the tall grasses were kind of vibrating with energy and it was simply because there were so many bugs and grasshoppers and cicadas and lizards and birds buzzing and jumping, darting and flitting. Anyone who says Austin doesn’t have a Fall – well, they’d certainly be right in a sense but I’d say they should also stop and take a closer look. It’s no fluttering golden maple leaves or the scent of wild-fermenting fallen apples (what I imagine a “proper” autumnal scene to entail, not having personal experience myself). Nevertheless, I believe in a hypothetical situation where I am completely disoriented as to time and place, you could plop me down into a Central Texas Fall and I’d know what time of year it was. Even when it’s pushing 95F (not an unknown in October), there’s a crisp bite (nibble?) in the air. And just as any gardener in Zone 8b will tell you that Fall is the best gardening time of year around these parts, the whole Hill Country biological sphere seems to agree it’s the preferred time of year.

And a few more pictures from my stroll around the Cidery. Here’s our second bee yard, which many wouldn’t notice unless they walked down the hill behind the Taproom. A friend’s beloved dog is buried close by. You can hear the bees and other insects living their best lives amongst the fields of golden Huisache daisy, one of my favorite fall wildflowers. And the four o’clocks were out in full force, they remind me of my Grandma and her rambling house in Giddings. Plus a picture of the Easy Tiger chocolate chip cookie I stole from the taproom, you really can’t take a bite without hitting chocolate, try and get one next time you’re out there.