This offering catapults us into 2022 by marking the first anniversary of our small reparations cohort.
Here is an invitation to join us, Redbyrd Orchard Cider, Eve’s Cidery, and Open Spaces Cider. For this package, we feature 3 ciders as well as prints of ‘Smoke Dance’ by Travis Mammedaty and reparations payments through cider to Quarter Acre for the People.
We’ll launch the package through the 2022 NOFA-NY annual (virtual) conference and save spaces for the workshop attendees to purchase the cider package. Our workshop covering small, diverse orcharding, labor-of-love cider making and reparations partnerships lands on Tuesday, Jan 20th.
Please join us here to meet our businesses and see the throughline to the work Christa Núñez and Quarter Acre for the People to connect BIPOC farmers with land access and supportive resources.
Jan 20th, 2022:
Cider, Farming, Collaboration, and Reparations
Presenters: Christa Núñez of Quarter Acre for the People, Autumn Stoscheck and Ezra Sherman of Eve’s Cidery, Melissa Madden of Open Spaces Cider, Deva Maas and Eric Shatt of Redbyrd Orchard Cider
Eve’s Cidery, Redbyrd Orchard Cider, and Open Spaces Cider produce small batch hard cider on their farms and through foraging. Over the past 20 years of farming, we as a group recognize that true regenerative agriculture includes our organic and biodynamic practices, but must reach further into equity, justice, and reparations. With our land access partner Quarter Acre for the People, we explore reparations twice yearly through a collaborative cider package. We’ll share our farming and business philosophies and tune into opportunities for making reparations. Participants can sign up for a reparations cider package to be mailed after the conference and then join us for a virtual tasting in mid February.
February 2022:
Shipping and Tasting Cider, Appreciating Art
After the NOFA-NY deep dive, we’ll send out the cider packages. On February 13th @ 5pm EST (4pm Central / 3pm Mountain / 2p West Coast) we’ll host a virtual tasting (which will be recorded as well). This part can be taken as a second step after NOFA-NY or independently.
Please join us to taste ciders with the cideries, hear from our featured artist Travis Mammedaty about his piece ‘Smoke Dance’ and ask Christa and Travis more about their work.
How to sign up
Please follow the 5 steps below to participate in this reparations package and receive cider.
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1. Contribute.
Make your $78 (or more if you like/can) contribution HERE and designate “Quarter Acre for the People”
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2. Email Receipt
Email your receipt from Khuba International to Melissa Madden: openspacescider@gmail.com
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3. Charge the Balance.
Melissa will set you up within Eve’s Cidery’s shipping system and charge the balance for the cider packaging and printing costs: $22 + shipping to your location (free pick up in Trumansburg, Ithaca and Van Etten).
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4. Ship/Pick Up
We will ship and offer pick up the first week of February.
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5. Gather & Taste
After the NOFA-NY deep dive, we’ll send out the cider packages. On February 13th @ 5pm EST (4pm Central / 3pm Mountain / 2p West Coast) we’ll host a virtual tasting (which will be recorded as well). This part can be taken as a second step after NOFA-NY or independently.
The Ciders:
EVE’S CIDERY- 2020 DARLING CREEK
REDBYRD ORCHARD CIDER – 2020 WILD HEART
OPEN SPACES CIDER – 2021 EARLY & WILD PET NAT-
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FEATURED ARTIST:
TRAVIS MAMMEDATY
The Winter 2022 Cider Package includes an 8 x 10” Fine Art Giclee Print of Smoke Dance.
Travis Mammedaty is a Kiowa/Seneca-Cayuga contemporary expressionist artist hailing from Oklahoma. Travis works in acrylic and charcoal with bold colors and powerful brush strokes focusing on Kiowa oral tradition. His art is featured across the country from the Gilrease Museum in Tulsa, OK to St. Petersburg, Florida. Travis is also a Kiowa language instructor, historian and singer AND hosts “The Red Road Show”, a Native American podcast giving a platform to native artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs, it also covers language revitalization, culture, and history. Follow him on Instagram @chases_the_red_blanket
‘SMOKE DANCE’
The piece ‘Smoke Dance’ was made to pay homage to my Haudenosaunee people. As a Seneca-Cayuga from Oklahoma we do not smoke dance in our area so the piece is a sense of longing. The dancer is female which gives a nod to our matrilineal leadership we hold dear in our tribe.
Eve’s Cidery, Redbyrd Orchard Cider and Open Spaces Cider stand in solidarity with Quarter Acre for the People.
Our reparations package will continue to raise funds and focus toward the essential work QAP and Khuba International are doing in Enfield and Ithaca, NY.
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PREVIOUS REPARATION PACKAGES ARCHIVES
Summer 2021: S P A C E
This summer we celebrate space. Space for creativity, nourishment and sovereignty. Our reparations work aims to support this through partnership with Quarter Acre for the People in Ithaca, NY.
Quarter Acre for the People connects families of African and/or Indigenous ancestry with the space to envision and practice food production, cooperative farming, homesteading and farm business development.
Quarter Acre for the People also connects with kindred spirits in food access work and in the theme of funding SPACE, focuses on the current fundraising of No Mas Lagrimas for rent and supplies.
Redbyrd Orchard Cider, Eve’s Cidery, and Open Spaces Cider stand in solidarity with QAP and No Mas Lagrimas. Our reparations package will continue to raise funds and focus toward the essential work QAP and Khuba International are doing in Enfield and Ithaca, NY.
The Package
The 3 ciders in this package are some of the first 2020 releases from each cidery.
Each cider contains 25-100% wild foraged apples, in continued acknowledgement of current bounty harvested from stolen/now public lands. Read on for details and find out about the 3 ciders.
How it works
Payment for this project begins by contributing 90% of the package value directly to Quarter Acre for the People (total value for this package is $50)
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1. Contribute.
Make your $45 contribution HERE. Be sure to designate “Quarter Acre for the People.”
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2. Email Receipt
Email your receipt from Khuba International to Melissa Madden: openspacescider@gmail.com
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3. Charge the Balance.
Melissa will set you up within Eve’s Cidery’s shipping system and charge the balance for the tasting event and the cider packaging= $8.70 + shipping to your location (free pick up in Trumansburg, Ithaca and Van Etten).
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4. Ship/Pick Up
We will ship and offer pick up in mid to late July.
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5. Gather & Taste
Virtual Tasting Gathering is Sunday, August 15th @ 4pm. New York Cider Association will be hosting via their YouTube TV channel.
Community Connection
In our December 2020 package we celebrated with a virtual tasting event hosted by New York Cider Association. Feedback afterwards confirmed for us that coming together, meeting Christa Nunez (QAP director), tasting and evaluating the ciders themselves creates joy around reparations. Our experiences together shout that this human connection is essential!
Please join us for the Virtual Tasting on August 15th for a Sunday cocktail hour. We’ll spend time on the trees, the 2020 harvest and emerging pommage and invite you to share your reflections on the ciders, on land access and on 2020!
Summer 2021 Reparations Cider Pack
The Ciders:
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Eve’s Seedlings 2020
500 mL/8% abv
Still and dry
Production: 100% wild foraged apples and pears, aged on the lees.
Tasting: Dried rose petals, sage, sheep’s wool, coffee and a summer evening breeze.
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Redbyrd Orchard Cider’s Branches 2020
500 mL/8% abv
Sparkling and dry
Production Notes: 25% Wild Harvested Apples, Golden Russet, GoldRush, Freer Crab, Redfield. Bottle Conditioned.
Tasting Notes: Spice, raspberry, anise, maraschino cherry.
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Open Spaces’ FLNF Pétillant 2020
500 mL/8% abv
Gently sparkling and dry
Production: 100% wild foraged apples from late harvest groves. Secondary fermentation in the bottle and aged on the lees.
Tasting: Fresh sawdust, lemon peel, tart cherry. Perfect for summer food on the fire.
Why Reparations?
In New York State, 97% of farms are owned by White people (1). Let’s re-imagine a different farming future— one that is equitable, diverse, non-exploitative and accountable. How do we get from here to there? Reparations can offer a path.
Want to dig into some of the thinking from the orchard behind reparations as a practice and a journey? Read Melissa’s essays (originally published in Malus Zine) on her website here.
Join us!
(1) USDA agricultural Census, 2017
Redbyrd Orchard Cider 
