IT IS NOT A GREAT STEELWORKS, nor is it one of the traditional steelworks. In 1999, public work began in Goiko-Lastola. They already had an old lizard, and they did the cider for home. They also offered their lizard to the neighbors of the housekeepers who had apples around them, to make their own juice for home. Today, they try to maintain their appearance and lifestyle. In its small, the shearing has a broad environment, and it has that peculiarity or aditment. Packed with animals, plants, wooded, you can enjoy what you don't see too much. Children and adults, in a quiet environment, we can reclaim our relationship with lost nature.

Before they opened the cider, they had other projects. What was once a chicken cooker and was already empty, was transformed into a block. It was the year 1992 and for groups that could come from outside, the Sidrero Lazaro Etxabe Goiko-Lastola was launched to offer horseback riding. “It wasn’t the best bet we’ve ever made,” he says in laughter. This offer lasted a couple of years. However, it served them to fix and adjust the structure of the old chicken house, and after a few years they took the next leap to profit from the investment. During the first two years of opening to the clientele, cider was handmade with the old lagar. Subsequently, new equipment and planning were established. What was an old block became a dining room: today it is conserved and acquires an unusual shape in the sidrerías, a circular form. About 25,000 liters of barrels filled with apple juice remain sheltered from the tables placed in a circle, in the center. Most cider is used for txotx season, and bottling is only sold to individuals and associations, the bottle is not marketed.

Hobby for animals

Lazarus Etxabe has always been related to animals. Born in Goiko-Lastola, from a young age he has a close relationship with the animal and nature. He currently has a cow, chickens, goat and dog. He also had a donkey for two years, but because of the damage it caused to the apples, he had to give his brother to take him to another place. Although they do not have a herd, the one of the neighboring labrador remains on the other side of the fence. Lazarus knows very well the work these animals do and does not do it to get anything out of the other world, but by hobby. However, in Goiko-Lastola there will be no shortage of home-grown eggs or chickens, and they also have beef, made annually. “It’s nice to be able to eat the products of the breeders at home; we know what we give them and what we are eating, and that today is not so easy,” he says.

On the other side of the river are the factories that are on the road from Hernani to Ereñozu, but fortunately, even if they are close, they do not see them. Instead, the herb piled up and the orchard form the landscape of the house door. To help them with the garden comes a friend of the retired people, and “he keeps him well,” says Lazarus. It has defined as a cycle the relationship between the cow, the field and the vegetable garden. Each day it cuts and feeds the surrounding herbs to the cow, on the one hand it gives it food and on the other it helps to clean the surroundings. In addition, it uses the animal’s excrement as fertiliser in the orchard to strengthen the soil. And of the products extracted from the orchard, the earth also extracts its part from the leftover compost, in the form of excrement.

Homeowners change and sow things, but then the partner retains the vegetable garden. They also change a little bit of sight to the blackberry. Leeks are used to throw the cod into the tortilla, and if the year has gone well, they take advantage of the homemade leeks. Not only that, they also place hazelnuts on the pole that give the hazelnuts they have in the vicinity of the quarries.

In the early years of the opening of the cider, Lázaro Lazaro has stressed that they work with apples imported from other places, but that today they use juice made with apple from home or from the surrounding area. He has also explained that if you warn beforehand your sidrry you can bring food, and that those who go to try the one there also don't have to eat everything that is known as the sidrería menu. He says that they have always done so, but that in view of the times, people are often reminded that it's OK, that they can eat whatever they want from what's on the menu. n