Building a pallet yurt

Building a pallet yurt

by | Apr 18, 2016 | buildings

Occasionally I am let off the farm for good behaviour, and so on Sunday I set off for Co.Wicklow, and Castleruddery Organic Farm to learn how to make a yurt from pallets, with ‘Rubberband’ Ray Edwards. Ray is an inventive guy, and under his excellent tuition, our group learned how to make an extremely sturdy yurt.

Sheds come and go

Sheds come and go

by | Apr 15, 2016 | buildings

We are now starting our fourth year here at Lackan Cottage Farm, and what seems like an endless series of building projects is at last coming to an end. The cottage refurbishment, polytunnels, compost loo, stables, the little cottage, outhouse, woodshed, bike store, paths, ponds, wind turbine and solar arrays, and most recently the rebuild of the old hay shed into a workshop and bigger hay shed.

Out with the old, in with the – old

Out with the old, in with the – old

by | Apr 7, 2016 | buildings

A few miles from us in Ballyward, is the blacksmith’s forge of the Walker brothers. Gates have been made there and horses shod for generations, and Walker made gates a century old are still in use and good repair. Gate styles are very distintive things, and I hope that someone has taken the time to research them properly, though I can find nothing online.

An interesting diversion

An interesting diversion

by | Apr 6, 2016 | buildings

The weather may have been pretty consistently awful this last while, but somehow we’ve managed to make what feels like significant progress on the various projects that are ongoing here at Lackan Cottage Farm, in between being slightly sidetracked by things like...
Fixing the floor

Fixing the floor

by | Nov 28, 2015 | buildings

Usually I post about the things that have gone right, but we are on a learning curve, and things often don’t work out first time around. The floor in the new build is one such case. After much deliberating, and mainly due to budget constraints, I put in a...
Solid foundations

Solid foundations

by | Jul 8, 2015 | buildings, smallholding

    Two years ago we built our little stone circle at midsummer. Our home is built from the granite that it sits upon, and the stones are a connection to the mountains they look to, as well as a reflection of the place in which we live. The stones are all...