smallholding Archives - Page 3 of 18 - Lackan Cottage Farm

Composting loo – a toilet reborn

by Steve Byrne | Apr 13, 2013 | composting toilets, low impact living, natural building, smallholding, the farm

Something that we’ve desperately needed since arriving is a decent outside composting loo, if only to save muddy hordes coming in and out of the house in the depths of winter. We inherited an old tin hut of an outside loo, that had the particularly...

Off grid

by Steve Byrne | Apr 9, 2013 | off grid, smallholding, the farm

It isn’t a huge amount of solar, but it’s enough to allow us to manage almost entirely without the mains grid. (The washing machine is too much for this system). We have, in theory, enough power to keep us going for 5 days in the event of it being...

Our animal friends in their wintry wonderland

by Steve Byrne | Mar 24, 2013 | animals, smallholding, the farm

At last the rain and snow have stopped, and there is a hint of blue sky above us now. The wind is still bitterly cold though, and the snow shows no sign of leaving us any time soon. This winter has been an especially difficult one for anyone with livestock, and we...

Spring – not quite what we were expecting

by Steve Byrne | Mar 22, 2013 | climate, smallholding, the farm

This is our pond. Rather unexpectedly as it happens – we didn’t line it or fill it, the volume of rain and snow over the past 24 hours has simply been so huge that it has filled itself. Quite handy really as we can see how the levels will work out,...

Six months old!

by Steve Byrne | Mar 16, 2013 | smallholding

Well, Lyra is six months old today, and here she is with her first wooden spoon, which she seems to think is extremely tasty. She’s thriving in our ‘new’ home, which is of course six months old too – nothing like a deadline to get the work...

The end of winter (almost)

by Steve Byrne | Mar 9, 2013 | smallholding, woodlands

Well, for a while there we thought that spring had sprung, and so it would seem did the snowdrops. After what seemed like a long winter, suddenly there is a dash to get all the jobs done before spring arrives properly (whatever happened to hibernation?). For...