Birch Cottage has a new website of its own
Visit the Birch Cottage website to bookWelcome to Lackan Cottage Farm
We’re Steve and Claire Golemboski-Byrne, we live here off grid with our daughter, our dog, cats and horses. We make all our own energy using wind and solar, grow as much of our own food as we can (it varies widely) and have used permaculture design principles to help us create a great place to live.
Here on the website you’ll find stories about the projects we’ve undertaken – what works, what doesn’t. You can come stay in our guest cottage – Birch Cottage and we will show you round, or maybe you just want to find out how to do some of this stuff. Either way, welcome.
Birch Cottage at the heart of green tourism in County Down
One of the things that makes Birch Eco Cottage a unique Green Tourism business is that it is powered entirely by renewable energy made here on the farm. We are totally off-grid as part of our commitment to reducing our environmental impact. We use a combination of solar panels and wind to charge batteries that ensure that there is always power when we need it.
Weathering the storm off grid
We’ve been weathering the ‘beast from the east’, and so far everyone is bearing up well. The horses have been tucked up in their stables with hay most of the time, only venturing out to have a roll in the snow before retreating again. Our hens are similarly unimpressed, although they have decided to keep on laying eggs despite the conditions. We were warned about this weather for a good week before it happened, so there was plenty of time to prepare, and on the whole we got everything ready in time. Here are our top off grid bad weather preparation tips:
Our favourite places to find local craft in the Mournes
The best of craft in the Mournes We are fortunate to have incredibly talented and creative craftspeople living and working in County Down, and in particular around here in the Mournes. Combine craft with some great food, and you have some of our favourite...
Escape to the Country
Way back in April 2017 we were approached by a TV production company - Boundless - who make the BBC programme 'Escape to the Country'. The premise of the programme being that people who want to well, escape to the country, are shown several properties in the hope...
First year willow harvest – lessons learned
This winter can best be described as incredibly wet. Our land is saturated, and other than a bit of sacrificial field for the horses, we're keeping off it as much as possible and concentrating on jobs such as harvesting our willow crop for the first time. We've...
Hedgerow winemaking with Leo – 14th April 2018
A day of winemaking with Leo Cullen, who can conjure wine from just about anything. We’ll be walking and picking some ingredients in the morning, talking about what we can use to make wine, and how to go about preparing our ingredients and equipment, and then sampling some of Leo’s brews over a lunch of home made soup.