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.
Working horses
This week I made a somewhat epic trip down to Bantry to spend a day learning about working horses, and have a go at driving 2 experienced and patient horses under the tutorage of Sandra (and Tim). In the morning we did a bit of long reining, and looked at harness, and in the afternoon we got stuck in, and pulled a couple of different things – a sled and some chain harrows, before trying our hand at working 2 horses together, and finally some logging.
A full house
Our three feral cats are becoming steadily more tame – one in particular which you can now pick up and really rather likes all the attention; one who is getting used to being stroked, and the third who thinks that humans are to be regarded with great suspicion, but follows along anyway. Now the problem is that they all follow us up from their hideaway in the hay shed to the house, and Lyra doesn’t get that we don’t want three un-housetrained kittens indoors.
Action!
Friday was an interesting day, as we got up at the crack of dawn to welcome a little film crew from the BBC to the farm and they wanted to start at 8am. It is part of a programme about housing, and our bit is (hopefully) how modern technology can combine with traditional materials and methods. Being new to this filming lark, we basically did what we were told, and pottered about while Steven the cameraman and Richard the producer followed us around the place…
Well well
You may recall that three years ago (it might be four) we realised that we had a well in the garden, although it turned out to have been used as a drain for a long time and took a lot of cleaning. Anyhow, clean it we did and at the time it passed the environmental...
Jam magic
Mid september, it is still strangely warm, things are fortunately still ripening, and our nectarines are finally edible. They have a habit of dropping off the tree the very second they are ready, so you have to be constantly on the lookout for them. We're eating the...
Farewell summer
Electric Octopus playing Turnipstock 2016 from Lackan Cottage Farm on Vimeo. While we weren't looking, the summer came and went, but we saw it out in style at the Benraw Creative Convivium up at the Turnip House. Our tipi went on tour, the sun shone, and the...