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.
Living with the land – Natural Building
Another excellent video from Permaculture Magazine, produced by Permaculture People and narrated by Kevin McCloud. Many, many good reasons in there why natural building is the way to go. More info here
You can make a difference
In response to a post I wrote about coping with the effects of catastrophic climate change, someone commented to the effect that 'the climate has always warmed and cooled so we should all stop complaining, and accept that this is the natural order of things'. Oh dear....
Solar Independence Day
Today is apparently 'Solar Independence Day', and the good weather means that just about now an amazing 15% of the UK's power needs are being met with solar. Of course, around here 100% of our power needs are being met with solar all the time, and people are still...
Where did you learn to do that?
Where did you learn to do that? Is a question I get asked about all sorts of things, and the answer is always the same. "I just sort of did it", I reply. Of course, when the person asks the question they are usually looking at a successful end result of whatever it...
Are you ready?
Despite vast amounts of evidence pointing to a very real change in our climate, and the increase of extreme weather events, it seems that people generally like not to think of any of it as being part of some sort of pattern, and instead to put these events down to...
Living with the Land
Lauren and Phil visited us briefly last year, just at the right time to impart some knowledge about cob and clay plaster mixes, when we were working on the classroom. They have produced a series of short films for Permaculture Magazine, called Living with the Land,...