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.
Volunteer highlights – Food glorious food
One of the best things about being volunteer hosts is that every visitor brings with them a new approach to food, and this year we had some amazing meals. It didn't take a lot of deliberation to come up with a highlight of the year, which came with Samanta and...
Say goodbye to ‘when’
'When' is one of those words that fills me with dismay, because it implies a condition. We can do this when such and such; you can have this when so and so. Primarily it dismays me because its inclusion means 'not now'. It means 'some time in the future'. By nature I...
Wonderful woodlands
One of the main reasons we chose to live here at Lackan was that it came with several acres of birch woodland, growing on what was cut over bog. There is something magical about the woods, the birch gives them an especially norther european feeling, and they evoke the...
The big switch on
No, not Christmas lights - at least not yet. Today we were able to switch on George - our 2kw solar pv array, and although the weather is far from ideal - heavy skies and no real sign of any sun, he is generating some useful amps. He joins Rowan, our 1kw array,...
A year of fantastic volunteers
It is that time when we look back at the year gone, and remember all the amazing people who have passed through the farm, and marvel at the things they did along the way. Volunteers came from all over the world - Spain, Italy, North America, Australia, England as well...
Polytunnels on the cheap (and not so cheap)
I answered a forum post the other day that asked about how to get a polytunnel on a budget. I won't go over how useful polytunnels are here - it's been covered a million times elsewhere. Needless to say that if you are growing your own veg, they are a...