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.
Meet George
Meet George. As our collection of solar panel arrays grows, I decided to give them names. As the panels were given to us by St.George's Church in Belfast, George seemed appropriate. Plus when he stops working I have a name to hang the insults on. George is a...
Is winter coming?
As we approach December, and I wake to the first heavy frost we've had, I am reminded that winter hasn't really arrived yet. The cold night is just a reminder of all the things we need to do - very soon - if the coming months aren't to be a struggle. I'm all too aware...
Something new for Northern Ireland
Our friends are starting an exciting new venture - Freckle magazine. Freckle is an independently published magazine dedicated to celebrating the people and landscapes of Northern Ireland and beyond. Here is what you need to know - "We need your support to print the...
Power station progress
A bit of early evening winter sun means we get to catch a few last volts before it gets dark. There's now 1.5kW of PV up on the roof, which suffers a bit from shading late in the day - just one of several issues to work around. We're setting everything up to be...
Should’ve built a bloody ark
Rarely in many years of working outside have I ended up as wet as I did today. It was raining when I woke at 6, and tonight its still going. Still, what better weather for working with electricity. Outdoors. Since we did the roof of the build, all the existing...
Empty nest syndrome
We've finally come to the end of our volunteer season until the new year, and its been a real pleasure to welcome Polly, Paul and their son Theo, who are on an amazing journey, and leaving us to head to Lammas in Wales, en route to a journey around the far east. We've...