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.
‘Proper’ plastering
We were visited by Lauren and Phil this week, who were very modest about their earth plastering knowledge but turned out to have considerably more experience than we do. They rustled up some plaster test patches on a couple of spare bales, and we (well Phil)...
Earth plaster update
Stage one of our earth plastering is now complete,and all the bales have a coat of clay slip. Some of the holes have been filled with clay slip mixed with a generous amount of finely chopped straw, and it is looking a little less undulating around the edges...
A magnificent gift
This marvellous looking thing is a fruit press, and was kindly given to us by Sally, as she is hoping to return to her native USA after many years in Northern Ireland. Now we can make good use of our apples, and hopefully next year our grapes too. Its even got...
Strawbale rendering part 1..
Yesterday we began the process of rendering the strawbale walls by applying a coat of clay slip (just a runny clay and water mix) to the surface of the bales. Messy work, as transferring it from bucket to wall involves about half ending up on the floor, but it will...
Straw at last
Now that the floor is fixed down, we've been able to get on and get the strawbales in. First, wooden spikes made of willow are driven into holes in the floor - Then the first layer of bales is placed onto the spikes which prevent them from moving around....
Getting creative
Pargeting isn't a word you hear very often, but it's a wonderful technique that involves making raised designs in (commonly) lime or earth plasters. From the very start, this is something we've really wanted to have a go at, and here are some lovely examples...