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.
Tipi living
After the high winds at the end of last year, our poor tipi was rather the worse for wear, so we sent it off to The Sail Yard in Killinchy to be repaired, and they made an excellent job of it. This season we were determined to put it up well, and so after no...
Pruck
As Dougie taught us, the word to describe stuff that is handy, and which others are disposing of, is 'pruck'. Well we've had a bumper week for pruck. A friend is moving house and doesn't have room for all the things she has collected up over the years, so we were...
Firewood finally
The past two winters have involved a constant battle to find enough wood fuel to keep us warm, and at times when trudging around in sleet and snow to retrieve sodden timber from the woods has been nothing short of miserable. So this spring we built the lovely new...
Misty mornings
These crisp, sunny mornings are what make this one of my favourite times of year, and the farm is starting to burst into life once again. Here we are experimenting with no-dig potato growing in last year's chicken enclosure. The potatoes are simply bedded on a bit of...
The new season gets underway
It has been rather quiet here on the blog recently - first because this winter was considerably quieter than the last, and a time for reflection and planning. A lot of reading was done over the quiet months, and in some ways this has reinforced our sense of urgency...
It’s seed sowing time!
The joys of our polytunnels mean that even on horrid days we can be doing something and be toasty and dry. Lyra can come down and play whilst we get on with the serious business of growing this years supply of veg. Four of the outdoor beds are planted with autumn sown...