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.
Trees!
Part of our commitment to increasing biodiversity here on the farm involves introducing new woodland habitat, and so we're planting over 800 new trees this year which extends the existing woodland significantly. We're also planting additional hedgerows and allowing...
An (un)Well well
Something I have a particular aversion to is wells. There's just something about looking down a narrow shaft into dark water, not knowing where the bottom might be. Hence I didn't particularly relish the task of climbing down a ladder into the depths, to bale ours...
Winter Wwoofing
Our intrepid winter (technically spring but you wouldn't know it) Wwoofers (worldwide worksers on organic farms) are here: Marie-Josephine and Jean-Baptiste, who have performed amazing path building feats on their first proper day here at Lackan Cottage Farm. Here...
The world turned upside down
The weather (and it seems, the world) has gone mad. Why the world? Well on the radio this morning I listened to a government minister saying that the only way for households to maintain 'an acceptable standard of living' was for two adults to be in full time jobs. So...
Demolition time again
Usually we take great pride in our ability to dig, shift, lift and cart large amounts of stuff using only human power, and it's very satisfying. However, the mess that was our old extension contained lumps of concrete so large that it was time to resort to mechanical...
Coming out of hibernation
Following the midwinter break, we've emerged from a brief hibernation to begin the process of preparing the ground for growing our veg, fruit, trees and flowers. Although the hens are helping enthusiastically by scratching over and fertilising various bits of grass,...