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.
Obtain a yield
One of the principles of permaculture is 'Obtain a yield'. On seeing the horses the other day, a visitor asked 'How do you make money from them?', and seemed surprised when I simply answered 'We don't'. It's an unusual response to meeting horses, and not one I've...
An inspector calls
One of the problems with buying land that is affordable, is that it is quite likely to be what is known as 'unimproved' land, or that it has been improved, but really not a great deal. Most of ours falls into this second category, and so it was with a certain amount...
New hens – but what are they?
Yesterday I set off to collect our new hens from William over in Cloughey. Daylight reveals that we have 1 Welsummer cockerel, 2 Welsummer hens, 2 Light Sussex, 2 black bantams, 1 goldeny bantamy thing, and a mystery grey hen. They are living in the new polytunnel for...
Winter skies
Midwinter is now only weeks away, and our day is finishing ever earlier. This evening brought us some dramatic skies, and the promise of a nice day tomorrow, perhaps. I am off to collect some more hens, and our first rooster, from the other side of Strangford Lough,...
Let there be light
One of the reasons that many people are put off installing renewable technologies such as solar PV is that in order to generate enough to power a typical house, you need a lot of it, at fairly vast expense. Being simple peasant folk, that's not an option open to us,...
Our first Wwoofers, and a new polytunnel
This weekend has been a busy one indeed. We had our first wwoofers - Andrew McMurray, founder of the Drumlin Wind Cooperative, and Mick McEvoy, Belfast representative for GIY Ireland, both inspirational guys in their own right, who came to help put up our first...