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.
Taming a bit of wilderness
Having once been entirely bog, we've got a fair amount of rushes growing. In fact the wood field had so many this year that it was more than half covered. The horses have dealt with the majority of the rushes in their bit of the field, but the far end is fenced off...
Inside things
We've only been here five minutes and the place is already looking rather 'lived in'. Mum has been beavering away making curtains for us using organic cotton (we got it here), and they are very fine. In the kitchen - and here...in the bedroom, and some very fine...
Outside things..
It's a sign of how little sun we've seen this 'summer' that come autumn, and a little sun, I just wandered about the place, marvelling at how magical it is. As I took this picture I could hear the sound of birds of prey calling, and little else.The woods and bog are...
Demolition time
Yesterday I began my assault on the horrible 50's concrete extension on the south side of the house, by punching a hole through the wall in front of the previously hidden bathroom window. Today we went a bit further -Here's the extension first thing this morning..at...
Woodland wanderings
This is a really beautiful time of year in the woods, and I'm in the process of clearing fallen timber and storing it to dry. Here's the entrance into the woodland, which opens into a great clearing, in which is growing one of the few Rowan trees we have. The Rowan...
More maps, and a date
Last night Mr Truesdale, from along the road, brought round his extensive collection of locally historic documents, and we learned much. It will take a visit to the public records office in Belfast to unearth the detail we need, but now we do know what we are looking...