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.
Let there be light
This week began with the building of the new fireplace, which will be home to our gas bottle woodburner. As you can see it's pretty dark there, and so the next job was to tackle the roof windows. I'd looked around everywhere for second hand veluxes, but no joy, and I...
A wedding and the wooden field of the wild dog
We were fortunate enough to be asked to our friends - Steven and Belinda - wedding last week, at the amazing Belle Isle in Fermanagh. The wedding was on midsummers day, and we were treated to a visit from aughakillymaude mummers, based in Fermanagh. The Straw Men...
Munitions in the shed..
In my quest to find the missing bits of the cooker, I decided to go through the many tins and boxes of old scrap out in the shed. Finding an old dried milk tin, I gave it a good shake (as you do), and decided it must be full of nuts and bolts. Imagine my surprise when...
Some damp, and some history
One of the first questions most people ask when they stumble into the cottage and view the destruction, is "has it got a damp proof course". Rather than my immediate response, which would be "are you f**king blind, its a 300 year old pile of stones with an earth...
Drawing breath
Well, thats the end of the second week living here at Lackan Cottage Farm, although it feels like we've been here months. Despite my impatience to get the building work sorted, I've come to the conclusion that a rest day is pretty much unavoidable once a week, as...
Ups and downs
Well, this renovation / smallholding caper is certainly one of extremes. I began this week by exploring the woods opposite our land, walking over Lackan Bog, which is an amazing area of peat bog that has been colonised by birch woodland. Totally peaceful, and teeming...