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.
And then there were walls
Today we finally began to fill in the walls of the roundhouse with strawbale, and suddenly the building has a feeling of solidity. The fairly tight curve of the wall isn't so easy to follow with bales, but it's coming along nicely. Here are some of today's crew -...
A trip to Edinburgh
This week we went on a short adventure to Edinburgh to see my sister, and couldn't resist seeing the castle, where I pondered what this magnificent creature might be. It looks just like a horse, sitting outside the national Scottish War Memorial, but has cloven...
Burying the roof
Today we reached a milestone with the roundhouse as we put on the straw, then the pond liner, and finally began to cover the whole lot with earth. One more days work and we should have it all covered up. Today's crew was - Susan, Simon, Brian, Bert, Brian, Wesley, and...
Cobwood is complete..
Some great weather today, and we managed to finish off the cordwood wall and the roof boarding. Helen and Jan did a great job of the cob and cordwood, and Wesley braved the roof, so we are all set for the final roof covering this week, and then the walls. The wine...
A slate wall
Our first attempts at a slate wall, using a cob mix as mortar, have turned out rather well. This will act as a damp proof course for the strawbale wall above. Evie has laid out the lower course for the next section - below - and with any luck we'll get another couple...
Cob and Cordwood
Another extraordinarily wet volunteer day on Monday, but undaunted, the team made a start on the cob and cordwood wall at the front of the roundhouse. In the morning we learned how to cut wine bottles in half, using a glass cutter and hot and cold water, and then...