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.
Building in the woods
After the success of our recent treebog building weekend, we're moving on to slightly more ambitious things, and the construction of a little post and beam timber framed building, which will have a reciprocal frame roof.Today we began by marking out and digging the...
Who’d have thought
It is funny how chance encounters can take you down unusual routes in life. Seemingly unimportant events divert you along paths you didn't even know existed. I can't remember the first time I saw Simon Dale's 'hobbit house' on the net, but I know that it confirmed in...
A shiny new treebog is born
Well, after two days frenzied activity, here is the new treebog. Thanks to all who helped bring it about - it is truly a thing of beauty, and should settle nicely into its woodland setting. We used sawmill skins almost exclusively to build it, and its the first of the...
Our dream hovel
We are in the throes of designing our dream hovel, to be created somewhere in deepest Wales, from timber and strawbale. It's really hard when faced with a blank canvas and a tiny budget, but here is our creation, which will be a timber framed affair with strawbale...
The Dark Mountain
Detail from Dark Mountain by Rima Staines I first came across the Dark Mountain project through Rima Staines' excellent blog as she was responsible for the cover design of their latest book.The text on the back cover struck a chord with me, and reads -"Welcome to the...
Our hens have arrived
Finally they have arrived - our four hens have taken up residence. We have an Ancona (pictured above left); a Lavender Araucana (above right); a Black Araucana (below) and last but not least, a rather marvellous Welsummer. They have had a fairly eventful 24 hours,...