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.
Never a dull moment
Colin and Clinton working on the new steps. That feels like the end of a particularly long 2 weeks, and its not even the end of the week yet. It began with 50 hours digger driving, which saw the forest garden area landscaped, and 40-odd tonnes of slate waste quarried...
Bankers..
Making it up as I go along
This wind mullarkey is definitely harder than the solar. With solar you just fit it, point it in the right direction, and screw it down so it doesn't blow away. Wind power is a whole different kettle of fish. The turbine comes with 3 lumps of angle steel to use as...
New controller – caution off grid nerd alert
In my search for a well made charge controller that would allow me to configure it properly, I came across Karasouli - www.karasouli.com It's easily configurable, and also does proper data logging, for voltage and wind turbine performance, and its made in England,...
New controller – caution off grid nerd alert
In my search for a well made charge controller that would allow me to configure it properly, I came across Karasouli - www.karasouli.com It's easily configurable, and also does proper data logging, for voltage and wind turbine performance, and its made in England,...
A close shave
Nothing quite like an occasional reminder of my mortality, (which used to arrive almost daily in my days as a horse trainer, and which are now fairly few and far betweeen), but which today came when the dumper truck I was driving rolled down the hill I was...