Birch Cottage has a new website of its own

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Welcome 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.

A covered fire pit area with decorative lighting

PV panels at 54 degrees

PV panels get a bad press here in Britain and especially in Northern Ireland. There just isn't a lot of sun - well not when you'd expect it anyway. Certainly I don't think I'd like to rely on it, on a large scale. However, for our purposes it's working great.For the...

Stocking up for winter (already)..

It may be mid summer, but now is the time to be thinking about where next winters fuel is going to come from, and so I've been busy in the woods, cutting and splitting a huge fallen ash tree. Ash is fantastic stuff, because it does burn green, unlike many woods, but...

ASAP – more thoughts

In the last year or so I've met many people on my travels, almost all of whom have been either working out how to change their lives to reduce their burden on the planet's resources, or who have taken steps to do so. I am in awe of the challenges that many have...

ASAPicnic on the hill

Today Joan, Tina, Ruth and I went along to the As Sustainably As Possible 'Picnic on the Hill' event on the front lawns of Parliament Buildings. The idea of the event, organised by Shirley Lewis, aka 'Baglady'. I'm not entirely sure who the event was aimed at, but a...

Making electricity 🙂

At last! The solar panels have arrived. Admittedly on the darkest wettest day of the year, but we managed to get them fitted onto their frame (part of a scaffold tower, courtesy of Tina and Joan), and during a lull in the rain, hoisted the whole lot up onto the truck...

A patio extension

With the help of some great beech logs, we now have some steps up onto the lorry ramp, which is sitting on its newly installed legs. The result - a lovely patio area that catches the sun all afternoon and evening. Just hoping that the sun stays out for a couple of...