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.
Solar PV – is it really environmentally friendly?
Although Solar PV would seem to many to be the ideal 'free' source of energy, one of the main arguments against it has been that the manufacture of the panels comes at significant environmental cost, in terms of extracting and processing the minerals and materials...
Building the power station
Finally, some blue sky! Even if it doesn't last it is very welcome. As the moment when we get our solar panels hooked up comes closer, we're taking an ever greater interest in just how much sunlight we're actually seeing. It'll be a few weeks before we can get the...
All flagged up
Another world
Had a good trek round the farm this evening after dinner, finishing up in the woods. The light as the sun sets is always amazing, and I was there just in time to get some great pictures. It is certainly a relief to be living back in the country, without neighbours,...
Power crazed
One of the hardest things to get used to is that the truck has a very finite supply of electricity, currently one fairly knackered old battery. I'm so used to being able to simply switch on whatever I like, and the power will flow. Despite having pretty much nothing...
Off grid esque
Well, at last here I am - if not entirely off-grid then pretty substantially off grid. Today has been a mixture of the good bits - looking after the animals, gathering eggs, salad leaves, coriander, and some strawberries for dinner, sitting in the warm, in front of my...