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.
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...
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...