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.
Conversations with horses
I had a talk with my horse today Sometimes we agreed Sometimes we disagreed But we made it up in the end
I’d forgotten how busy the last year was –
I'd forgotten how many useful things I managed to make around the farm this last year -This potting bench was made from scrap timber, and the giant raised beds are deep enough to allow access for wheelchair users. I'm still in love with the treebog, too which has...
Day 2 in the veg plots
Today we raked out all the rubbish from the beds, and then added some pretty ancient cow manure to them, before setting to with the planting. In one corner we'd made a little pond, around which we've planted many varieties of mint, as well as lavender and a few other...
The 2 day veg garden
This week it was time to do something with the growing space, which is a largeish patch in what was a very nice meadow ( I made hay off it last year), and which is the smallholding field on the farm.It's very dense turf, over slatey soil, and bloody hard to dig. So -...
All done
Last bit of oak panel into the kitchen, tiles all grouted and a good tidy up today.
Tiles!
Today I got the kitchen tiled, with the freecycled wall tiles and they look rather fair -