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.
Lammas Community Hub build
This wonderful building is the Community Hub, in the Tir-Y-Gafel community in Wales, known more commonly as Lammas. In January I was lucky enough to spend a fantastic (and cold) week with 13 other volunteers, working to clad the roof with its massive pallet and earth...
Mini home made polytunnel
Today I am experimenting with making a small tunnel out of 50mm poly pipe. The ends of the pipe just fit onto wooden pegs, which are (hopefully) a tight enough fit to stop the pipe coming off easily. A bit of bracing along the top to stop it all moving about, and...
Way back when…
A whole twenty four years ago this weekend, I first met Poll - (Apollo). At the time I insisted he was too small a horse for me, but how wrong I was. A fantastic companion all his life, and he taught me an awful lot. I'd give my right arm for a horse half as good....
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...