Blessings to you all this midwinter
To all our friends and supporters – blessings to you this midwinter, however you celebrate it – have a wonderful Yule, a happy Christmas, and a great time. Our heartfelt thanks to all those who helped us in this last year, it means a great deal. We...
Volunteer highlights – Food glorious food
One of the best things about being volunteer hosts is that every visitor brings with them a new approach to food, and this year we had some amazing meals. It didn’t take a lot of deliberation to come up with a highlight of the year, which came with...
Say goodbye to ‘when’
‘When’ is one of those words that fills me with dismay, because it implies a condition. We can do this when such and such; you can have this when so and so. Primarily it dismays me because its inclusion means ‘not now’. It means ‘some...
Wonderful woodlands
One of the main reasons we chose to live here at Lackan was that it came with several acres of birch woodland, growing on what was cut over bog. There is something magical about the woods, the birch gives them an especially norther european feeling, and they evoke the...
Website improvements
[wpgmza id=”1″] Over the last week you may have noticed that we’ve been making some improvements to the website – we’re in the process of updating content, making use of the great photographs that we’ve got with our new...
The big switch on
No, not Christmas lights – at least not yet. Today we were able to switch on George – our 2kw solar pv array, and although the weather is far from ideal – heavy skies and no real sign of any sun, he is generating some useful amps. He joins...
A year of fantastic volunteers
It is that time when we look back at the year gone, and remember all the amazing people who have passed through the farm, and marvel at the things they did along the way. Volunteers came from all over the world – Spain, Italy, North America, Australia, England...
Polytunnels on the cheap (and not so cheap)
I answered a forum post the other day that asked about how to get a polytunnel on a budget. I won’t go over how useful polytunnels are here – it’s been covered a million times elsewhere. Needless to say that if you are growing your own veg, they are...
Meet George
Meet George. As our collection of solar panel arrays grows, I decided to give them names. As the panels were given to us by St.George’s Church in Belfast, George seemed appropriate. Plus when he stops working I have a name to hang the insults on. George...
Is winter coming?
As we approach December, and I wake to the first heavy frost we’ve had, I am reminded that winter hasn’t really arrived yet. The cold night is just a reminder of all the things we need to do – very soon – if the coming months aren’t to be...