Lackan Cottage Farm

28/07/2024

A week of garden time has made all the difference. Today Clem and I were giving the ponds some TLC. The big pond is already happier than it was a week ago, today it was teeming with bright blue damsel flies.

26/07/2024

This year we are running to keep up with the gardens, so it was a relief to fight my way back into the big tunnel, clear the paths of all the rocket (you can only eat so much), and make some room for the things that will need planted out soon. Everything is pretty late, but its growing, albeit at wierd times.

23/07/2024

Turnipfest! 3 weeks Saturday. Time to get your tickets if you haven't already!
https://turnip-house.mybigcommerce.com/turnipfest-2024/

19/05/2024

We have just updated our WWOOF profile and reopened our calendar for volunteers.

WWOOF Ireland is the national organization helping to create local WWOOFing opportunities in Ireland and to promote sustainable farming as a lifestyle.

24/04/2024

Today's, job. Dig a trench around the tunnel frame, cover the tunnel, and move all the wood out of the field under cover. Phew. We are wrecked.

21/04/2024

Not sure if this is a Thrush or a Blackbird, I've only just spotted her living in the grapevine in the big tunnel

21/04/2024

Today is polytunnel clearing day, which is very satisfying. Also surveying the storm damage to our oldest tunnel, which shouldn't take long to sort out.

13/04/2024

After weeks of clearing the yard, we finally got started on this tunnel, using the last old leftover hoops, sunk into bits of scaffolding tube. It will be an open ended tunnel for drying firewood.

20/03/2024

Bloody hell, this is just the big obvious junk.

20/03/2024

This is after an hour of dragging stuff out....

19/03/2024

Today I finally cut up the huge old wind turbine mast and took it, along with a load of other scrap metal and batteries to seaforde scrap for recycling. Very satisfying to say goodbye to yet more stuff. Tomorrow I will tackle the horror that is my old workshop..

17/03/2024

As anyone who has tried their hand at some degree of self sufficiency or off grid living will know, there is a paradox at the heart of the livestyle. Managing everything takes a lot of time, so you've little income. Then you spend some time to gather up some money, and the management goes out the window. We realised that there are bits of the farm that look like they've been abandoned for years - its amazing just how fast it can get out of hand.
So this morning's job was to get in and cut all the willow down behind the truck - some of which had become tree sized; and also some of the birch and alder trees before we get too late in the season (its already too late really but if we waited another whole year it would be completely out of hand).
Anyhow, the resulting pile will make a combination of firewood if we give it long enough to dry. The horses are having fun with the small bits, and we'll chip whatever is left over and use it in the gardens, or even around the willow so that it doesn't get over grown.
Now just to do all the rest of it.....
Oh and I managed to squeeze one more solar panel onto the array, so thats 15 now, and one more to find a home for.

16/03/2024

We're into our twelfth year here at Lackan now, and its been long enough that things need re-evaluating and replacing. When we started, simplicity was pretty much obligatory, because we didn't have any resources, and our only goal was to have a warm house with hot water, grow food, fuel and have some income. We wanted to leave this place in better shape than we found it, at least ecologically, and to minimise our impact generally.
Certainly in the last couple of years I've felt that we've strayed a bit from those aims - some intentionally and some unintentionally and thought about what is at the core of what we want to do and how we want to live.
Some experiments have worked, some not, and I think this year is going to be about resimplifying life a little, stripping away some of the unnecessary baggage we've accumulated along the way, and adjusting our course a little.
Part of this looks like updating some basic systems to ensure it all keeps working into the future, and we started with energy. There were solar panels all over the place, and what we've done is get the same generation into half the space, remove a whole load of industrial 'stuff' from our big field, and get back a whole room in our little cottage. All the old panels and equipment have found new homes, which should extend their lifespan well into the future, and create opportunities for others to get their off grid journey under way.
Our next big job is going to be repairing our now elderly big polytunnel, and thinking about how to make better use of not just the growing space, but the produce that comes out of it.
In the meantime keep an eye out as we'll be clearing out and rehoming all manner of odds and ends, and who knows, you might find some of them useful.

20/12/2023

My favourite window in the cottage, viewed from inside the bathroom, and from the living room, with our wall horse.