Off-grid community couple “wouldn't live any other way”

National World - Viral Videos

A couple living in an off-grid community say they 'encourage the lifestyle for everyone' - as they live off the land and have found 'family for life'.

Transcript

00:00I'm Amber. And I'm Steph. So we're here in South Devon. We were both living off-grid in our,

00:07like doing the van life thing. We met and on one of our second dates, it was our second date,

00:13we came here, met with Amber's friends and they invited us to stay. It's just a beautiful

00:21off-grid community, intentional community. We work the land and try to rejuvenate the land,

00:27reclaim it from being farmland and trying to rewild the place.

00:31And yeah, we're building this amazing space. I think it's 16 acres. 16 acres. So it is a

00:39small holding. It's like technically a farm. We've got some sheep, which escape all the time and

00:45eat all the vegetables. We've got some horses and loads of sort of small animals. Chickens,

00:52rabbits, skinny pigs, a whole pack of dogs. And a whole pack of kids. A whole pack of kids.

00:58Very quickly decided to try and build something a bit more stable and so we've ended up with,

01:04yeah, quite a big tiny home. So we started building this in, what, August 2021. Yeah.

01:11It's on a 20 foot by eight foot bale trailer that we got second hand and we've built the

01:17whole thing ourselves. A little bit of help for the roof and my friend who's a carpenter.

01:22Yeah. But other than that, it's been all of us and using mostly reclaimed recycled materials.

01:29Lots of things that we found in skips or for free on Marketplace that we've turned into new things.

01:38In the last couple of years, we've planted like 600 trees. I think it's over a thousand.

01:43Over a thousand now. Certainly when we first got here, it was definitely us that wanted community

01:48and the landowners. It's part of the deal, wasn't it? Is that our experience in the wider off-grid

01:55world, whether that be van life or living in community, because there's so many of us,

02:00it's a shared load. So there's not, we're not really pressed with money, but if we need to,

02:09we can go out and earn. Yeah. But we get to enjoy our lives together. I think in terms of a future

02:16plan for the community, I know that the goal really is to become more self-sufficient in

02:21terms of food and resources. Outside of the community. I mean, we do venture out and

02:28we still have to go to the supermarket every now and again, but we're trying,

02:32like the eventual goal is to be fully self-sufficient. For me, there's an element

02:37of safety in the fact that I know that this is like a little safe bubble of hippies.

02:45So when stuff outside is a bit too much, it's nice that we've got this

02:48and we can just retreat back and be in community instead.

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