Off-grid community couple 'wouldn't live any other way'
A couple living in an off-grid community 'encourage the lifestyle for everyone' - as they live off the land and have found 'family for life'.
Ember Smith, 35, and Steph Gabbadon, 35, had both been living nomadically in their separate vans - in the same car park - for three months before bumping into each other for the first time.
Four years later, the pair have built two tiny homes within the South Devon community - made from recycled materials they collected.
The mother-of-two, originally from Cheshire, says living nomadically is "a totally different world and way of life" - where they have found community and family.
Ember Smith, 35, and Steph Gabbadon, 35, had both been living nomadically in their separate vans - in the same car park - for three months before bumping into each other for the first time.
Four years later, the pair have built two tiny homes within the South Devon community - made from recycled materials they collected.
The mother-of-two, originally from Cheshire, says living nomadically is "a totally different world and way of life" - where they have found community and family.
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FunTranscript
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.