Low Tech Self-Sufficiency in Her Amazing French Homestead 🇫🇷

The more hectic and technologically busy our world becomes, the more people are searching for alternatives, simpler ways of living and greater connection to the land. And this woman in France has found a perfect way of doing just that. Bonjour, I'm Marie, I live in South Brittany in a fairground caravan and welcome to my land. This land is 1.8 hectares with forest. On my land I have a fairground caravan, two semi-buried cabins, a shed and a tiny house where I lived before living in the fairground caravan. In fact, I've been moving a lot during these last 20 years. I began to buy a house to renovate because I couldn't afford a new house. I didn't have any skills at the start about renovating so I helped friends who were renovating their houses and so I learned by looking to videos and by just doing things. So I've been doing this for seven years to renovate four houses and I had my son at that moment as well and when he was one year old I decided to sell those houses to move, to change and I decided to build a house from nothing, a big one. I just had some knowledge about renovating the houses before but I didn't know how to build houses so it was quite an adventure and it took me one year and a half to build it. Then I lived in for two years and after I wanted to change and to experiment nomadic life so I sold it and I went from 180 square meters to three square meters to live in my van with my son and so we went on the roads. After one year living in my van I wanted a bit more space for my son and I so I found a tiny house and it was quite huge comparing to the van, 6 by 2.5 meters. 13 square meters felt like a castle comparing to my van so it was quite good and each of us had his own mezzanine so it was quite huge. So we lived in the tiny house for three years but we had to move a lot because in France it's quite difficult to legally live in a tiny house and at each time I was moving I had to move with my horses, two dogs and a cat and my son. So it was quite an adventure at each time I had to move and four years ago a friend of mine told me well I've got a land if you want you can you can buy it it was just perfect so it's that land I bought it just before covid. After three years living in the tiny house my son was growing up and he wanted his own room, a real room. So first of all I decided to live in a boat so I had the permits to to sail and then I was looking for boats but it was quite difficult to have a place in a port so I said okay I'm gonna have my boat on my land and I didn't find any carrier to put the boat on the land they didn't want it was no no it's not possible okay okay I left the idea and I looked to add and I found this fairground caravan it was just perfect for me it was quite huge and my son has his own room with a door for a teenager is quite good so the fairground trailer is 10 meters long 2.5 meters wide and there is an extension that adds 1.5 meters wide on 6 meters long when you are on the land you open it and when you want to drive you close it so it's very practical when you want to move it was not enough insulated so I added insulation by the exterior and cladding to look more like a tiny house I have several activities, a geobiologist, animal therapist and graphic designer and as I wanted to be more legal on my land with the tiny house I began an agriculture activity with medicinal plants so I began with a greenhouse but it was not enough insulated so I heard about which are semi-buried greenhouses from Canada and so I made one and it was just perfect for the plants and as I made it I found it was quite cool to live in during summer so it gave me the idea of building semi-buried cabin in the forest because in the fairground trailer in summer it's quite hot so I built two semi-buried cabins one for my son and one for me I used only materials I had already on the land usually in summer I live in my cabin in the forest it's colder than in the fairground caravan and I have a kitchen outside as I don't want to use gas for anything I used the wood so to cook during the summer I built a rocket stove with the clay of my land so I just have to put some trash wood and it's enough to cook my meals as I like to experiment things in my life I wanted to experiment self-sufficiency so I have bought solar panels to have electricity I'm grid connected for water but I mostly use rainwater collectors so if I'm cut out from water I can be self-sufficient with my collectors I have three different ways to warm my water one is with the solar panel a small boiler if the day is sunny I can use it then I have what I call the R2D2 that I built myself it's a wood boiler it's made from all the gas bottles the one on the bottom I put the fire in it and the one at the top I put the water so after 15 minutes of fire the water is hot enough then I put it in a bucket and I go inside my bathroom to have my shower I've got two solar air heaters to warm the air in the trailer and one for my shed as well when the sun is out I can have two three degrees more than outside so the background is black and the sun is warming the glass and the air is rising from the top and circulating like in a maze and it's going out at the bottom to send the warm air in the trailer so I like low-tech tools so another one of my tools is a laundry bike I made it with a training bike I found in the trash and an old laundry when I'm cycling I put a book in front of me so I'm reading during sports and cleaning my clothes at the same time okay so we finish outside so now let's go inside welcome inside so as you can see it's a very simple design it's not like a fancy design you can see in tiny houses but it's my way of life and as I moved a lot I couldn't have that much furniture so I just had the basic ones on the ceiling we can see the dimension of the extension there is a small height difference to have four meters wide is quite comfortable compared to a tiny house which is 2.5 meters wide so at the entrance we can see a beautiful cabinet which was painted by the previous owners they painted it for their daughter and the dimension of the cabinet was just perfect for the space I had just one centimeter more was not possible so it was just made for this place beside it there is the only furniture I have from my grandmother very simple but the emotional value is more important for me then the living room I don't have any couch because I wanted more space so I just have two rocking chairs and if I have guests I use a chair I made myself with pallets and cotton this chair is foldable and light because I wanted everything inside to be the lightest possible I made the table with secondhand wood I put it on wheels to be able to move it if I need more space I don't have any dining table because I don't need it as I lived in my van and the tiny house I got used not to have any dining table to eat on I just put my plate on my tray and it's okay for me to eat like that I've got many oracle cards I love it and when I've got a question or when I need more clarity about situations I use my oracle card as I cultivate medicinal plants I transform them and my bones are specific for the skin to heal and calm bites and cuts my parents bought me this guitar when I was six years old and it was too big for me I was too small so I had to wait two years to be able to play with it so long time as a girl biologist I love secret shapes and especially the flower of life so I've got many I've got one under the water to give a good energy to the water and another one under my stones everything you put on the flower of life is charging in good energy next this is my bedroom and the bed of my little dog who sleeps beside my bed it's a very simple bedroom during summer I have a mosquito's net makes me feel like a princess in her castle so that's it for the bedroom no much more to say and then there is my desk and then after we can see my wooden stove that I light on from October to April I use it to warm the trailer to cook and to warm the water so this metal bucket looks like a trash bin but it's not it's my third way of heating the water to take a shower after one hour the water is enough warm and I can take a shower I use it when it's not sunny outside and when I don't have enough electricity to warm the boiler then the kitchen the way I cook my meals depend on the season and on the weather during summer I use a wooden oven and a rocket stove outside and during winter I cook with my wooden stove inside and very rarely I use my gas to cook sometimes a bottle of gas lasts about two years as a fridge I have a cooler during summer and during winter it's just a cabinet outside I don't eat meat so I don't need a real fridge then it's the second part of the trailer after seeing the extension it's now just 2.5 meters wide over here we have the bathroom on the left with campus toilets and a small bath where you can sit in and I made the cabinet with secondhand wood and as it was too wide to go through the door I had to build it inside the bathroom and finally behind me there is my son's room my son loves sleeping high so I put two mattresses then this cabinet was painted by a grandmother for her grandson and the grandmother of my son bought it for him when he was one year old so it's one of the furniture I always take with me since 15 years my son loves it it's his cabinet I've been living here for three years in this trailer it cost me 10 000 euros and all the solar system cost me 3 000 euros I love living here it's enough for me I don't like big spaces anymore but I want to go back to my nomadic life with my van I want to visit France to see landscapes to practice my activities living in my van so I'm gonna hit the road again soon and practice as a geobiologist and animal therapist a part of a geobiologist skills is to be a dowser that means finding water underground and the other part is being like a doctor for houses and their inhabitants resolve the electric problems magnetic fields that can impact on the body and my job as a animal therapist is communicating with them and being the link between the animal and its owner I do as well a massage energy healings all stuff to make them being well my life motive is to tend to live in self-sufficiency in all the ways with electricity with water with food with medicine with everything in my life the same for the building that's why I learned how to renovate and build houses to be able to do it by myself I would like many people to tend to self-sufficiency it would be better for everyone for the planet for us for the way of living that's why part of my activity is to share my knowledge about construction geobiology therapy and music and all I do I transmit I teach it because I think it's important to share our knowledge watching Marie's story I feel as though she's a woman who has lived a hundred lives in a single lifetime there is just so much that she's accomplished so much that she's experimented with so much that she's learned and I love the way that she is really embodying that and also making it her life's mission to share all of that with other people it really is a beautiful home that she's created for herself but it's really a beautiful life