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They were an
all-American family.
Our life in Boston was like
a typical suburban family.
I had a pretty stressful job.
I had a long
commute in the city.
But they weren't happy.
It made me feel like
an absent father.
It felt kind of like we were
in different worlds sometimes.
So they decided to make
a change, a drastic one.
Esther Emery and Nick vouched
their family, their entire life
savings, and left everything
they've ever known.
Hi Esther.
Hi.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
Hi.
Nick, hi.
The family moved deep into
the backwoods of eastern Idaho
into this 314 square foot
yurt with no electricity,
no running water, and no
means of communication.
So you guys literally
built all of this?
Yeah, all this.
All the structures that
are on the property.
Wow.
We heat the yurt with just
this small, wood burning stove.
You just feed from the top.
It's got a cast iron
bottom and a cast iron top.
And those heat up quite a bit.
Each person in the
family gets one drawer.
It's easier than you
think, and Nick and I
don't change our
jeans every day.
Are standards of
cleanliness, I think,
are completely
acceptable, but also
not entirely what everyone
else in America is doing.
And then this is where
we have our sink.
We run water into just a bucket,
and then under the bucket
is my worm bin.
And how many worms do
you think are in here?
10,000.
10,000 worms in here?
There's about 10,000
worms in here.
OK.
And so what goes in
here with the worms?
Just any organic material.
They make this
wonderful black soil.
And then so you'll use the
soil for your garden and--
And for our trees especially.
And the trees.
Whose idea was it to
move off the grid?
Esther planted a
lot of the seeds
of thinking independently
and thinking
outside of the societal norms
of what people need to have.
And then I think I just kind
of took that all the way
and wanted to actually do it.
We knew that we weren't
going to have a septic system
out here at all, so we
knew we needed an outhouse.
There's a six foot deep hole.
We put paper in a
basket, and we add
sawdust each time we use
it, which helps add carbon
into the carbon
nitrogen balance,
and it also helps
to mask the smell.
What was your biggest fear?
I couldn't have
necessarily articulated it.
I didn't really think there
would be a bear coming.
I didn't think that we'd
be eaten by cougars.
You know, I think I was the
most afraid of the unknown.
So this is a natural spring,
and there is a concrete holding
tank under the ground.
And every day you
come out here, and you
collect about this much?
Yeah, we use about
15 gallons a day.
That's still pretty
insignificant in the scheme
of things.
Well, right.
Compared to suburban
household, which
would be using 300
gallons at least.
I'm in training.
I'm in off the grid
training right now.
It's not going so well.
No.
[LAUGHTER]
Oh, yes, we made it.
Thank you.
Do you member your
life back in the city?
Yes?
You do?
Well, some of it.
The TV was really awesome.
And you got to watch a lot, but
now I don't get to watch a lot,
because we don't have
electricity here.
Did your dad used to work a
lot when you lived in the city?
Yeah.
Would you see him very often?
No.
Sometimes I missed him a lot.
But now I get to spend
more time with him.
Did you ever think
that you would
be living a life without
electricity, without hot water?
No.
To tell the truth, it
wasn't until I got out here
and realized that I
could survive and have
so much happiness and so much
satisfaction that I realized
this is the long-term plan.
But after just a few months
when winter started setting in,
the family's dream of
a life closer to nature
started to unravel.
What I felt was a
sense of being trapped.
I want you to calm down.
Find something else to do.
When the bear came, my
husband was out of town.
And I have no communication,
so I couldn't call someone.
[COCKING GUN]
Going Off Grid is a
part of Seeker Stories.
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