My Off-Grid Year in Review

What a year it's been!

Hi lovely reader 👋

First of all, if you're new here, my name is Sophie. I’m on a journey to slow down, reconnect with nature, and live more intentionally. After moving off-grid, I’m sharing lessons on rewilding, simplicity, and finding balance in a busy world, without any of the fluff.

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The end of the year is often a time for reflection, so as we’re sitting here in that time between Christmas and New Year, I thought it was a good time to reflect on what 2024 has meant to me in terms of my off-the-grid life.

We moved off the grid in late 2023, and now, as the year turns to 2025, we’ve marked our first full year in this tiny house. It’s been a big year, a year in which so many things have shifted, including parts of myself.

You might imagine that such a big move begins with hope and anticipation, with the kind of unwavering optimism necessary to take on this challenge. It didn’t. It began with fear. Fear of failure, fear that maybe I had pursued the wrong dream, fear that I’d find myself stranded in the middle of nowhere and discover I didn’t like this lifestyle after all, fear that I wouldn’t be worthy of this new label I’d given myself - the off-gridder. What happens when you achieve the thing you wanted most, only to find you didn’t want it after all? Do you move on and want a different thing? That question sat with me as we were getting ready to make our big move near the end of 2023.

We hesitated, delayed. "Next week," we’d say as if, with time, confidence would win over apprehension. We’d say, “Or maybe the day after.” We’d say, “Maybe when it’s a bit warmer.”

The day finally came, though, and we arrived for a trial run on my birthday weekend.

That first morning, I woke to find a Kingfisher perched on the clothesline, his blue feathers catching the sunlight as though he had been waiting just for me. He preened, oblivious to my admiration. I loved him instantly, I loved the way he seemed to belong to this place. We named him Lenny and he’s been our guiding friend the entire past year; he helped us belong in the same way he did. He also yelled at us with his territorial kek-kek-kek every single day, but that’s a different story.

Lenny doesn’t like getting his picture taken, but I did manage to get this shot

We stayed. We didn’t go back. There was nowhere else to go, not really. There was only the city apartment, which I had never liked anyway. This was where we wanted to be.

It was summer at the time and summer can be deceptive. Its long, warm days gave everything an air of eternal vacation. We were enjoying every minute. We didn’t have a kitchen, but who needs one when it’s BBQ season anyway. Even the outhouse had a rustic charm, with the absence of a door just being an invitation to watch the Kingfisher’s nest. Watching baby kingfishers learn to fly was the highlight of the season. There were no downsides. It was everything I had hoped for.

And then the seasons turned.

A wintery display with a Silvereye bird butt

Winter came in hard and unrelenting, as winters often do, though we weren’t quite prepared for it. The kitchen remained unfinished. Suddenly, cooking outdoors in the cold wasn’t as charming as it once was. BBQ every day quickly lost its appeal. I was struggling to keep dinner exciting. Solar power dwindled to nearly nothing and building a fire every day quickly lost its charm. There were days we just couldn’t get the fire going and spent over an hour trying to warm ourselves up with the wet fire logs. Wet logs, because we had waited too long to source dry wood for winter, unprepared as we were. Our AliExpress diesel heater broke down only a couple weeks in and waiting for parts to come from China was the true test of my patience. There were nights we sat shivering, wondering if this was resilience or plain madness. We covered our parrot Croky’s sleeping cage in a pile of blankets to ensure he was kept toasty warm at least.

But everything has a solution. The parts for the diesel heater arrived and we enjoyed warm evenings. We expanded our solar system and suddenly had more power than we needed. I learnt to make everything on the BBQ, including pizza and lasagna. I’m an expert at BBQ now, I always make the perfect steak. And even winter gives way eventually.

The light returned, and with it, the birds. Two swallows on the clothesline this time, building their nest near the outhouse. Another young family to watch, another lesson in flight. Another family to say goodbye to.

Our swallow babies

Now it’s summer again, and the kitchen is finished. I cook indoors; we even have an oven. I still make a perfect steak on the BBQ, but only when I want to, not because I have to. I reflect on the contrast between where we started and where we are now. What was once a barely liveable shipping container is now a home—or something that feels close enough. Our tiny house is finished, we are warm and dry. And it really is everything I had hoped for.

And what will 2025 bring? Well, another tiny house is already under construction. Once that is finished, the old shipping container can become something else, maybe a shed or a hobby space; who knows, the possibilities are endless. While we put in a lot of effort to make the shipping container into a liveable space, it really is old and damp and it will be good once it is replaced. The newest tiny house will then serve as a separate bedroom and bathroom. And then? Maybe the search for a more permanent piece of land can begin… Who knows what the future will hold!

I love all the bright colours of summer

One thing that inspired me this week:

I have started listening, on Audible, to

Leena Norms

’ book Half-Arse Human and love it. It’s an antidote against “crash self-development” - like crash dieting but with self-help, and it’s just what we all need in these crazy times. She reminds us that it’s not necessary to excel at every aspect of life. It’s about choosing what really matters. It’s a good and easy listen 😊

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