The Simpler Life

As the harvest begins, the remaining volunteers are feeling the benefits of their new life, away from their jobs, mobile phones and computer screens. For special educational needs manager Hazel, a simpler life is not all that easy. However hard she tries, she just cannot churn butter and when she asks for community money to go to the village shop to buy some, it escalates into a crisis. But the biggest shock for the community is still to come when their Amish host family make an unexpected and emotional announcement.

The volunteers struggle to carry on without their Amish guides, whose shock departure highlights the cracks within the community. With 40 acres and 25 livestock to manage, each member has a different view on getting the work done, but as frictions mount over the alcohol and household chores, a shock discovery threatens the biggest crop of the season - potato blight. With only weeks until the experiment ends, will this new crisis be the making of them or the undoing?

Four months since the volunteers embarked on their experiment they celebrate their most bountiful harvest with a feast. Friends and family have been invited and the community members busy themselves with preparations. IT project manager Fran ensures the event runs smoothly, while GP surgery receptionist Jamie says an emotional goodbye to one of his beloved pigs. The statisticians also discover how the process has changed those taking part to ask whether people be happier without the noise and clutter of the busy 21st century.