Goodbye Acorn Land Labs, Hello Alt_Ordo
Why we shelved Acorn Land Labs, and what we are building next.
If you followed Acorn Land Labs, this one is for you. If you’re new, welcome. Either way, here’s where we’ve been, where we’re going, and why we built something new to get there.
A quick history
Acorn Land Labs was never really its own thing. It started around 2023 as a side project of an educational startup our team was running called Live Oak Computer Science. Live Oak was built to teach kids about computer science in public schools. Somewhere along the way in all the coding tutorials we added gardening projects and video to track garden data, we added the off-grid systems, and the simple-living experiments. This was to make computer science data and coding more hands on. We posted our first videos of those projects, and you all loved them. Then those new projects all got fused onto the side of our coding education startup... Acorn was born.
COVID happened, and the school market we’d built Live Oak for effectively dissolved. The startup ended after a few years. Shortly after, a personal tragedy in my life took a few years to stabilize from. Acorn went quiet for a few years. No new videos or projects.
But the dust has now settled, and we want to build something new again. My brother Joe and I are back to making content, and people are responding to it again more than ever. Tiny homes, solar energy, biogas, black soldier flies, A-frame cabins, RV docking stations, simple living... We didn’t want to stop. We just needed a clean slate.
So Acorn Land Labs has been shelved alongside the original startup, Live Oak. We are thankful for Acorn, it was a great beginning. Acorn is now retired with honor. What comes next is Alt Ordo.
What Alt Ordo means
Alt Ordo = Alternative Order.
The systems our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents could rely on are visibly changing. Housing, food, energy, healthcare, community. Many of those systems are wobbling and cracking. Most people feel it. Many people don’t talk about it. Most people don’t know what to do about it.
Alt Ordo is for the people who want to do something about it. But we want to be very clear about what this is and what it isn’t.
This is not a prepper channel. We’re not gearing up for an apocalypse or sudden collapse. We don’t have basements full of MREs. We don’t have compounds. We’re not selling fear.
We lean solarpunk. Small dwellings, strong communities, localized food networks, common-sense systems, the woods, the garden, the workshop. We’re interested in what actually works for a regular family on a regular budget. Life is short and should focus on the joy we have today.
There are no utopian solutions. There never have been. One of my favorite quotes:
“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” -Thomas Sowell
That’s the lens. Everything we build, everything we recommend, everything we feature on the channel is judged on its trade-offs. What does it cost, what does it require, what does it free you up to do.
What I’m doing personally
I’m not just talking about this all stuff. I’m steadily living it.
After navigating a few hard years, I started using these systems and ideas to build a different kind of life for my little family. There is a new rhythm between Atlanta, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee. That’s where we’re testing the Alt Ordo vision - between the lush Georgia Piedmont and the rugged Cumberland Plateau at the Southernmost tip of the Appalachian mountains.
Here’s what’s in motion in this journey right now:
A small house in a walkable downtown. Affordable to keep up, and the place my boys know as home.
An urban garden tiny house we’re finishing as a studio example of what’s possible in a small city.
A little cabin in the mountains.
A DIY teardrop camper we’re starting next - will be 6x8 ft.
Solar panels, rainwater catchment, gardens, biogas, biochar and more.
Each one is a deliberate small-dwelling example: shelter, energy, food, water, and sanitation in an affordable, flexible footprint. We’ll be using them as ongoing projects across the Alt Ordo videos.
And listen, it’s not all idyllic. It’s a lot of hard work. But it beats sitting in front of a screen on the weekends. It beats doom-scrolling. It beats Netflix marathons in the evenings.
To be able to enjoy the Southeastern forests and hills between Atlanta and Chattanooga, work on both physical and digital projects, and spread these ideas to help others is my new and adjusted dream.
What we’ve been publishing
If you want to see the direction we’re heading, the last few videos are the best place to start. Each one is a working example of what Alt Ordo is about.
The $100/Month Tiny House Tour. We sit down with my neighbor Paul, who lives this way full time, and break down what the lifestyle really costs and what he wished he’d known earlier.
How to Make Infinite FREE Chicken Feed. A simple build using black soldier flies that turns food scraps into high-protein chicken feed on autopilot. Hits all three of our criteria: cheap to build, simple to manage, free inputs.
Gen Z Will Illegally Fix the Housing Crisis. A look at how the next generation is possibly going to route around broken zoning and unaffordable housing whether the system likes it or not.
$20k RV + Docking Station for Affordable Living. A tour of an affordable RV setup paired with a flexible docking station. Less permit hassle, lower cost, and a real path to a permanent base.
The cadence going forward: weekly videos and regular articles. The goal is to give people enough concrete information that they can go tinker on their own systems, and not just scroll Youtube while dreaming.
Three principles guide what we cover:
Affordability. If a regular family can’t afford it, we’re not interested.
Mobility. Flexible living, the ability to relocate, gear that works in more than one place.
Sustainability. By natural extension, not by rigid ideology. Systems that don’t bankrupt you or the land they sit on.
The Alt Ordo app: three pillars
The hardest part of this lifestyle isn’t building the systems. It’s figuring out where to do it, and who to do it with.
Which counties are flexible on zoning? Which states actually allow what you want to build? Where are the communities? Where do other people doing this live? What systems do you need, and how do they connect?
That research takes a long time. We’ve been steadily compiling it into a database, and that database is becoming an app:
People. Places. Putting it all together.
Three pillars:
People. Find like-minded folks to connect with, learn from, and build alongside.
Places. Locations with the zoning, geography, and community to make this lifestyle possible.
Putting it all together. The systems layer. Shelter, energy, water, food, sanitation. How they fit, what they cost, what trade-offs they carry.
If you backed our earlier Off-Grid Sim Kickstarter, that work isn’t going away. It’s folding into the “Putting it all together” pillar of the Alt Ordo app. You’re already grandfathered in with access to that. You’ll be notified the moment you have access.
A Kickstarter is coming
To get the Alt Ordo app over the final mile, we’re running a fresh Kickstarter.
If you want to back the whole ecosystem of people, places, and the systems layer, we’d love your support. If you backed the previous one and want to sit this one out, we completely understand. Your original backing carries forward, and we’ll honor it.
More details on the Kickstarter coming soon. If you want to be first to know, the waitlist is here.
Follow along
Thank you for the past support of Acorn Land Labs. Thank you, in advance, for the support of Alt Ordo if you choose to join us. The funds help my brother and me keep publishing.
We’re excited to be back.
Links:
Have a great day all. We’ll see you out there.
- Kemble
I’m excited to hear the update and eager to learn. I’m 74 year old widow living together with my youngest daughter (of 10) and her husband and 2 daughters on 3 acres in a small town that is being swallowed up by the DFW Metroplex. We have about 100+ animals at this point and a small gardening effort…eager to figure this all out.