Don Young stops abruptly to point something out on the trail. Kneeling down, he picks up what closely resembles something like a tiny ball of lint.

“Do you know what this is – it’s owl vomit,” he said, picking apart the ball of hair.

“Looks like it ate a mouse. Let’s see if we can find some bone.”

In the protected forest behind Orange Twin Conservation Community, Young, a six year member, clears fallen branches from the trail as he describes life at the sustainable community located five miles from downtown Athens.

It all started about a decade ago, when Laura Carter, a musician in the local band Elf Power, and friends Laura Glenn and Barbara Denvir decided to become stewards of a tract of land outside Athens.

“We wanted to have natural surroundings and a garden where we could share the work,” Carter said.

They secured 155 acres of land and are in the process of developing an eco-village and organic farm, while preserving 101 acres under a conservation easement with the Oconee Land Trust.

In 1999, Carter launched the label Orange Twin Records to help cushion the expenses that would come with developing a community and give members a way of selling their art. However, shareholders and investors, she said, haven’t been hard to find.

“A lot of times people already expressed an interest and it just took them touring the land a few times to want to have a hand in its development as a sustainable living community.”

And naturally, many members have freely relished the opportunity to step free from the herd.

“If someone is interested, we invite them to come hang out, come to a potluck, come to a couple meetings. But we also tell them to take it pretty slow because it’s easy to get an idea in your head. They could end up being like, ‘These people are annoying,’ or, ‘I hate dogs,’” Carter said.

The commune claims members and volunteers ranging from local artists to an electrical engineer.

Here, the major family history is not determined by genetics but written according to the unique skills and experience that each member has to offer.

After graduating with an electrical engineering degree from Penn State, Young moved to Japan to design HDTV computer chips and then to Thailand to teach at a university and was even close to becoming a Buddhist monk before deciding to come back to the U.S.

“My heart wasn’t in high tech, you know? I thought ‘well shit, if I do a really good job, I’m gonna make a better mousetrap for advertisers so people will just consume more,’” Young said. “‘They’ll be transfixed by the television, and then go into that path of receptive brain wave state, where, you can tell them anything.’ I didn’t want to put my energy into something like that.”

He worked and lived in several sustainable living communities before moving to Athens a few years ago and becoming a part of the ongoing projects at Orange Twin.

Such ventures include the maintenance of walking trails, a swimming hole, the construction of a vineyard, a garden, and the moving and remodeling of an old dilapidated house that was purchased for $1. It was later turned into a farmhouse where a few members now live.

Another member, Terry Rowlett, was an art student at the University in the ’90s and believes living with idealists has helped him explore his creativity without having to worry about social standards.

“There are so many people who have so many different creative sides – it’s easy to express here – someone could come out on a unicycle or some fabulously strange costume – it’s a mini-style culture.”

Lacey Jon, from Atlanta, came to work in the garden and has lived at Orange Twin for three years. Herbal medicine jars from an apprenticeship line the dresser in her room and fill the farmhouse with the strong scent of peppermint oil.

“I just liked the idea of living with different people of different ages … people with like minds … and becoming more self-sufficient – building things and working with the land.”

For Nana Grizol’s lead singer, Theo Hilton, the decision to become part of the community came down to a balance of relationships and solitude. His life on the road is loud and chaotic, fast and transient.

For him, being in one place with a community is comforting.

“It’s just the idea of people being super respectful of each other and including one another. And Butterball may be a big part of it, too – Butterball’s the cat.”

Carter agrees, citing the unique presence of each member as its strength.
“Our skills combined are so much greater,” she said.
Some believe the incorporation of agrarian values has become one of the ideological fights of our era. As economies become more interdependent, individuals become more isolated.
According to Carter, the community at Orange Twin hopes to change that.
“It’s important – this connection with things that grow and evolve and die,” Carter said, “I guess I think that nature is the best teacher of them all.”