The Bucolic Plague

In between prepping 2 pizzas for Natan's belated birthday dinner and making Salty Butter Pecan Ice Cream, just before my yoga class, I dropped by ABC Kitchen to hear Josh Kilmer-Purcell read from his insanely popular book The Bucolic Plague. The story of how two gay Manhattanites become gentleman farmers aka the Fabulous Beekman Boys.

Josh has a full time job in advertising as a writer, his last book I Am Not Myself These Days was a New York Times bestseller, his Boyfriend Brent is a doctor, who also happens to be helping Martha Stewart set up a state of the art geriatric facility at Mount Sinai Hospital. In their spare time they have a farm, a lot of goats and a TV show.

Such underachievers, I think they need to adoopt several dozen children from every troubled part of the world, they obviously have way too much time on their hands!

In truth I don't know how they do it I'm exhausted just hearing about their schedule never mind living it. I think these boys need me to cook them dinner one night. Of course my mind immediately went to goat curry, but maybe that's a bad idea? Spinach Pizza anyone?

Oh and in addition to all this they are quickly becoming a brand selling soap and cheese and other goodies from the farm. With a lot more to come you can be sure.

As an urban gay guy who has lived in New York City for 24 years now I can't think of anything I would rather least like to do than to live upstate on a farm. Most people when they go into the country breath a sigh of relief and relax, I tense up, break into a sweat and wonder how soon it will be before I can get back to the city. People find this strange, but there you have it. I suppose it's what brought me to New York in the first place. So I watch the Fabulous Beekman show with a huge sense of perplexed amazement: I can't believe they're doing this kind of thing.

Secretly, of course, there are many things about this wild and crazy experiment of theirs I greatly admire and wish I could do, only here in the city, like have a garden and maybe raise a chicken or three? I'm not sure that day will come any time soon, so for now I can live vicariously through the Beekman boys. If you go to their site you can watch a full episode for free and see what it's all about.

Below for your viewing pleasure is the Goat Cam from the boy's farm.
Just the idea of a Goat Cam makes me smile. They're sooooo cute.

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