The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir by Kilmer-Purcell Josh

Author:Kilmer-Purcell, Josh [Kilmer-Purcell, Josh]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Technology & Engineering, Gender Studies, Goat Farmers - New York (State), Social Science, State & Local, Josh, Middle Atlantic, Female Impersonators, General, United States, Personal Memoirs, Female Impersonators - New York (State), Goat Farmers, Biography & Autobiography, Kilmer-Purcell, New York (State), Agriculture, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780061336980
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-06-01T05:00:00+00:00

Book 2

Chapter Seventeen

“And welcome back.”

As the studio audience applause dies down, Martha continues reading off the cue card. “Up in the Mohawk Valley of upstate New York is a beautiful nineteenth-century farm called the Beekman Mansion where our own Dr. Brent Ridge relaxes on his weekends, growing vegetables and flowers and raising his own herd of dairy goats…”

Martha and Brent are sitting side by side on small milking stools under the bright television lights. The art department has made a small pen from birch branches and covered the floor with artfully strewn straw. At their feet lie Trent, Terrence, Troy, Tammy, and Thandy, all peacefully nodding off in a pile, with their heads resting on one another’s backs. They’re glowingly snow white again, thanks to my furious wet-nap wiping out on the sidewalk. When Martha reaches down to pick up a sleepy Troy, the studio audience, on cue, sighs “Awwwwwwww.”

The Martha audience isn’t much dissimilar from the Oprah audience I’d experienced just a few months ago. Viewers flew in from all over the world to get a glimpse of their hero. Perhaps they were a bit more mannered and neutrally dressed, but still they rose to their feet, shrieking with glee, the moment Dear Leader took the stage.

What was different this time was that I was the guest. Well, not me specifically—I was watching from just offstage ready to chase any runaway goats. But Brent’s and my life was the main guest. The B-roll footage (filmed earlier at the Beekman) that played on the giant video screens above the stage looked impossibly perfect, and perfectly Martha-esque. There were no photos of our messy canning adventure, or our spindly hand-cut Christmas tree, or the sulfurous rotten egg breakfast of our very first morning. Instead the montage included impressive architectural shots, shiny and clean goats in the pasture, and non-weedy close-ups of the flower garden. Yes, our life was the guest on stage—but only the most picturesque bits. I looked at the audience members as they took in the montage. They were at the edge of their seats, smiling…rabidly. This is what they came to see. Oprah teased her fans with their impossible-to-achieve Best Lives while Martha tormented hers with Photoshopped fantasies of Good Things.

No one, of course, noticed the middle-aged ad exec smelling of goat shit standing in the wings, wet naps at the ready.

Naturally, like everything in Martha Land, the segment comes off without a hitch. Martha and Brent spend the first eight minutes chatting about the farm and the secrets of healthy country living, and the second segment after a commercial break making a flawless batch of homemade goat milk soap.

Thankfully Martha also takes a moment to acknowledge our soap mentor, Deb, who is seated in the audience. The Sharon Springs gossip network has practically blown a circuit during the past few weeks passing along word about the goats’ big-city television appearance. Even John seemed a little impressed. A little.

As in most small towns across America, everybody in Sharon Springs has his or her own unique set of skills to share with neighbors.

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