In the past 2 weeks, I’ve had to travel back to Brooklyn as many times. First for a dentist appointment (verdict: my flossing needs improvement). And then again to pick up my car which had finally been restored after the vandalization. (Reunited and it feels so good!) I don’t know how it’s possible, but I’ve become so acclimated to our new environment that being in Brooklyn and Manhattan felt a little jarring. Despite having lived there for many years until very recently. (Wow, Joanna. Fickle much?)

I visited our old post office to try and locate an errant package. This was not fruitful. Suffice it to say, that post office has 1.5 stars for a reason. When I drove through the old Brooklyn neighborhood, I definitely felt some pangs of nostalgia. Remembering the many many walks we took as a family and the summer evenings dining outdoors… and then the driver behind me started honking for me to speed up. (Also, parking a minivan in a Brooklyn is NOT easy. Wow. More honking as it took me twice as long as usual to navigate into a spot.) My sister Jessica met me in McCarren Park for coffee and a chat and to swap some belated holiday gifts. I’d gotten so used to her being only 90 minutes away, that now I have to make sure I plan these meetings when I’m close by!

When I headed into the Manhattan for my dentist appointment, I parked the minivan (at a garage this time to maintain what was left of my sanity), and walked around a bit. My pulse was beating fast and I was very alert and aware of my surroundings. Even during Covid, the city is very… ALIVE. And that burst of adrenaline in me made me realize why the city is so intoxicating for new visitors. I get it. Having to be on your toes and not knowing what blessing or curse is just around the corner does feel very exciting. You get swept off your feet. Sometimes literally. And even in the middle of January it’s still impressive to look at. I walked past Carnegie Hall and remembered concerts I’ve seen there (Thomas Quasthoff singing jazz most of all), past the nearby Italian restaurant where I went with a group of people (remember what that was like?!). And inadvertently past my old agent’s office. Thankfully I didn’t feel any bubbling resentment for them terminating my contract a few years ago. If anything, I felt grateful that they forced me to see beyond the lifestyle I’d been doggedly pursuing for 20 years. Who knows where I would be now if I hadn’t stated to wonder what else was out there… I walked by the Morgan Library where Alan and I heard a string quartet on one of our first dates. (This was a test. Would he fidget and get bored? Nope. Test aced.) I stared longingly at the fancy bars where I wished I could just pop in for an overpriced glass of Sancerre like the good old days. (Oh yes, and dry January ended being a little more damp than predicted.) But maybe I’ve fallen under the spell of our beautiful house or I’ve just fallen out of love with the pace of the city. Because I was really excited to get back up north, a loaf of carrot rye from Ole & Steen on the front seat of the car.

As for news on the home front, we now have a Mud Room. I capitalize that because, well, it’s big. And I love it. When we first moved in we were sort of baffled by this oddly large entryway. And it was buried in moving boxes for the first 2 weeks, anyway, so we didn’t give it much thought. Then, as we started getting into our daily groove and realized just how dirty that room would get with the daily dog walks and various errands, we knew its purpose. When the house was on the market, this had been staged as a breakfast room with some tasteful art and vases on the shelves, but we needed to USE this room. There’s no coat closet, but we found a plank of wood in the basement that must have been leftover from the original molding construction, and it fit the space on the wall perfectly. Coat hanging problems solved. Then I noticed that the built-in bench kind of blended into the wall and the room was already big and white and…boring. So we decided it would make sense to paint the bench and distinguish it from the wall. I had envisioned some dusty colonial blue which would be bold but classy at the same time… and the first attempt was not so cute.

So I settled on the old reliable sage green. (Which happens to be one of my all-time favorite colors. And I realized that the Pinterest page for our home design started with an image of a sage green dresser in front of a white wall. It took me a minute, but I got there.) The color is actually called Urban Nature which I think is kind of perfect. Sounds like Brooklyn to Barn, doesn’t it?! And then my handy husband installed some brass drawer pulls to add some dimension and convenience (my nails were breaking every time I tried to claw open those things). I put up some peel-and-stick wallpaper in the nook where we keep Sadie’s leash (it’s not perfectly aligned but that’s what happens when you’re impatient and don’t want to measure). Then, we picked up some baskets and throw pillows from Target (this is the mud room, after all), and bought a square jute rug and now… I am borderline obsessed. It is the first thing you see when you enter the house, so why not make it as welcoming and convenient as possible?

And now… for maybe the most exciting development. Well, according to yours truly. For a while now I’ve been dreaming and talking about the main element of this new lifestyle: raising animals. I’ve never done it nor even lived on a farm, but I’m fascinated and want to learn how it’s done. So for the past few weeks, I’ve been slowly absorbing information from a range of resources:

1. An online goat certification course from Langston University’s Goat Program
2. Flat Broke With Two Goats, a memoir by Jennifer McGaha (we now follow each other on Instagram. NBD.)
3. Storey’s Guide To Raising Dairy Goats
4. The Definitely Not Simple Life Podcast. I binged the entire 7 episodes on my latest roundtrip drive to NYC. It was really exciting to hear 3 female farmers talk about their different methods and preferences when it comes to species, treatment, and reasons for having livestock.
5. I cold-called a local farmer and she let me come visit!! We spent 2 hours (in the freeeeeezing cold), driving around her 54-acre farm on her ATV. I met her many goats (San Clemente- a very rare species), sheep, llama, pigs, ducks, rabbits, and chickens. She was an amazing resource for someone just starting out and was able to answer a lot of my questions and refer me to other people who might be more in line with what I’d like to do. (She doesn’t milk her goats, which is the main thing I’m hoping to learn and then do myself.) I DID, however, get to hold a 2 week old buckling (baby boy goat), who was possibly one of the sweetest and softest creatures ever. After Sadie, of course. The farmer told me there are many more babies due to be born in the next week and she’ll need a set of hands to come and hold and pet them. (This is to help socialize them which makes it easier later on when they need medication or to have routine hoof trimming.) You can guess whether or not I volunteered to come back as often as she needs for some help in that area…

The farmer used a term that I’ve heard of course, but hadn’t really given much thought to: Homesteading. Then when I listened to the podcast, these women used it to describe their lifestyle. And, I don’t know how or why, but it made it all click. All the months of dreaming about using my hands to make something useful. Wondering how to be more self-sufficient and less wasteful. Researching how to raise goats to provide milk, cheese, and soap for our family. Scoping out the property for the compost heap, the vegetable garden, and the duck pond (yes, really. More on that next time.). I didn’t grow up farming but did grow up near the farms of eastern Long Island. I didn’t raise animals but have always loved and respected them and their place in our eco-system. I have always loved getting my hands dirty and exploring the outdoors. Is it possible I’ve accidentally stumbled onto the same thing these other women discovered as well? Homesteading. It’s got a nice, solid ring to it. Now, I realize I’m putting the cart before the horse. Or, the goat before the barn (which still needs some modifications before we can start our herd). Most importantly, we haven’t closed on the house yet. Due to a perfect storm of circumstances out of our control, the closing date keeps getting pushed back. And we just wouldn’t feel comfortable putting down those roots until the deal is signed. The good thing about this is that we’re able to use this time to educate ourselves and prepare the property as much as we can. And the research I’ve done so far has encouraged new farmers (or homesteaders), to start slowly. Pick one thing; maybe poultry. And then add in bees the next year, and then goats, and so on. Not bad advice. According to my farmer friend, February is the coldest month up here so it’s not like we can fortify the barns much anyway (let alone risk making major mistakes and spending painful hours in the cold as we troubleshoot with our new herd/flock/hive).

Plus, there’s still work to be done inside. Fun work, like hanging the prints we just bought from Etsy (black and white Prohibition-era photos). Or wallpapering my office. And doing more virtual concerts like I did last week for Bay Street Theater! (Check out the “music” tab of this site to hear about future shows.) And making more music and music videos with The Buttery Barmaids. I think in the wake of all the recent loss and uncertainty, my impulse is to hold on tight to what I cherish and barrel ahead with what I want to accomplish. But I’m going to try my best to fight that impulse and slow down. On that note, I’m going to go cuddle my husband and my dog on the daybed in the sunroom. With Storey’s Guide To Raising Dairy Goats. Baby steps.