A Manhattanite couple throws their life savings into a goat farm. Is this the gay Green Acres reality show we've always wanted, or is it about learning the value of local produce and community in the age of the internet?

Brent Ridge is a former Vice President of Healthy Living at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Josh Kilmer-Purcell is a writer, creative director at JWT, and retired drag queen. Together with the help of Farmer John and their local community of Sharon Springs, the Beekman Boys have managed to build their business while maintaining a long-distance relationship.

So how did you go from being New Yorkers to farmers?

JOSH: Every fall, Brent and I would rent a car in Manhattan and drive until we got lost, and one year we got lost upstate in Sharon Springs and spent the night and sort of fell in love with this weird little town, it was like a ghost town. Then the next morning we were driving back to the city and we drove by the Beekman, and we thought it was a museum because it was so beautiful, and then we saw the For Sale sign in the driveway, and we thought it was a mirage, it was just an amazingly perfect property. And so we got back to the city and we debated, and we finally bought it, and really, we were just going to be those New Yorkers who have a weekend home. So that was the whole plan, and then we got a letter from Farmer John who had lost his farm, and he had 80-something goats that he needed to find a new home for, or else in 30 days he was going to have to send them off to auction. It's very hard to say no to a homeless goat.

Can you tell me more about Farmer John, and about how much his goats have defined your business?

BRENT: Farmer John grew up in Sharon Springs. He was trying to get to the point where he could do farming full-time, because that really is his dream. He's kind of a shy person and he really wants nothing more out of life than to just spend time in the barn with the goats. During the first year of the show, he was still working a full-time job doing data entry then milking the goats in the morning and the night, and now thanks to the success of Beekman 1802, this year he was able to completely leave his job and is now finally a full-time farmer.

So you guys help each other out equally.

JOSH: Oh it's a very symbiotic relationship. We provide for his housing and his utilities and the barn and the land, and then in return he takes care of the goats and the animals, and we buy the goat milk and make stuff out of it. He doesn't care about the business, he cares about the goats.

How many people do you employ now at Beekman 1802?

JOSH: Right now we have three full-time employees. What we do is we find different people who are great at their crafts and then apprentice with them and help develop products for ourselves. It's a very communal business.

I like that your show really highlights the idea of community and the idea of reaching out to others for whatever you need.

BRENT: Right. We have become so disconnected as a society, particularly in cities, and now with social networking and sitting at the computer and communicating with email, you know, you could go days and actually never have a conversation with anyone. And I think one of the most challenging things for me when I first moved up here and was trying to launch this business was I would send an email to Deb about a new order of soap, and it would be like four days before she answered her email. And having worked in media and medicine in New York City, you're used to sending a message and within ten minutes you get a response. So it was a real change of pace. But I think that people in small villages, and in particular agricultural villages like ours, are just much more interdependent, and that's certainly what we're trying to foster.

JOSH: I mean it's so very anti-New York City. I'm sitting here in my apartment and I don't know the person who I share a wall with, but in Sharon Springs I know everybody in a 20-mile radius.

How have you adapted from moving from the New York lifestyle to the Sharon Springs lifestyle?

BRENT: Well Josh is still in the city full-time, he only comes up on the weekends. I would say I'm just as busy up here. Watching any small business is difficult, but watching a farm and a small business related to that farm is doubly difficult and economically challenging. So I really don't notice the fact that I'm outside the city because I'm just working so much. Last year was my first full winter on the farm, and I think that by the end of February I was kind of fed up with it. It's impossible to heat the house, so it was like 48 degrees in the house all winter, and this was before we had our shop in the village, and so I would go days without seeing anybody or talking to anybody, because even though Farmer John lives on the farm and his house is not far away, still you have to trek through eight feet of snow to get there. So it was kind of a depressing time.

JOSH: It's not like Brent was really having fun in the city. Brent was working 24 hours in the city and works 24 hours at the farm.

Beekman 1802 is called a "lifestyle brand." How do you define your business?

BRENT: Well we define our business as you said, a lifestyle brand, and really what we're hoping to do is inspire people, not necessarily to buy our products but to want to get out to their own communities and discover what treasures are in their own communities, and to support local agriculture and to live what we like to call more seasonally, which means to appreciate what you have in the season in which you have it, and then when you don't have it to really acknowledge that loss so that the next time it comes around you really appreciate it.

We've gotten so much into the culture of instant gratification where you can always have what you want exactly when you want it, and when you're in that cycle you don't appreciate anything because it's always there. That's one of the things we've learned being on the farm…in late August or early September when the tomatoes start coming in, the first bite of that tomato is blissful, and we really appreciate it because we know that in four weeks there are no more fresh tomatoes for us, and by the time next August comes around we'll really love that tomato so much more because of its absence. So I think that more than anything, we just want people to go to our website and be inspired by the things that we're doing and to learn along with us. We never set ourselves up as experts, we set ourselves up as people on a mission to learn how to have a better life. The product side of our company really derives from those things as well – creating things that are chemical-free, things that are artisanal and handmade, not only from our own farm but from using local craftspeople so that they too can build a life and a career doing the things they love doing.

As men who chose to be farmers, what's your take on the "Take Our Jobs" campaign and Americans' attitudes toward hard labor and farm work?

BRENT: Until you have gone out and picked a bushel of peas and then shelled the peas, and then seeing that you have like two cups of peas after spending four hours picking them and shelling them, you don't really appreciate all the work that goes into getting food onto the table and all the people who are putting in a lot of sweat to get that food to you for a really cheap price. Food really is inexpensive in the United States, but that's because we're not really paying for it, and it's a huge problem. We always said from the beginning when we bought the farm that people have a really misplaced sense of value in our country in terms of what they are willing to pay for, and we really need to change people's perception of how much their food is really worth.

For me, the most significant episode of your first season was when you slaughtered your pigs Porgy and Bess. How do you feel about it now, and what kind of response did you get for it?

JOSH: That was the most controversial episode, and it was also our favorite episode, because yes, it says in one episode everything we're trying to do and learn and what we're trying to teach. And of course, it's very hard to raise your own animals and slaughter them for food, that's hard, but what it does, as Brent said before, is it teaches you the value of what's on your plate. Overall we got a really, really wonderful response both from people who agreed with us and didn't agree with us. It was a very civil conversation.

The strain on your relationship due to being so far apart is always apparent on your show. Do you two forsee a point where you can finally reach that goal of being together?

BRENT: Well you know, we called last year our "year of sacrifice" and it's extended unfortunately to a year and a half of sacrifice. This year we really did set ourselves up with what we like to call the million dollar challenge. We say if we could hit a million dollars in profit with the company, that would be a point at which we could cover our expenses and Josh could move to the farm full-time. We're not there yet and we don't know yet whether we're going to make it to that point, but you have to set goals for yourself and that's our personal goal.

So you have the holiday special coming in December followed by your second season. What can we expect on the special?

JOSH: We're very excited about the holiday special. We'll be including a lot of our favorite clips from the year and some clips people haven't seen, and then because we've gotten such a good response from the audience, we wanted to include them in the holiday special so they're sending in their favorite moments of the show that we will share again, and then there might be a surprise or two.

How can a New Yorker take steps to start living more like a farmer?

JOSH: The biggest thing I think is to shop at your farmer's market. That will reacquaint you with what is grown in the climate that you live in. It's amazing that people don't understand that squash comes in the fall, strawberries come in the spring, tomatoes come in the summer…so the very first step I think is to go to your farmer's market on a regular basis and see what's there and learn what the planet can give you at the time it's ready to give it to you.

BRENT: Obviously not everyone is going to be able to go out and buy a farm or even have the desire to go out and buy a farm, but I think that almost every community in the country now has a farmer's market, and even if you go there and buy one item a week then you're helping to support local agriculture. And that's something that anybody can do.

Season 2 of The Fabulous Beekman Boys airs in early 2011. Check out The Beekman Boys' Fabulous Holiday Special December 8th at 9:00PM on Planet Green, and be sure to visit the Beekman 1802 website to learn more about the boys and their business.

Megh Wright is a writer, TV addict, and Harrisburg native. When she's not watching reality competition shows, writing letters to her friends, or craving a caramel Frappuccino, Megh can usually be found on the streets of Soho running errands. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York and is available for even the creepiest inquiries here.