Long time readers of The Jew & The Carrot might remember Margaret Hathaway and Karl Schatz as the couple who left their urban apartment in Brooklyn and traveled 40,000 miles around the country in search of a new lifestyle as goat farmers. (Margaret wrote a book about their experience called The Year of the Goat).

These days, Karl and Margaret live on a farm outside of Portland with their two children, Charlotte and Beatrice, and their dairy goats.  And I had the opportunity to write about their lives and how they merge their sustainable lifestyle and Jewish tradition for Jewish Living Magazine (think an eco-friendly, Martha Stewart Living with a Jewish twist!)

Read an excerpt of the article below the jump. Getting Their Goats
By: Leah Koenig
Jewish Living Magazine

“On Sunday mornings, Margaret Hathaway’s kitchen grows fragrant with cinnamon as she slices homemade challah into slabs for French toast. A window box holding delicate Italian carrots rests on the sill. Her husband, Karl, works outside in the barn behind the couple’s 100-year-old Maine farmhouse, tipping feed into the chicken coop and collecting eggs for breakfast. Their oversize garden teems with tomatoes, herbs, and hearty greens—enough to make an epicure swoon. Meanwhile, Percival, one of their four goats, nibbles at the fingers of their two-year-old daughter, Charlotte, sending her into peals of laughter.

Karl, 38, and Margaret, 31, might seem straight out of Norman Rockwell’s sketchbook, but just five years ago their lives were hardly so bucolic. The couple shared a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y., riding the subway, dining on take-out sushi, and striving to maintain balance amid the frantic pace of the city. In 2003, they took a cross-country trip that drastically changed the course of their lives. While on the road, they discovered a shared passion for sustainable living and farming; a deeper love for each other; and, to Margaret’s surprise, a new connection to Judaism.”

Find the full story here.
Read The Jew & The Carrot’s interview with Margaret and Karl here.