The “COVID land rush” is what they were calling it last summer in Vermont. Everyone we knew was talking about it. Houses, farms, even empty plots of land were selling sight unseen, the same day they were listed – for cash. And not to locals – most of the buyers were from big cities. To Vermonters, it looked like a sizable chunk of metropolitan New York and Boston had a sudden urge to head “back to the land.”
Homesteading has always captured people’s imagination, especially during times of crisis. When the world as we’ve known it starts to fall apart, living self-sufficiently on a bit of land you can call your own starts to look pretty good. Of course, the reality is more complex.
When Steve and I were in Vermont last summer, we spent some time with one of our neighbors – the novelist Makenna Goodman, who traded New York City for Vermont more than a decade ago, after the 2008 financial crash. Today she and her husband and their two children live on 32 acres of rolling Vermont hills, where they grow most of their own food, raise chickens and sheep and tap maple trees. It’s also where Makenna wrote her acclaimed debut novel, “The Shame.”
The day Steve and I visited, she showed us her outdoor hot tub (a bathtub hooked up to a hose, with a wood fire below), the spot where they butcher chickens, and the most spectacularly beautiful swiss chard I’ve ever seen. Then we sat down for a searching conversation about the perennial American dream of “the good life” – along with its troubled history. It’s part of this week’s show, "Whose Land Is It?" on the ethics of land ownership. I hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed visiting and bringing back Makenna’s story to you.
–Anne