This is my neighbor Martha, here in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. 

This is Martha’s chicken, Andy, who's named for Andy Warhol and who lives with the other chickens, Edie (Sedgwick) and Loulou (Lou Reed), in a very high-tech “eggloo” in Martha’s backyard. They lay—as Martha’s husband, Neil, calls them—Factory Eggs, which are blue and green and tan and chic and taste damn good.

But it’s not just chickens and eggs out there at Martha’s. Bound by high brick walls and the restaurants on Smith Street, her yard also has native crabapples, blueberries, elderberries, mulberries (yeah, I have one of those in my yard too, but it’s a purple-y scourge, and I wish it would die), black cherries, lush heirloom tomatoes, beans, carrots, corn, and mache. Oh, yes, and medicinal herbs and future lemon verbena tea and purple and blue hydrangeas, which guard Martha’s perfectly organized compost bins.

And Martha takes the chickens on tour to local elementary schools, belongs to a chicken meet-up group, and forages for wild greens in Prospect Park, with which she cooks family dinners from vintage naturalist cookbook recipes. She writes about it all on her blog.

Martha has done everything on my to-do list. I’m jealous. Nightline did a segment on Martha, and I would probably hate her if she weren’t so genuine. How can you hate someone who belongs to a chicken meet-up group?