After more than a year of sticking close to home, I, like many, longed for a taste of a life more rural. But I didn’t have to leave the city to cavort with adorable farm animals, thanks to GlennArt Farm, which offers Goat Chills — hourlong appointments to hang out in a pasture with goats of all sizes. 

As co-owner David Ioder warned when I booked my date, “We recommend wearing shoes to which you are not emotionally attached.” I can say with affection and honesty that his heads-up bears heeding because the goats do, as he put it, “leave little presents on the ground.” 

Not romanticized, not idealized, real goats are earthy. But relaxing in their company as they bleated, grazed, and tended to their babies offered a spell of simplicity, delivered with the pitter-patter of hooves and the curious gaze of those captivating eyes. From $40. 5749 W. Midway Park