Today I found myself shoveling chicken manure out of a coop when a curious hen wandered in and looked at me with a cocked head. “I’m just cleaning up your house, boss.” I said  with a laugh. Mark, a few hundred yard away, was busy drilling brackets onto a 100’ high tunnel (think small greenhouse), happily dreaming of the tomato plants that will soon inhabit the warm enclosure. All of a sudden it’s as though we’ve found ourselves living other peoples’ lives. And we’re loving it.

Wait. Chickens? Greenhouses? Maybe I should back up and explain a few things.

Then again, maybe not. In my head I planned a long blog post about exactly what we’re doing, where we’re doing it, and the journey of how we got here, but I’ve decided instead to just jump right into it because, well, that’s how life is sometimes. It just goes too fast for you to keep up. Plus, family and friends and facebook followers already know the deal: we’re farming in Virginia for the season thanks to a nonprofit organization called the Local Food Hub.

So, with that non-intro out of the way, let me get back to telling you about living our new farm dream. Every day these days is a brand new adventure, with exciting projects and learning opportunities around every bend. I’m doing my best to approach each one with gratitude and a beginner’s mind. And a journalist’s notebook.

Here’s a quick recap of the past week:

• Monday night, our first at the farm, was a bit of an adjustment. I, for one, adjusted my sleep habits – I no longer need a sleep mask to cover my eyes as there is no artificial light coming into our bedroom windows. This may not sound amazing to you, but believe me, I am thrilled with this aspect of country living.

• Another nighttime discovery: We can see stars – lots of them! For a girl who grew up not 20 miles from the bright lights of Manhattan, seeing nothing but shining stars at night is an amazing, and unusual, experience.

• We awake every morning to birds outside the bedroom window, fluttering about as though it’s almost spring. With daytime temperatures in the 60s most days, they’re probably right. [What a strange non-existent winter it’s been!]

• Depending on which direction you look, views out of our cottage windows include over 60 acres of cropland (one acre of which is ours this season!), a greenhouse, a packing shed, educational barn, high tunnels and hoop house structures, and the Blue Ridge mountains in the distance. Yes, this is a working farm. And yes, it is beautiful. We get to watch the sunrise over farm fields, and sunset over an apple orchard. Idyllic is an understatement.

• In exchange for renting the cottage, there are a few chores that are required of us each day. First and foremost, remember the chicken-poop scooping? The farm’s ~20 hens provide eggs for the farm’s owners and Local Food Hub staff, and it is now our job to make sure they stay well fed, watered, and generally happy. (Let’s not tell my new charges what happened to our backyard chickens in Burlington.)

• We’ve ordered (and received!) most of our seeds for our one-acre plot this season, and will begin planting them in the greenhouse imminently. I can guarantee a longer post about our new seed babies very soon. Make that many, many posts about our many, many babies.

• We’ve already been making connections with farmers in the area. On Wednesday we attended an event – one of many educational workshops hosted by the Local Food Hub – on the topic of Financial Management for Small Farms. We learned a ton about everything from direct marketing techniques to farm labor laws to bookkeeping advice. We also connected with some of the Local Food Hub’s partner producer farmers and were even invited to dinner by some other new farmers in the area. An offer I expect to take them up on very soon, now that we’re in major networking (and friend-seeking) mode.

• This week we also took some steps forward in our marketing efforts for our new endeavor. We’ve applied to be in two local farmers’ markets this upcoming season so we can sell our produce directly to consumers in the area. One of the stricter “producer-only” markets (only people who grow their own food can sell at the market) required us to have a signature from an Ag Extension agent as proof that we are actually growing our own food. We met our local agent – Cathy – on Thursday. There wasn’t much to show her as nothing’s in the ground yet – heck, the ground isn’t even tilled up in our plot. But I guess we had trustworthy faces because she signed the application. That doesn’t mean we’re in the market yet – we’re probably on a pretty long waiting list of farmers who want to sell at the downtown Charlottesville market, but we’ve made an important connection to the world of extension offices.

• We’re talking a lot about crop planning, recordkeeping, and organization for our farm plot. I have a lot of things to say on these topics, and most of them start with the words “I hope” as in “I hope we can plan out a good schedule for our crops and keep good records this season.” And, “I hope we aren’t too late getting our onion seeds planted tomorrow.” Here’s to hoping!

In addition to all the new experiences on the farm, we’ve also made time this week for two live music shows, volunteering at a plant nursery (including shopping for $60-worth of baby fruit trees), and exploring the local area a bit.

In sum, we’re loving our new farm home. True, it’s a big change from being homeowners renovating our house for the past sixteen months to being renters living on leased farmland. In the big picture this is only a temporary landing place for us and yet I’m feeling more settled and grounded than I have in a long time. We’ve found ourselves throughout this week commenting on how surreal the experience feels. How beautiful our surroundings are. How comfortable and inspired we feel on a farm. I can’t think of any place I’d rather spend this growing season (~nine months) as we put our energy into learning everything we can about small-scale sustainable farming practices, growing our own diverse acre plot, and basking in the beauty of this place.

It’s a hard life, but somebody’s got to do it!