Oh wow! This turned out to be WAY more awesome than I had anticipated.
To start with, it was our anniversary. So given a choice between a romantic weekend get away in Middleburg, VA Wine Country...OR a weekend staying at a working farm, milking cows and other ridiculousness, you have to know my husband and I to understand that it was a no-brainer. Besides "romantic wine tasting"? That's just a normal Thursday night for us.
So my husband did a little research and found Verdant View Farms.
They have two houses - the main house (which was taken over by a Girl Scout Troop that weekend), or the Little White Cottage, which has 3 rooms. We opted for the Little White Cottage (Room 6), and had a marvelous time. The only downside to staying in the cottage is that it's very close to the road, so during the day, when cars and trucks are going by, it can get really loud (and ruin the whole "country getaway" ambiance). HOWEVER, the benefits of staying at the cottage outweigh the only negative. To start with, although you will hear street traffic (and it's not that bad - it's not like DC or NY. It's like a car every 5 minutes), you will ALSO get to hear the awesome clip-clap-clip-clap of the Amish horse and buggies driving past (yes and there are a *ton* of them). Also, our room overlooked a beautiful old oak tree and a pond with swams swimming. Incredibly picturesque! And mostly, it's away from the main house, which is lovely - but *very* close to the cows...and the cow manure smell. Ha!
So the deal here is that at 7am or at 4pm you can "help" with the farm chores. And by "help", I mean, stand around while one of the staff explains stuff to you, while you look on cluelessly. Don't worry, you don't actually have to DO anything...you're mostly following the staff around and going "oooh...that's a chicken!"
Although it's early, I highly recommend the 7am choring. To start with, the staff have been up for hours, so they are having a great time laughing at the lazy city folk (it's OK, I'm a lazy city folk and perfectly OK with that). Also, you get to see the sunrise, which is super amazing. We "milked" a cow. And by "milked", I mean we touched a cow udder and the cow started self-milking. I swear, the damned thing would just start squirting milk. If I wasn't convinced that the cows were trying to eat me, I would totally have found it hilarious and charming. We also got to cuddle baby bunnies (awww), and baby kittens (there are a billion of them and they are all so adorable and cuddlesome), and bottle fed a baby calf (they can suck down some milk!!!), and played with the baby goats (which my husband totally fell in love with).
After the 7am chores, we headed to the kitchen, got some coffee, and sat on the main porch watching the sun finish rising while waiting for breakfast. It was remarkably relaxing and lovely.
Breakfast was served at 8:30 and OMG it was so good! Practically everything was grown/made on the farm, so it was super fresh! We started off with homemade apple sauce with yogurt, then we had homemade beef sausage (so flavorful and meaty!), and warm cranberry pumpkin muffins, and then a swiss chard & kale frittata (the swiss chard and kale was grown in the garden out back...the eggs were gathered from the hens). We also had hard boiled eggs that were so fresh (3 of which we collected when we were doing "chores") that you can't peel the egg shells...you cut it open with a knife and eat it with a spoon. The shells are so thin that they don't peel easily! WHAT WHAT??? And OMG...my ultimate favorite - the pumpkin raisin bread French toast with peach jam stuffing...uuugh...I ate so much! There was also black cherry yogurt, plain yogurt, jam, and bread. It was so much food!
Oh - and we were served raw milk...from the cows that were just milked this morning. So if we end up dying or turn into hipsters, we'll all know why. HA!
After breakfast, we went on a wagon ride that explored the farm. Seriously, I learned more about farms than I ever thought I would in my lifetime. I love to joke about farms and "city life" - but seriously, it was amazing. Everyone here was wonderful and sweet and nice and so willing to talk to you. It was just a great time. read more