Starting life on the farm...

Where to begin?  First of all my life is very surreal right now, for better or worse.   The facts of where I am, what I'm doing,  and how long I'm doing it just sunk in last night after my first day of work.   I'm just going to jump into describing the scene.
  I'm on a plum farm, not quite at the top of a mountain as promised but surrounded by them.  The farm is owned and operated by a woman affectionately known as Plum Mama, Ms. Yang.  I have no idea how long she's been doing it, but I'd guess at least 20 years, but it could be way more.  The farm, though centered around plums, is host to a hugely diverse,  wholly organic, set of crops.  Though very serious at times, Ms. Yang is actually very light hearted and very creative in the running of her farm.  Her easy going but hard working attitude has lead to the farm having a very permaculture sort of feel to it, more or less by accident.  The woman is  serious about plums though, and everything that can be is made with them.  It's a good thing I like sour foods because as a rule of the farm everyone has to drink plum extract for health.  Basically everything we eat is grown here,  including the poultry.  I definitely chose the right place in terms of diet, as they don't keep pigs and and hardly eat any meat.  Everything is delicious.  They were a little worried about my coming I guess because the last westerner was a Canadian who basically didn't eat anything and it was a lot of hassle.  I've already been told that I've overturned their ideas of westerners, as I eat almost everything, I like tea and not coffee, and prefer hot water to cold.  I'm weird though.  
  As for everyone else, the farm has two staff, Uncle Han and Uncle Akuan.  We haven't spoken too much yet and they tend to speak most of time  in Taiwanese.  Also at the farm are another Taiwanese woman, a friend of Ms. Yang, I think, and another Wwoofer like me, a woman from Malysia.  Living both here and sometimes in Taipei, where they have a shop is Ms. Yang's daughter, Joy, with whom I had my first long talk about philosophy all in Chinese.   As overwhelming as the language is, some conversations like that one have  been reassuring successes.  
   Days are long, punctuated by meals we're called from the fields for by a bell.  Although I enjoyed pruning trees, I have to say weeding a half acre field of peanut plants is one of the longest, most tedious things I have done.  I'm really lucky I have at least as much of an attention span as I do, or I would be screwed.  As it is I have concerns for my mental health a month from now.  I'm working closer to 8 hours a day than 6 but I can't complain considering the quality of the food and the size of the  room they gave me.  Quite comfy.  
   Ms. Yang had me teache her and the other women Chi Gong last night, which was an experience.  Got some good speaking practice, but it was a little weird to  be a Buddhist/Taoist  westerner teaching Chi Gong to a bunch of women on a farm in Taiwan, two of whom are Christian.  They loved it though, and the well-informed questions about Chi Gong such as whether both sexes could do the exercise and where/when it was best to do them highlighted the cultural differences from back in Albuquerque.
 There's a chance we're  taking our day off at the  coast tomorrow, and it sounds like we're going to a good surfing spot, so I'll keep you posted.
P.S.  There's internet here but only to the computer in the main house so I can only be on a short while in the evenings, just enough  time to post somenthing I already typed and check my email.  Also for those who don't know, my new, apparently not so waterproof phone died while surfing, so my only camera is my tablet now, so probably less photos.