Rick and I had camped at Recompense Campground, part of Wolfe's Neck Farm outside Freeport, Maine, many times in the past but never for free. We hadn’t known about the volunteer weekends – this year, the first and second weekends of May – where campers can stay for free in exchange for a day and a half of volunteer work.
The farm and campground are owned by a non-profit group that relies heavily on volunteer labor which we – and some two dozen others – were happy to provide. We arrived Friday night just in time for a lasagna dinner in the farmhouse and some brief instructions, then went off to our favorite campsite overlooking the water, made a fire and shared a glass or two of wine.
In the morning, we all returned for a continental breakfast then, about 9 a.m., started raking leaves from campsites. We were all ages, from a woman in her 70s who’s also a ski instructor in Vermont, to the 2-year-old daughter of the camp cook, and the little boy, maybe 4, who delighted in giving hand directions to the driver of the huge dump truck that would back up to retrieve our piles of leaves.
At lunchtime, we returned to the farmhouse for an outdoor barbecue and spent a little time wandering around in the barn to coo over such sights as a new lamb less than two weeks old. Then, back to raking until 4 p.m., when we were done for the day. We sat in our camp chairs and read, made another campfire, had a light dinner and just enjoyed being.
Saturday included another continental breakfast and an hour or two of light raking, then we were done.
We left slightly sunburned, slightly sore and greatly enriched.
“I think this is going to become a tradition,” Rick said.
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