This “What We Did” is going to be formatted a bit differently because we didn’t really go anywhere….and that was a nice change. The reason for our slow down was how great our campground at Wolfe Neck’s Center was.

The campground is part of a working farm, research and education center located directly on the coast next to Wolfe Neck State Park which has been a favorite travel destination of Meg and I’s for over a decade. The center includes a working dairy farm, grazing sheep and goats, chickens, turkeys, many kids activities, a huge event space, modern farm store and so much more. The kids had a blast just riding their bikes all around the huge property to check out the ocean shore, playground, latest going on’s at the farm, etc.

While at the farm we were able to partake in a variety of “farm fun”. First the boys helped out with morning barn chores. This is a free activity (donation encouraged) that the farm offers every Saturday and Sunday morning. The boys helped to feed and water the goats, let out the turkeys, and move the sheep from the pasture to the barn.

Later on that day we participated in what be the strangest, but most fun hike we have had in Maine – Hike with a Goat. Yup, you read that right. The farm lets you grab a few goats, lead them out to the woods and let them free to frolic around as you hike a mile through the woods. They even encouraged the boys to grabbed anything they could find to offer to the goats to see if they would eat it, which they (the boys and the goats both) were delighted to do.

Wolfe Neck Farms also does frequent tractor wagon rides with their absolutely zero suspension farm wagon (a design feature the boys found to be a ton of fun). The ride included some donut holes fresh out of the fryer covered in cinnamon sugar. The farm also has a sizable herd of diary cows you can watch them milk from an enclosed viewing platform everyday. The boys were fascinated by the process!

We did take one adventure outside the campground to go to the Freeport Fall Festival. It was HUGE for a town as small as Freeport. It had over 100 booths, tons of activities, food and more. They also did a great job spreading it out around the town so it never felt overly crowded.

This was our second time in Freeport this trip. While my symptoms were no where near as bad as they were when we stayed even further inland in the town of Freeport, they were still pretty bad. Given how close we were to the ocean here, just about 1,000ft and a few pines away, it likely means that Maine will not be our solution. We would need to downsize our property ambitions very significantly AND increase our budget beyond what we are comfortable doing to afford an ocean front property here. This means we will have our fingers crossed that the mountains or the Olympic Rain Shadow work for symptom relief and our housing budget.

After averaging 32 three miles inland and 7 directly on the shore, averaging 15 from only about 1,000 feet away was another clue that ocean exposure—not simply ocean proximity—may be what matters for me. We still don’t know why being right on the ocean worked, maybe it is the wind, the effects of salt water on the surrounding environment, or something else. All we can guess at this point is that it does help, and in order to get the benefit we have to be right on the shore.