Christmas In The Woods

Into the woods

Seasonal campers form a unique—and largely unseen—community beyond the hustle and bustle

Trudy Alley could stay home in Nashua for the summer and be close to her part-time job as a nurse. But she’s found that being at home is not conducive to relaxation. There’s always something that needs to be fixed or painted, and she’d rather not get sucked into a summer routine of chores and tedium. 

Instead, Alley sets up a seasonal site at Old Stage Campground in Madbury, where she spent a recent afternoon reading and relaxing in her enclosed porch. She’s been staying at the campground since May, commuting to Nashua three days a week for work. It’s her 10th straight season at Old Stage, and before that she spent her summers at another campground in Lebanon, Maine, with her family. 

“My youngest son is 29, and he was 4 when I started camping seasonally,” Alley said. “All (three of) my kids grew up every summer at the campground. They’re all grown up now.”

Alley is one of many seasonal visitors who set up camp here and pass their summer days in small but cozy summer homes. The New Hampshire Campground Owners Association lists 22 private campgrounds on the Seacoast, and there are numerous others in southern Maine and northern Massachusetts. 

You can drive past some of these establishments and barely notice them, but if you turn down the dirt road and into the woods, you’ll discover a hidden community of families living in RVs, travel trailers and tents, many of them decorated with lawn ornaments, multi-colored lights and outdoor furnishings to make them feel like home. 

Alley’s setup features a covered porch swing, a portable fire pit, a picnic table, lawn chairs and an American flag, all surrounded by solar lawn lights. A sign affixed to the front of her porch reads, “Gone to the beach.” 

Deeper into the woods of Old Stage Campground, past a baseball field and a small fishing pond, other campers toss horseshoes, play basketball, or splash around in the pool. On weekends, the campground hosts activities like carnivals and pig roasts. During their annual Christmas in July event, many of the campers decorated their sites and the surrounding woods with bright Christmas lights.

“Every tree, everything was decorated in the whole place,” said owner Karen Redfearn. 

Some seasonal campers have been coming to Old Stage for close to 50 years, Redfearn said. They come to escape from the noise and bustle of civilization and to reunite with a community of likeminded people who enjoy the quiet tranquility of the outdoors in New Hampshire. Redfearn is particular about who can spend the summer here.

Babbs in the Woods: On pruners, poison and popping a wheelie on ...

It started pleasantly enough, sitting on a homemade platform behind an old Kubota tractor by a sinking stream in the Ozarks (that means the stream, because of karst topography, disappears underground and then reappears farther downstream), eating our lunch and listening to nothing but the breeze on this mild winter day. I had made exquisite chicken salad with dill pickle chunks (stuffed between French bread pieces) that popped and splashed juice all around my mouth.

It went downhill (even though it was uphill) from that point on … But there wasn’t really anything funny about climbing a rocky slope several times, about carrying pruners (my weapon of choice in the glade-clearing battle), poison (for hardwood elimination) and a first aid kit. Add to that my gun around my waist, along with my jacket, plus trying to break in the boots from hell that kept untying themselves at the most inopportune moments. I would think, “Dang! It feels like my boot is going to fall off,” and I’d look down to see laces flopping around and the tongue hung out again. Those laces kept catching on briars and brambles and working themselves out.

Wham, I caught my foot in a piece of web fence and down on went on my right knee – smack dab on a rock. $#%!!! That hurt. Still does. Up I popped and we slogged up to the glade. We clearing glades as part of our efforts in a landowners’ conservation grant by the state to improve wildlife habitat.

The clearing of the glade … part deux

Here’s how the process goes. My husband dons his chainsaw chaps and helmet with facemask, and then gets down to the business of felling every cedar and select hardwoods on the glade. The smell is divine, except when he topples an oak. Those smell bad, like rotten something or other. But the cedars in the breeze? Think Christmas in the air all around you.

My job? It’s threefold, really. It’s to take the antique, long-handled pruners and snip small trees and cedars. It’s also to paint Tordon on the hardwood stumps so that they do not regenerate. And finally, it’s my job to make sure the chainsaw guy gets help should he need it. That’s why I pack a first aid kid and why I need to be able to drive the tractor fast, if need be.

Things were going well. The massacre was in full swing, until … that breeze worked against chainsaw guy, and well, you can see what happened over there at the right.

Of course, that meant another trip down the slope, across the creek and to the tractor for wedges. Then we discovered the missing link … the hammer lay back in the tool shed by the house. So that meant we tried to drive in the wedges with rocks (talk about hurting your hand and absorbing all the energy in bones) and wood, and finally, we gave up and made a trip by tractor back to the tool shed to get the hammer, come along hand cable winch and tow strap. We wound up pulling that 25-foot oak down by using a strap and come along. Very interesting and what a thrill to see that thing fall.

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