ORLAND – Organic farmer Paul Volckhausen seems to have more in common with the homesteaders who lived on Fields Pond 100 years ago than with many of his modern peers.

Indoor plumbing and gasoline engines seemed to be the two inventions that separated the Curran homestead in Orrington from the Volckhausen operation overlooking Branch Lake. What they have in common includes not using chemicals and a commitment to community.

Both farms were open to the public Sunday for Open Farm Day. The Curran Living History Farm and Museum on Saturday also held an Olde-Fashioned Country Fair Day.

Best friends Alyx Thibeau, 10, of Bangor and Erica Marsters, 11, of Winterport on Saturday mucked out the horse stall in the Curran barn in Orrington. After putting fresh hay in the feeding trough, the girls pumped water into a bucket for Cooper Saint, the 27-year-old Appaloosa gelding that lives nearby.

“It was hard and fun,” said Erica about her chores on the farm. “I’d like to try living like they did 100 years ago.”

The girls agreed that of all the modern conveniences perfected over the past century, the computer is the one they would miss the most. The two speculated that being able to spend time with farm animals every day would make a journey back in time worth taking.

The mission of the Curran Homestead Project is to create a setting reminiscent of the turn-of-the-century rural lifestyle, where the traditional American values of cooperation and neighborhood that have served as foundation for present-day volunteerism are reaffirmed and advanced.

Unlike the Curran family, Volckhausen, 52, is the first farmer on his family tree in many years. The son of a college professor, he grew up in southern Virginia and moved to Maine in the 1970s.

He bought the Happy Town Farm in 1978 and over the years has turned it into a year-round operation, growing vegetables, raising turkey, sheep and chickens and harvesting firewood and maple syrup.

A certified organic farmer, Volckhausen sells his vegetables at the Ellsworth farmers market and to restaurants in Bar Harbor.

While neighbors haven’t gathered at his Orland farm for a barn dance or a roof raising the way they did at the Curran homestead 100 years ago, Volckhausen has reached out to his community.

Earlier this year, he sold shares in his farm to laid-off union workers through the Central Maine Labor Council. That helped him have the upfront money he needed to plant. Shareholders receive a bag of fresh produce each week during the harvest.

“It’s a good partnership,” he said Sunday, standing in the middle of his 4-acre field. “When people buy directly from the farmer, the money is more likely to be circulated in the local community than if they go to a chain supermarket.”