MeInMaine Blog

Author: Andrew Mooers

  • Maine, If You’re Looking For Layers Of Complexity, Keep Searching.

    Maine Is Simple Outdoor Living Without Lots Of Money Spending.
    Maine, Get Fed What You Need, Not Everything You Think You Want.

    Not many on the green blue marble can not see the wisdom of keeping it simple, avoiding complicating life styles.

    But not every place is like Maine. Careful though. When we say life is simple in Maine, it is not because the people are backward. Not see Dick, see Jane slow. It is a choice to put family, community, working hard at your vocation first. And avoiding the traps set by all the marketing rays the average guy and gal is exposed to in country.

    Stand up. (Running Geiger counter up and down in body scan)

    Hear that stratchy radioactive static sound?

    You, I, all of us are bombarded with messages, sales pitches cleverly spun. Hidden agendas to scare you about this, but quickly offer a remedy for the condition, situation. With three easy, one not so easy payment if you order before midnight tonight. Marketing has advanced to a degree that “retail therapy” and shopping for something, anything has become the drug to temporarily knock back the addiction. And many in this country rely too heavily on others for a small fee to tell you what you need, where to get it.

    Mainers don’t fall in to the trap of happiness tied to over spending. Something new, shiny, costly.

    The “more it costs the happier we get” thinking is not the artifical air we breath in Maine.

    The price is too high, the money we work hard for more precious than to be spent that way. We avoid debt like the plague and consider too much of it like living in poverty because it sucks the life out of you. Worry about not having enough to impress someone, to maintain a high on the hog lifestyle is not what we teach our kids. Getting value, considering if you just want it, or need it logic applied daily.

    Maine is 46th lowest in the nation for FSSR (foreclosure, short sale, repossession) for a reason. Better spending impulse control. And not falling in to having every pitchman on the media telling us what we need and where to buy it right now. We have not lost the art of thinking for ourselves. Frugally stretching our every day household dollar with habits that never go out of style. Not doing one load of laundry with only Susie’s jeans in it because air raid sirens, a national emergency has been declared in the four walls called home. She hisses, reminds all within scream shot she has a dance in under two hours people.

    Desperately needs that certain pair of jeans this instant. To complete the look, put icing on the mirror ball music event.

    And the entire household is on red alert status until she has them. We do full Maine laundry loads Suzie. Kids plan for events, or learn from tough love because they didn’t. But only once.

    Maine is blessed with four season outdoor entertainment. The kind that is a natural HBO that costs nothing if you are lucky enough to live here in Maine.

    That’s why many retire, relocate, move to Maine.

    Or very low cost if all you do is use a Vacation tankful of gas to get here. Pick up some grub. The food you cook, grill, steam under the sunshine cobalt blue days, star lit black velvet nights camping by a Maine lake. Listening to a loon, spending time with yourself away from the concrete jungle roamed by gangs, riddled with crime, noise, pollution. Maybe the Maine fun is amplified because the cinderblock of debt is missing in the 4th lowest crime state. Because we take the need for money to fuel our entertainment out of the equation. Wiped off the table completely.

    The desire to impress others with flaunting those Benjamins, Hamiltons and Grants not needed because it doesn’t work that way in Vacationland. Who you are, what you contribute to the local Maine village is more important than the size and number of bank CD’s in Maine. I know someone that can help you with the move, relocation, retirement to Maine. To show you the low cost Maine real estate.

    Maine living. Simple by choice, years of experience.
    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com

  • Maine School Vacation For Youth Key To The Aroostook County Potato Farm Harvest.

    Maine Harvest Break For Area Youth To Help Potato Farmers Get T. he Crop Out.
    Early Mornings, Late Nights, But What An Experience For Local Maine Youth.

    Local Aroostook County farmers I have talked to estimate half and more of their fall potato harvest crews are from the local schools.

    And without them, it would be very hard to find workers for the fields, potato houses for that three week period. But down country, other school systems don’t have fall harvest break. The area of Downeast Maine has blueberries to rake but the season is over the summer.

    Maine potatoes need some time to mature, to be ready for harvest.

    And for decades, the tried and tested Maine potato harvest ritual has been a rite of fall. To go in to school three weeks early the tail end of summer to get three weeks off for the area fall Maine potato harvest.

    When a person from Aroostook County applies for a job down country, out of state, the potato field work is well received when your new boss eyes your job application. He or she knows you know how to work.

    The Maine potato harvest is a special time of year.

    Most in Aroostook County worked the harvest growing up. Their kids have been part of it too because of the benefits to the youth, to the local farmers.

    Buying clothes, items with their own money makes kids a lot more chosey, slow to spend. They develop control to get a deal or keep looking for one. They take better care of what they buy. There is a great pride, satifaction from helping the area Maine potato farmers. The partnership is a two way win win. Kids learn entry level manual labor work skills.

    Some may decide to be farmers for it.

    The Maine potato field experience is the only FFA (Future Farmers of America) program we now have in Maine schools. Where our local food comes from is only going to increase in importance. And the Maine farmer is a key to that local food supply. Also contributing greatly with hundreds and hundreds of field acres.

    All that land, those farm warehouses, machine sheds, buildings property taxes year after year. The licensing fees of farm related vehicles, gas and sales taxes. Pouring in to the local tax base coffers to support that school budget.

    More and more, the education cost burden is being shifted to the local sector from the state, federal tax sources.

    The helping hand local Maine farmers extend to fund local schools so directly means the least we can do is return the favor. Show appreciation for what they provide the area, the youth. They request to preserve the harvest break, their labor source. Don’t forget to mention how much is contributed to other local businesses by having a farming sector in your area communities either.

    Maine farmers create new wealth from markets down country, out of state. An industry without the smoke stacks. Not just turning over the same dollar like a local service or retail outlet. Sometimes markets are even out of the country.

    Maine farmers spend much locally for labor, gasoline, utilities, fertilizer, seed, pesticides and expensive equipment. And the parts to keep that machinery going in the fields from tractors, bulk bodies to warehouse bin loaders, specially designed air ventilation systems. Everthing designed to extend storage for table stock, seed and processor spud varieties. And do everything possible to increase yields.Working around the Maine weather that is anything but predictable or dependable. Maine farmers are survivors, not guaranteed weekly pay checks. They don’t ask for much, but need the harvest break preserved, in place.

    The state says kids have to attend school around 180 days a year for their education. The Maine potato harvest is a vital part of a young adult’s life skill set. The education needed to survive out in the real world. The work is hard but rewarding. Anything worthwhile in life is. With consolidation of school systems and vocational centers, some argue that the harvest break causes scheduling problems.

    It boils down to do the administrators, teachers, local tax payers feel the farmer’s plea for continued harvest break is worth it or not.

    If they do, if they worked the harvest and give much of the the credit to their own personal hard work ethic training coming from the local farm labor, they will find a way to perserve the heritage.

    Around the regulations, working solutions because they believe in the education value outside the class room. The tradition and strong personal pride in their local fall potato harvest that makes Aroostook County special, unique. Well known outside it’s borders and worth maintaining when you consider what happens if it is not. To farmers needing the helping hand from youth. To kids that are lucky to have the local work option that not many other areas of the country do, where youth miss out big time.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com

  • What Happens To The Three Acre Maine Farm Field, Land?

    The Wildlife You Meet On A Maine Farm Tractor.
    Maine Hobby Farming Increasing In The Pine Tree State.

    Farms, everyone in Maine lived on one at one time.

    Grew up knowing hard work. The ups and downs of depending on the weather when you can not. Not flush with cash, but having everything you need. Food, wood to heat with, home made mittens gram in the rear apartment lovingly pearl one, knit two to create just for you. To keep your hands warm when waiting for the bus on the end of the very long driveway. Or playing during recess, after school when the chores were finished.

    As the farmers in Maine up and down roads in small towns disappeared, or became merged with larger operations, the little small three acre fields lost their appeal, utility.

    Bigger, better, automated planters, cultivators and hoes, harvesters rolled in.

    Turning around that machinery when it just got settled in to the field and hydraulics lowered not an easy production in small spaces. The stop, turn, reset dog and pony makes the efficiency meter tank, bend, snap.

    So those little Maine fields either are attractive to yesteryear two row antique farmers with Super M’s and John Deere B’s put put putting around them. Because no high in the sky over head expenses looming. The same field ideal to fence, lead in some critters, short or tall and all with four legs. A shared love for clover, grasses.

    So profits being high not the carrot with this hobby, small scale Maine farmer.

    More after the lifestyle of being surrounded by the farm outdoor experience. Often one of the couple holds down a “real job” for benefits like insurance, for stability. To help with the cash flow tide in and out of the local bank account to run the Maine household. Keep things together fiscally sound.

    The high powered, agri-business whiz with two phones going all the time needs to be able to sail, cruise, plant, manage, harvest fast. Hits the ground running, hustling and time is money like the UPS guy or gal behind the wheel of the brown truck with gold lettering. Finger on the pulse of the market, latest scientific varieties that don’t break down in storage for those long, out of state market hauls.

    The number of smaller hobby farms in Maine is on the increase. And the little fields, land acreages serve this purpose, fit like a glove.

    Because the field is too small for the bigger Maine farmer.

    But just right for the little guy that can work the fertile soil. Dig in the dirt and produce food locally grown for the tables around his zip code. No matter which area of the sixteen counties in Maine he finds himself lucky to be in.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com

  • The Maine Postman Dropped Off A Spring Seed, Nursery Catalog.

    Late Winter in Maine is a time you begin to think of spring vegetable seed planting.

    Being on your knees in the spring fertile, tilled orange brown dirt. As the winter sun lingers longer over Vacationland each day, peat pots in the kitchens of Maine households begin to germinate. Popping up despite a snow storm warning brewing, coming in from down country. The one predicted, promised in tomorrow’s forecast.

    The new seed catalog arriving weeks ago. Ordered from, product already delivered by the same mailman who dropped off the intently studied, now dog eared vegetable publication. Munching breakfast eggs, bacon and toast as tiny very green micro shoots push up from the perlight. White specks dotting the fertilized black top soil watered, talked to, and those seedlings already mentally planted in the field behind the Maine country farm home.

    Spread over newspapers, the potting soil with growing plants in those dissolvable, bio-degradable containers are just temporary homes for new peppers, tomatoes, other vegetable seeds poked deep.

    Oriented to the Maine sun.

    Eventually to be moved to a side glass sunporch. On the way to a greenhouse, makeshift hot house wooden skeleton. The one waiting for new plastic sheets secured by banking lathes and brads before the seedlings check in for a brief stay.

    Growing you own food in Maine is a production. A drawn out process but a labor of love. It becomes a second nature habit passed on by the last generation to the next. To assure fresh, locally grown food for your family. Extra food for other neighborhood tables. To sell at the down town farmer’s market or vegetable stand your kids man when the produce is in season.

    This is the kind of food you know where it came from. Not genetically altered. Not trucked in from many states away. Or sprayed with perservatives, rubbed with protective marketing waxes.

    Because you were there at birth.

    Nutured from seed, to sprout to plant that is culivated, harvested, eventually stored. To get that family through the winter months.

    Using root cellars of cooler air in basements with carrots in sand, potatoes in barrels. And rows of jars of bread and butter pickles, vacuum sealed containers of stewed tomatoes, green beans, corn, applesauce. And plenty of blue hubbard, acorn squash, onions, cabbage, etc to draw from in the household grocery. The food bank that sustains the family with contributions on daily trips up and down the cellar stairs.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com

  • Maine 91% Wooded, Burning Firewood Nothing New.

    Instead Of Bush Hogging, Fire Quickly Removes Farm Pasture Debris, Old Growth.
    Controlled Spring Grass Fires, Like Home Wood Burning Part Of Maine Life On A Farm.

    Fires at night at a lake camp in Maine with friends around it are a common past time.

    Talking, gazing as the flame dances, crackles and gives off all those positive ions. You can detach, dream, and bath in the heat, the glow. And enjoy friendship with others around that fire. While your kids play hide and go seek, other games in the background. Drifting in and out of the camp fire circle. Picking up bits and pieces of the conversation. Building childhood memories, family traditions.

    When you grow up in Maine, fire wood gathering, processing is part of the long list of chores you tackle once a year. Not everyone burns work exclusively to heat their Maine homes. But many go through a cord a year in a kitchen end heater. Or put stove wood through a cellar unit that at least heats the house floors. The nightly ritual of going down to check the fire. Throw on an extra log or two to keep a bed of coals going through the night. So there is something to work with the next morning when you wake. And it may not be as toasty warm as when you toddled off to bed eight hours before in your Maine home or farmstead.

    Europeans, especially Scandanavians, give their woodlots to their kids, future generations in as good, hopefully better condition than when they received it.

    That is good land stewardship. Deep seeded appreciation and respect for the woods. And trees which to me demonstrate the true meaning of the word patience. My dad always told me in the family 100 acre wood lot in Ludlow that an acre, roughly an area 208′ by 208′, produces at least a cord a year if managed properly.

    But overseas, because of wars, burning wood for so many centuries longer than us, the natural resource is not so plentiful in those areas. Better wood burning stoves with higher efficiency come out of those places because of it. My dad used to sell Jotul wood heaters. And any time I have a Maine real estate listing with a Jotul stove of any model in it, the sellers invariably never ever leave the Jotul behind in the sale. They get that attached, bonded.

    Depend on that wood stove, not walking out the door without it.

    Causes a little arm wrestling in the Maine home sale negotiations. And someone never having burned wood, exposed to it wonders what’s all the fuss. Only a wood stove. Not to the seller who relies on it for warmth, comfort or even cooking.

    Think of how valuable, how everything centered around the one old antique cook stove of early Maine settlers, farmers, lumbermen. A big part of daily survival revolved around that one “appliance”. Heat for living, fire for cooking. Hot water from the neighboring copper tank heated with coils in that wood stove. Or just a big pot on the old kitchen wood stove heating up water for the Saturday night one bath a week ritual. Whether you needed it or not.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com

  • Maine, It Changes Your Life.

    If I could only live in Maine full time, if I could get the other half to move to Vacationland, etc.

    Hear those heavy sighs, regrets, laments every day. The attraction is the many sides of Maine from rugged rock bound coastal scenes with lighthouses, freshly caught lobster and steamed clams. Or the thousands of acres of Maine woods to explore, or being on the water of our many lakes, ponds, rivers. Less people and more elbow room are a big attraction of Maine.

    But the best things you remember, that grab your attention, your heart and never let go in Maine is the long long list of what we don’t have here in the Pine Tree State. No traffic, no gangs, 4th lowest crime state status in the country. The lack of light pollution so you see millions, billions of stars on a night sky of black velvet.

    Lack of high prices, lots of zeroes in our Maine real estate property price tags.

    Our fun is no or low cost. You won’t need a lot of money here to live day to day. We don’t play the “impress and woo” with money “look at me, better than you” dog and pony in Maine.

    People that ignore you don’t in Maine.

    You don’t find unfriendly here.

    A nod, wave, smile happens in Maine. Not being snubbed, avoided or mentally air brushed out of the picture frame. Folks care about you. You feel it instantly wash over you, tension lifted. When you cross the New Hampshire, Quebec, New Brunswick border. And you can relax, push the seat back a notch or two and take a little slower breath of fresh Maine air.

    Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com
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