After school I would come home on the bus to our farm a mile and a half from town.
Have a little snack and in the fall, before harvest it would be a trip to the field to pick corn, cucumbers, squash, peas and then sell them to folks coming round the clock before supper time. Summers spent cultivating and hoeing and also havesting strawberries to the same crowd.
One lesson that did not make sense was the lady in the Cadillac who wanted the best 13 ears that we gave for corn
Farm I Grew Up On In Houlton Maine
and would proceed to rip back and inspect lots of corn. With a baker’s dozen, the extra ear and fact our corn did not have worms and was fresh should have made her happy. She was often not much fun, complained about the cost and was always in a major hurry. On the other side of the coin, you have a lady with the rusted Rambler who was pleasant, tipped me a dollar, told me any 13 ears of corn or other vegetables were fine. She needed the dollar tip herself and the lady in the Cadillac that had the money, worried about letting go of any. One of many early lessons on the farm growing up in Aroostook County.
My real job is to list, market, sell Maine real estate. But in the process of doing blogs, videos, advertising efforts for real estate, making community videos also becomes part of the process to put the spotlight on in my case, Houlton Maine. Video can be a mix of stills like maps, graphics and say summer pictures of a property listed in the winter to forego a second video being needed. Today there is still snow on the ground, March 28th so any videos in the next two weeks rather than delay production will use stills from a time
Capture the local color of the area in making Maine real estate and community videos.
without snow, with green grass and flowers hopefully if we can scan and weave them into the video for each property we do.
We also do not just show the property building only, but the road in, the area. We want to capture the birds singing, the loons, the wind in the pines. Hit all the senses..we have five, not just eye sight to take it all in or experience with. And lastly, unlike many areas where all a broker does is sell homes, homes, homes, in Maine our office sells land, waterfront, farms, businesses and basically the area too with community video. Here’s a 100 acres and Maine cabin video over 3000 sets of eyeballs have scanned and that you can consider if you want to be off the beaten path! It’s asking price $79,900.
Okay. Here’s A Federal Style Home For Sale With 3 Fireplaces, 5 Bedrooms And Tons Of Features Like Stained Glass, Tin Ceilings, Woodwork Woodwork Woodwork! $299,500!
Maine Home For Sale In Houlton Maine
Big Corner Lot Is Double Sized And Location Short Walk (5 Blocks) To Down Town From This 90 Court Street home in Houlton Maine. Explore Aroostook County And Atlantic Canada Next Door! This One Has 2 Stairways, Tin Ceilings, Stained Glass, Open Porch! The Woodwork Is Stunning And Not Just In Isolated Areas..But Everywhere Thru Out This Pampered Landmark. The Cherry Formal Dining Room Is Amazing With Period Lights And Butler’s Pantry! Entertain Here1 Ideal Candidate For Bed And Breakfast Or Inn!
Lots of Maine potatoes, something to eat is not something everyone enjoys.
Some one special works behind the scenes to stock the food pantry shelves.
That loads up boxes designed for specific families as they are lovingly assembled. There is a local lady in Houlton Maine who works day in and day out at the Catholic Church’s Food Pantry.
She leads the leading force looking for loads of dented cans from large grocery chains and donations from this boy scout troop, civic organization or folks from every denomination. She is amazing and had eight kids of her own around long dinner table. There is a long list of helpers she created for unloading and emergency donations when the need is urgent.
This hard working volunteer lady is like the CEO for world hunger in the local Southern Aroostook area.
I asked her how come this cause…what drives her to be so creative and diligent year after year. She said as a child in the Boston area, she was hungry…a lot. She was raised with little money or food to go round and it became a way of life, survival. She did not consider it out of the ordinary to go to bed hungry without a meal when the rest of us sit down for sustenance or dine out. Not so unlike a concentration camp of past world wars. Or the poverty caused by the conflicts.
Trimming Beets At Nature’s Circle, A Local Organic Farming Operation In Northern Maine.
When you think about it…when was the last time you missed meals for a day, or were hungry to the point of passing out with low blood sugar and fatigue? I don’t mean dieting or young people purging or obsessed with skinny. This nation is so blessed with abundant food and at this holiday season, look around for food baskets to buy to feed a family over the holidays with beyond the bare essentials.
Consider signing up as our Rotary Club in Houlton does for ringing the bell of the Salvation Army’s Christmas donation kettle appeal.
Make it a ritual of what you do around the busy holidays to know the meaning of Christmas every year. Our local rotary club also raises close to a thousand dollars a year in $20 donations from club members to buy a basket with food given below cost by the local groceries in the Houlton area. It is so refreshing and heart warming to live in an area where people care for other people. Beyond the suppers for the cancer survivors or families that lost their homes in fires.
Also, Maine is loaded with farms. So much of the produce grown is wasted and left on the ground after harvest. Over-sized, kitchen grade vegetables are perfectly good for nutrition and just need to be gleaned. Before frost hurts the quality or the sun works its magic on the food left behind by the harvester. It is a same that roughly 30% of food goes uneaten that is perfectly good. Just needs to be channeled to the proper avenues to put it into the food chain before being lost.
You have so much…more than you could ever use and will get back a deep, sobering feeling of community by taking part in local drives.
Teaching Them Young. Mainers Help Mainers Of All Ages. To Learn Life Survival Skills!
Your kids are watching too and they can help ring that bell or deliver food to the pantry at your local soup kitchen! You may need a helping hand some day too. At our local rotary club we also have a Christmas auction with proceeds to help the local library and a portion for extra help for the Salvation Army Christmas appeal! Small towns in Maine are rural but tightly knit. The population pulls together to provide for the needs of all the locals and can expect the same support in life here in Maine.
Help get behind food pantries, soup kitchens in your area.
Shhhh.. be quiet as a mouse and do it like you are the only one that knows about the gift. That’s what makes it extra special and a sense of duty or a mission you can not avoid year after year!
When you live in a little rural Mayberry type town, that is what you are selling…small town values. Friendly people and a community that cares.
Trusting, no locked doors, willing to help. Northern Maine prices are so much lower than the rest of the world as the jobs are rewarding but giant pay to sport a couple Hummers in the yard is not the reason to move here. You won’t make as much money…but you won’t need to. Homes for $39,900…what’s the catch? Ahhh..let’s get out the map (unfolding sound of paper map) You are here (pointing) and way way up here on the Canadian border..Yes..that’s Houlton Maine. Aroostook County is the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island…and only 11 people per square mile. No road rage…no long delay getting across town. When you are a rural broker, property with land….farm type
Harvesting Maine potatoes with machinery and high school students.
listings are asked for alot. Selling single family homes in town is part of the gig, but acreage..getting the Jeep out back on the rear 40 acres is what many that want the path less traveled are interested in.
Since 911, folks in the populated areas have not felt safe…and their life is like a gerbil on a treadmill…frantic. They decide to cash in their real estate chips there…have some money left over after buying the farm or farmette or victorian in Northern Maine. Before they have a stroke and have to retire in the city, they opt out for rural america. Baked beans Saturday night. Church on Sunday, and maybe even Wednesday night. 4th of July parades with homemade floats, little leaguers marching, high school bands, yesteryear autos…and plenty of horses, fire trucks and armed forces units! Community involved on local boards, sponsorship of everything group going because you make your money here and want to give back…that’s life where the sky is bluer…the stars are brighter…and the people are spaced with lots of elbow room. Slow down…explore life in rural Maine. Grab a granola bar…turn on the Crosby Stills and Nash…reach for the Mother Earth News and start walking, sitting on porches watching sunsets and living…not just mad dash work work work!
School goes in three weeks early the end of summer..and then youngsters get out for three weeks of harvest when the potatoes are ready to pick! For pickers, 60 cents a barrel which is four baskets full and weights 165 pounds. For potato house and harvester workers the big minimum wage…which seems like a fortune to local 16 year olds that want an ipod or new stylish winter coat. The kids take better care of what they buy…and they choose carefully not wasting any of their own money. They equate if something is worth say six barrels of potatoes if sixty cents a barrel is the pay per barrel. They learn how hard money is to make, and what it buys or does not buy depending on how much time you put into getting the best trade. Better impulse control happens too when it comes to spending habits with their own money.
You finished your second cup of black coffee as the sun rises…off to the barn to throw some hay down for the small critters you are raising. Your partner is getting up too and fixing a big hearty breakfast. You have plans if the weather cooperates to climb on the old John Deere B tractor to pull a plow thru the back five acre field. If you get rained out, there is a box stall door needing repair and a long list from the job jar to tackle. Jack up the settling porch. Fix the fence charger. Head to town for parts.
This is Maine farming. No extra money to hire out the chores, repairs, updates. You can do it. You become a bit of a mechanic, part gambler, a half baked carpenter but all with the satisfaction of working the good earth. You burn wood from the sections out back that are studded with mixed hardwoods. Four out of five Maine homes burn oil but your home is not heated that way. The six cords out back cut, split and ready to throw in the cellar proves it. You work steady. You are not pinned to a wall or chained behind a desk. Everything around you is paid for. The home needs paint, but you are not worried or trying to impress anyone. It will get painted but your farm building repairs take priority as they are where you make your living.
You enjoy lemonade on the open porch at dusk, have no trouble sleeping and feel more alive than you have in years. Fresh produce from the garden. A cow you named Sirloin in your freezer is what’s being served on tonight’s menu at your Maine spread.
Your grandfather was a farmer and you remember bean suppers, summer canning and helping out around the place summers when you were “knee high to a grasshopper”. With the high cost of living, worries about heating your home in the city, are you ready to sell out, head north to Maine? Low cost living, high quality of life, longer years of being in the great outdoors and self sufficient. Sound like something you would like to try? You’ve had these thoughts for some time, that something’s been missing?
Maine..the way life should be. For fun you explore the back roads of Maine on snowsleds and atvs, your neighbors are deer, moose, wild birds. The best part? Elbow room, space, friendly fewer people, no crime. Runaway from where you are living now while you are healthy. Your family will benefit too from the local community values and courtesy. They still exist in Aroostook County! Dependent on the soil, the weather, each other. Having everything you need, not necessarily everything you want and being patient. Could you see yourself on a Maine farm?
