Author: Andrew Mooers

Houlton Maine, Tell Me About Aroostook County’s Oldest Town.

Houlton Maine, located on the shared east / west International border with New Brunswick Canada. Houlton is the “Shiretown” or the county seat of Aroostook.

The earliest settlers to Houlton Maine making the trek north distilled down from a small, closely related group of families. From the New Salem area, one specific location in Massachusetts.

Until 1820, Maine was part of the Bay State and most of the early pioneers that relocated in this vast wooded wilderness region did so along the coastal locations. Joseph Houlton was a leader, the most prominent of those stepping forward to buy his larger portion of land tract acreage. Located much further away from the rock bound craggy coastline, to the north along the fuzzy, vaguely defined Canadian Massachusetts (eventually Maine) border.

Nothing New, Small Maine Town Pride, The Fun Home Grown & Kept Simple. Nothing Has Changed.

A boundary that took years to define and included the Bloodless Aroostook War. Also known as the Pork and Beans War that was an international incident. Where Great Britain wanted to defend it’s timber interest in those King Pines, the Loyalist population across the pond.

The skirmish and saber rattling between the two countries caused the US Congress to authorize 10 million dollars and to mobilize 10,000 troops to define, draw the line between Maine and Canada.

That dividing boundary eventually was hammered out once and for all with the help of a bottle of whiskey to lubricate the legalese crafted into the hard fought, way overdue Webster – Ashburton Treaty.

In the early years of settling Houlton, the other townships, half sections too the new inhabitants bought their land stakes from grants given by the state of Massachusetts to academies, many other worthwhile causes. To peddle the property, to develop and tame the uninhabited wilds to the northeast. This section of distant land needing population granted to benefit the New Salem Academy was primarily settled by the founders of New Salem itself.

Who stepped up to buy the Houlton land designed to create sales revenue for New Salem Academy when takers to lay down the money were few.

Early in 1807, trudging in on snow shoes, the earliest settlers of Joseph Houlton Jr, Samuel Houlton and William Cary arrived on the winter scene. Later that year, Joseph Houlton landed in the region via a sea route from Saint John, New Brunswick. Some of the settlers of Houlton crossed in from next door, across the border in New Brunswick Canada. Caused from the natural expansion of the St John area growth that pushed to the outreaches of the New Brunswick frontier.

Lots Of Parade Watchers In Small Maine Towns. Your Friends And Neighbors Of Houlton Maine.

Expansions of lumbering timber resources, the rise of the potato industry due to being blessed with the high test fertile soil of Northern Maine. Both helped population numbers gain momentum. After railroads opened up the Aroostook Region and attracted lumberjacks and dirt farmers to the region on the border shared with Canada.

The earlier British timber exports especially paid for the purchase of goods from St John to help the Southern Aroostook area grow and prosper. More on Houlton Maine history.

The legal step of organization of the plantation of Houlton was needed to be able to levy property taxes.

It finally happened in 1826. With the hope that a second half township of Foxcroft, the Williams College grant was added to make Houlton a full six by six miles in size township. That union did not occur until 1834. Two years later than the Groton and Westford Academy grants formed the township of Hodgdon to the south of Houlton Maine.

Maine Is Simple Living, Basic And Loaded With Common Sense.

So now the much needed but denied earlier money requests from Massachusetts became available to establish a post office. Where previously the mail was often sent to Houlton in care of Park Holland of Eddington, a well established surveyor. Who knew the woods and waterways of eastern Maine and round about ways through Eastport, St John and the Baskehegan Trail to get the posts delivered.

The first regular mail contract from Bangor to Houlton Maine by the Baskehegan was awarded James Lander. With the Calais Stage Route becoming the pony express option for spread the news, deliver the letters and packages. Amos Pearce came to Houlton Maine in 1810. There’s a street in Houlton named after the first postmaster appointed by President John Quincy Adams in 1826.

Celebrating Fresh Locally Source Food With Maine Farmers At Open Air Markets.

As the Houlton Maine population grew now connected better with mail news from the outside, a greater need for schools sparked educational options.

That led in time to eventually nine public schools serving the Houlton towns people.

The early settlers had New England Puritan religious roots and at first attended church in the new land across the border in Woodstock New Brunswick. Woodstock, a dozen miles distant, was a settlement established way earlier in 1786 by Loyalists to the King of England. After the American War of Independence and a desire for space caused their migration to the northeast, across the Maine border.

So many early Houlton residents from New Salem attended worship services in Woodstock New Brunswick Canada.

But in 1811, the First Congregational Church did enroll the first eighteen members. As the population of Houlton Maine grew, worship divergence happened to create many denominations.

The Federal government in 1828 established a US garrison in Houlton Maine which added over a hundred troops that had families or ended up married to locals. The extra social interaction the troops brought to Houlton Maine and the contracts and payroll put a lot of extra money into the local economy. But the building of the Military Highway and much later in 1950 the Interstate 95 system to connect to Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, a SAC base with B-52’s helped tremendously to open up the Northern Maine region.

With Houlton Maine now the cross roads of US Rt 1, 2, 2A and I-95 the connector to the Atlantic Canadian provinces Trans Canada highway make the County seat a true transportation hub.

The early railroad too did what local rivers that froze over for half the year could not. The St Andrews and Quebec railroad proposal of the 1830’s ran into a boundary dispute and was dropped. The lack of the well defined dotted line to establish where Maine ended and New Brunswick began fueled cross border tensions that hindered railroad service that would create benefits for both sides.

All Walks Of Life Make A Small Maine Community Shine.

In 1960 fifty thousand railroad cars of potatoes were shipped from Northern Maine but destined to soon be trumped by the overnight service and just in time inventory control offered by trailer trucks. The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad was first incorporated in 1891. Shipping freight, offering passenger rail service and eventually operating a bus route to carry folks in and out of “The County”.

The soil profile of Southern Aroostook County around Houlton Maine is extremely fertile, with a level to rolling, undulating land terrain which supports the planting, cultivation and harvest of crops.

Or to make pasturing animals and haying an easier endeavor than more mountainous sections of southwest Maine where Sugarloaf USA is located. Or the less desirable for tillable row crop rocky more acidic soil profile along the coast of the state where wild blueberries are raked.

My Dad was president of the Maine potato council, did a lot of testifying in Washington DC as a national council member to help shape the spud industry that was number one in the country production at one time. Grains, sugar beets, dry beans, even hops, broccoli and an increase of organic farming in the Houlton Maine area is done hand in hand with beef and dairy. Houlton Maine has a dairy serving Aroostook County since 1938.

See, watch a potato picking farm harvest operation in full swing.

The town of Houlton Maine has classic buildings surrounding town center’s Market Square and beyond.

The housing stock is attractive, preserved yesteryear designs that show Houlton Maine’s status of the richest town of its size east of the Mississippi was well deserved. Money was plowed back into the intrastructure and the 1966 comprehensive plan of Houlton Maine was very forward thinking by local tax payers.

Exercised, Disciplined Maine Youth, Priceless.

Houlton Maine the site for the trans-ocean radio station that served greatly in World War Two.

The bits and pieces of the large antennae array through the woods system running miles and miles. The lines connecting England with Houlton Maine for radio intercepts is still found during walks through the woods. The radio station located west of Houlton on US RT 2 or the County Road where I grew up the youngest of four boys.

The radio station was located off the County Road, on what is now the residential property of Roger and Carol Hand.

Good mill sites were valuable to early settlers of Houlton Maine.

The state of Maine recognized the importance of good grist and saw mills to a beginning community. Sometimes granting 300 acres to the man who promised to start the first mill in a township of Maine.

Among the tanneries of the area, New Limerick Maine to the west of Houlton Maine was one important one. Set up in areas where there was a large abundance of hemlock trees. The wood bark needed for treating the hides to make leather.

Grand Older Maine Homes, Find Them Here. Listen To, Meet The Neat People Inside.

Hides were brought to the New Limerick tannery mill from around Maine. Those unorganized places early Maine looked like. From points more distant like cattle ranches out west, even from South America too.

The tannery in Island Falls was not established until after the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad line was well established. Another tannery was set up on Whitney Brook in Bridgewater Maine.

Fires in Houlton Maine shaped the look of today.

The first big fire happening on August 3, 1879. In the back of the Swanton building, the stable area opposite Fogg’s on Main Street. Seems a wind fanned the smoke that turned to flames and destruction. When the wind shifted westward the fire moved east wiping out most of the downtown Houlton Maine block.

The fire wiped out the C.P. Tenney row of buildings, his residence the second oldest home in Houlton Maine.

Being the one built by Samuel Wormwood for Dr. Rice. 21 Houlton Maine buildings including residences were wiped out by this blaze.

Shiretown Houlton Maine.

Nine months later, fire hit pretty much the same area again. It began in the back end of Samuel Gray’s workshop. On a dark night when water buckets were scarce the Aroostook Pioneer newspaper accounts report.

The only available water to fight the blaze in Houlton Maine was a “reservoir”. But it’s cover frozen below several inches of ice and untapped. This fire worked its way up and down Main Street and along Court Street. The Meduxnekeag River frozen over and no help either due to winter temperatures.

The Congregational Church caught fire and the nimble pastor at the time scrambled up the belfry. Able to put it out and save the building from ruin.

Houlton’s Great Fire of 1902 took out seventy five dwellings, three churches and left a score of business blocks in the Shiretown’s down town in ruin.

Eighty families were homeless. The fire started at the corner of Main and Mechanic Streets of Houlton Maine in the Almon H Fogg building.

The 1902 fire was fought with the help of the Woodstock New Brunswick Canada horse drawn fire carts providing mutual aid. That across the border helping hand when there is fire or diaster still happens back and forth today. Both departments work together when needed.

Houlton Maine, Aroostook County’s Oldest Town! The Shiretown Of Aroostook!

Small Maine towns are like that. This devastating 1902 fire of Houlton Maine burned a swath with straight sides all the way up to Bird Street. Where the horseshoe roadway entrance to the Houlton Junior and High Schools happens if you don’t access the back way. The Southern Aroostook Vocational Education complex is located near the armory and accessed off the Pleasant Street entrance.

Three major fires in Houlton Maine and the coming of the age of the railroad’s prosperity combined to create the brick buildings. Ones with intricate masonry appointments that are well preserved. All this saved from the past and better built to last. It makes Houlton Maine the fine Victorian downtown that it is today.

The Black And White Realities Of Running A Red, White & Blue Maine Small Town.

Maine Has Four Seasons, They All Transition Slowly To Allow Adjustment, To Be Ready.

Fires caused losses quickly rebuilt like the McIntire home, the White Building. The latter today the home for both the Houlton Chamber of Commerce and historical museum. The pair hiding, protected behind large dramatic pillars on it’s open porch. The White building painted ironically yellow is located next to Cary Library.

Wisdom, Entertainment, History Housed Here Row After Row In Cary Library.

Cary Library a Carnegie well stocked book and ancestor search facility made of rock solid granite. Cut and hauled in from around Cochran Lake in New Limerick Maine.

Cary Library has a children’s section second to none.

One heck of an area for chasing down your family history DNA for study of their exploits.

Ricker College started in 1848 met it’s demise after the Vietnam War caused it to lose the battle. Failing to keep the doors to higher education open that ended in the mid 1970’s. Ricker College, the classical institute that neighboring bedroom communities without a high school tuitioned their students to for yuears.

Ricker College’s school colors of gold and burgundy.

Ricker an industry for new money brought in from out of state students to turn over six, seven times. Many Ricker alumni stuck around and settled down in Houlton Maine after college was completed. When chasing the sheepskin process ended for financial reasons or graduation happened and obtaining the diploma.

When You Live In Maine, Everything You Need Is Right On Your Back, Carried With You Daily For Skills For Home Grown Talent.

Instilling In Kids Early On The Right Stuff To Succeed. To Contribute For The Greater Good.

There were two hospitals in Houlton Maine.

I was born in the Aroostook Hospital delivered by PLB Ebbet. A doctor who I noticed on a graveyard walk to visit Joseph Houlton’s tombstone to mark his final resting place. The good doctor died four years after my birth and I was the last baby he ever delivered.

The Aroostook Hospital located on School Street where the Community Living Association now has their headquarters.

The merger in 1972 of the Aroostook Hospital with the Madigan Hospital located on Military Street was a controversial one but much needed.

One strong health care facility works better than duplication of two offering services struggling in a small Northern Maine town like Houlton Maine. Learn more about the Houlton Regional Hospital.

Welcome To Houlton Maine, Aroostook County.

Stay tuned for more on my home town coverage of Houlton Maine. The story of this small community is not so different from one of the other 15 county seats. Maine has a handful of cities, over 400 small towns and plantations. Learn more about Northern Maine.

Agriculture, forestry which is tree farming are big in Northern Maine.

The local farmers, the harvest of their crops is a big part of the local work ethic. Gleaning potato farm fields helps the local weekly grocery budget for family meals too!

A taste of what it is like to live in a small Maine community where folks are pretty darn friendly. Always pitching in to make worthwhile events happen as dedicated volunteers. That’s the point of the hunt and peck on the keyboard and uploading images from my travels around Maine today.

I hope this blog post on the Houlton Maine and her early history is helpful, educational for the the readers of Me In Maine blog.

I‘m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730

November 24, 2016
Amish Health Care Insurance, How Does That Work?

The affordable health care debate is a hot topic these days.

Turned up a few hundred degrees. As monthly coverage insurance rates double, triple and more. The postman is delivering daily news about the high deductible plan you used to have that is approaching the end of the line. Draining the affordable health care insurance pool that many were treading water in and pulling up stakes in many states.

The Black Horse Horse Buggies, The Walkers And Amish Bikers Hard To See At Dusk At Night In Maine.

And there are lower cost options for health care out there but they are not in compliance with Obama care.

And hey, what do the Amish communities do to comply with Obama care, for health care compliant coverage?

The Amish don’t have to because of legislation back in 1965 that excludes them with it’s roots from further back in the 1950’s. Tied to Congress’s exemptions and the Social Security Act. Read more on Amish health care.

Maine’s Amish communities are growing. This link describes a few Maine Amish settlements, population centers. I have sold real estate, farm land in East Hodgdon Maine to the Amish since this article hyperlinked above was penned and posted.

More FAQ Amish topics thrashed out in detail.

The Northern Maine Amish folks provide their trademark storage sheds, metal used for siding and roofing and grow organic food for distribution locally and in larger centers outside of Maine.

There is an Amish store on US RT 2 in Smyrna directly across from the Ridge Road northern entrance.

The Amish Freeway, Heading To Church Several Times In One Day.

You can load up the buck board wagon high with everything from Prairie Princess wood cook stoves to kitchen utensils, spices, home made items galore and bulk purchasing options for everything from candy to hardware staples at this darkly lit variety story.

The Price Is Right Bob and whatever is peddled is quality, used in the Amish households that give them the work out. Perform their own consumer reports testing on the local grass roots turf level.

The store with loading dock. Sky lights that make it better to shop during brighter days, not the overcast ones. Complete with a horse hovel run in for customers tying up their propulsion that waits patiently.

At the yesteryear establishment for mercantile where there is no drive through window or squawking static reminder. After repeating your order in wall to wall electronic jamming distortion like Mickey Dee’s or Red Robin, Sonic, Burger King. You have the personal discussion on the product, which is the better trade buy with the sales clerk in the aisle it populates.

Farmers Markets In Maine, Amish Community Members A Big Park Of The What’s Available For Home Grown Produce, Hand Made Items.

No impersonal cattle prod to proceed to the next retail station. After the read back of the order repeated in a blur of word slur. In Klingon or pig Latin, some form of gibberish to hurry it up and pull around lucky customer number 13.

Shake a leg. Be ready to leave the deep fried pit stop. Dig deep, have some cash or plastic ready Freddy.

Being careful to avoid accidently hitting a biking, walking, carriage using dressed all in black Amish community member takes concentration.

Monday nights I have play community play practice in Smyrna Maine’s historical museum, community center that doubles as the former Methodist church house of worship.

I don’t travel the US RT 2 highway through Smyrna after dusk and before sunrise for this reason. Hitting a horse, other livestock would be spell out a newspaper headline disaster for me and the animal. Hop on Exit 286 and off 291’s off ramp of Interstate 95 to avoid the roadway obstacles in Amish land.

When you meet a team of Amish horses sharing the roadways or coming into Market Square for another session of a Farmers Market, there is always a smile, a friendly wave. The children do the same, are a little quiet, shy, reserved but polite and well mannered.

Teaming The Horses, Working The Land In Maine Farm Fields. Amish Communities Do It Daily Around The State.

Like Maine’s other 5000 home schooled. It’s not true that this educational group has problems with socialization. Too busy working as a team to be highly productive and stay ahead of Jack Frost and Old Man Winter with their fence and building repairs, wood supply, root cellar, food pantry stocking from productive fields and pastures.

New enterprises in the local Amish community in Northern Maine where I hunt and peck these simple blog posts include bike shops, rustic furniture, leather tack for horses and more. They had wind power harnessed before the bigger monsters breeze beaters climbed up to sit atop the Maine foothills.

Travel North to visit, see the Amish settlements springing up in Sherman, the Limestone area of Maine and others more established, prospering.

Work ethic and quality work, fair pricing is not in short supply with the Amish dealings I have had personally. Taking care of themselves and not expecting, looking for a government hand out. Taking better care of their personal health on the physical, spiritual, financial level.

Using their own wits and sharpening their abilities, skill sets daily. The Amish are the best customer of the local used book store Volumes according to owner Gerry Berthelette. No TV’s. They are not glued to the glowing tube flat screen that brings FX, Netflix, HBO, CNN, Fox or the Disney channels into their hand built Maine homes.

(Clip Clop Clip Clop) Amish Horse And Buggies Ply The Roadway From Smyrna To East Hodgdon Maine Daily In Aroostook County.

There are farm chores to do with putting up produce orders, tending livestock this fall harvest time of year in Maine.

Large Amish families, an appreciation for what they have worked hard for from scratch as a community has taken up the slack on smaller, abandoned farm land tracts in Maine.

In one settlement, Thursday is Amish community building day. Where on rotation, the Amish travel by horse and buggy, on foot and by bike to wherever the weekly construction project happens to be slated on the chalk board.

Where the leaders deem a little joint help in the heave ho, here we go is needed. For the many hands make light work and a cheerful spirit carries higher the burdens of others collectively.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730 USA

November 20, 2016
Veteran’s Day, A World Wide Observance To Remember.

Growing up I peeled, turned the pages of black and white images of my Dad’s service in World War II.

He served in the Army Air Force as it was called at the time. Stationed in Italy and flying over German air space to drop a variety of bombs to hasten the end of the war.

My Dad, John R Mooers Was A B-24 Tail Gunner On A Liberator 4 Engine WW 2 Bomber Plane.

Each B-24 liberator four engine aircraft burned 200 gallons of fuel an hour, were manned by tight, superstitious ten man crews and the bomber planes flew in all the WW II theaters.

From Italy, Africa, in the Pacific because the B-24 had improvements over the B-17 bomber aircraft to make it go faster, further.

Carrying about 8000 pounds, waiting for the time when the order was given to open the bomb bay doors. With German 88 mm anti aircraft guns popping around you, the wind whistling, howling through the plane that smelled like a latrine.

Tracer bullets in the spray of ammo sent out from all sides of the flying fortress.

What You Wore In London England To Stay Safe, Prepared For German Air Raids, Gas, Fire And Bomb Attacks.

To help the gunner know if the target was being reached and to adjust the current, to make every second count.

In cold, un-pressurized cabins wearing electric flak suits, oxygen masks. In what seemed like a flying tin can coffin.

Trusting your 50 caliber gunners stationed around the plane to defend against determined fighters that were working their hardest to bring the aircraft to the ground.

To shoot it out of the sky or at least cripple it to distract and deter from dropping those bombs hidden inside.

The Imperial War Museum In London England.

If all went well, the B-24 leveling off at 28,000 feet and dropping the ordinance payload when over the primary or secondary targets in formation.

The pins pulled on the racks of bombs selected for the mission of the day. To fly over, make the bunker buster, incendiary or whatever type of “bombs away” milk run a success. Then high tail it back. Lighter, faster, every plane for themselves.

To get home to base. Eventually still alive and in time to family, loved ones state’s side. In one piece in the hop back across the pond.

300 B-24’s went up a day in the beginning of the war and 100 of them did not come back to base.

Buzzing In From Overhead, V-1, V-2 Flying Buzz Bombs Look For Targets.

Ten man crews meant 1000 men perished daily in each sortie bomb run from individual air fields.

Or some crew members who were not killed in action in the sky parachuted into enemy territory to hopefully avoid capture. Not end up stuck in a tree or taken prisoner.

My Dad flew in the tail gunner position of a B-24.

I am proud of my dad, two brothers that were veterans too. On a trip to London, it was special to visit the Imperial War Museum and see the war effort from the another country’s landscape perspective. And to see the effort put in by European countries and the deep sacrifice, from the toll of war.

The Warcraft, Tools Of WW II Hanging In A London Museum. Showing How The Population Defended Against Air Raid, V-2 Rocket Flying Buzz Bombs.

My youngest son Elliot was with me and toured the museum that showed what life was like under attack in London during WW II. Thinking of stories his “Buppy” had shared. Usually during slow snow storm rides on road where story telling made the time pass quicker.

Like touring the Arizona in Pearl Harbor, not much talking happens as you observe, reflect, sense the horror, the honor at the same time of those who served. As we toured the Imperial War Museum.

The “many that gave some, the some that gave all”.

Thank you to veterans around the World who served, to protect freedom. On this Veteran’s Day, we pray for those lost and never found, those families that lost members or had service personnel in their flock.

I remember Andy Spyker who told me another story about being in the Dutch Navy when Germany invaded his country of Holland and he got the news out to sea.

War Happens In All Countries, Veterans Day Observed Around The Free World. The Tomb Of The Unknown Solider In Paris France.

Shocked, but quickly receiving orders to defect. To rendezvous with the English and proceed at once to a nearby British naval base.

To refuel, get provisions, re-assignment of the 26 submarime ships markings/flagging and to be briefed on what happens next for his underwater crew.

That was instructed on English naval protocol and suddenly finding themselves in her royal majesty’s fleet, at the crown’s service.

Working their hardest arm in arm. To get Holland, England, the World back into peace time status and free of German, Japan, Italian Axis rule.

War. Not many escape it in their lifetime.

Veterans Day, it’s everyday for most people, their famlies where War happened and they had a role in fighting it to preserve peace.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730 USA

November 11, 2016
Daylight Savings Time, Messing With The Internal Clock.

Ben Franklin had a lot of good ideas for the country.

And back in 1784, daylight savings time was suggested by wise old Ben to save on candle use. What else was behind that suggestion to wind ahead in spring, to fall back in the fall the Seth Thomas, Timex, whatever time device to measure the sands in the hour glass?

Maine Vacations. Like Vitamins, You Need To Take More Than One A Year In Vacationland.

Was political wrangling at hand? Did anyone talk about negative health effects of daylight savings time or realize what they were suggesting that might back fire? Or now that it would run its course and become outdated?

Hawaii and Arizona don’t follow the daylight savings time habit.

And a dozen other states are considering the same non-observance of the 1966’s national law designed to save energy. And when Congress tightened up the habit by making it one more law on the books to follow. Or not.

Regardless if your state does or not mess with where Mickey’s big hand is when daylight savings time causes the take a jump forward or backwards one step. What does the adjustment do to a person? When you roll over and sleep in during the fall back? To peel off an hour in fall that is just beginning where I hunt and peck. How does daylight savings time affect the body?

Some say it daylight savings time messes with your inner workings despite the argument it saves energy, uses more natural lighting.

Reports of more heart attacks, car accidents, work place inattentiveness all pinned on the daylight savings clock monkeying with time.

Traffic Is Not Usually This Heavy Or Aggressive Dog Eat Dog in Small Maine Towns. But Watch Out For Daylight Savings Caused Accidents When Groggy Behind The Wheel.

You know what happens when you travel and time zones change. Your body does not just pick up the new dance step like snapping your fingers easy. Losing sleep, fooling around with the habits and routine of the average bear never is a good thing. RRRrrrrrrr, pass the honey, honey.

Maybe it is the constant inner reminder when you look to catch the time that it is really an hour later or earlier that a person does inside. The game to say no one is fooling you. The mind talking to the body to explain the leap taken in time but not totally adjusted to it just like that. Done against our will.

Daylight savings time takes adjustment and the age old wondering does it really save you and me any money?

Is daylight savings time worth it or maybe it depends more on where you are on the blue and green revolving marble. The way the tilt of the Earth affects natural lighting in your X marks the spot, “you are here” GPS location.

Feeling groggy when you used to be brighter eyed, bushier tailed. Daylight savings time does not help that even though if you had to pick, falling back in the falls seems more luxurious sleep wise right?

Was daylight savings time more for agriculture reason back in Ben Franklin’s day? Following the plow for farmers does not really depend on sunlight though anymore. Lights got invented, bolted on those iron horses and farming blindly and stumbling around farm fields no longer happens right? Even the Amish use neat LED torches, helmet lightning to see the path ahead.

Exercise, Up, Down, Sideways In The Old Port Portland Maine. Places To Stay, Restaurants To Eat At, Bars, Shops In Casco Bay.

Maybe old habits just die hard.

Or fighting the change could be more defiance. Don’t tell me what to do Big Brother, Uncle Sam. Or like a kid would say close to bedtime when sleep deprived from a go go go non stop day of having fun, making mischief.

“You’re not the boss of me” uttered to the parent trying to get the teeth brushed. The PJ’s on for the slide between the sheets, prayers, lights out.

Cue the Sandman. You’re on Pig Pen.

Spread some sleep dust. Or nudge, wink at the Tooth Fairy. If you remembered to fund the “celebrate the missing tooth” under the pillow part home dental operation of your kid’s childhood.

Regardless you adjust to sleepless nights no matter what is causing them. Daylight savings time put into practice twice a year or life’s ups and downs that keep you awake. Until processed completely and put to bed for good. Stay alert, drink better coffee as the daylight savings time works its magic and adjustment happens in Maine where it is still observed.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | mailto:info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730

November 7, 2016
Maine, Big State, Low Population | Spend Time Finding You In ME.

In the 1960’s there were fists raised high, shaking them at the Establishment.

Peace man, lava lights, bell bottoms, free loving the one you’re with, draft card and flag burning. Hell no, we won’t go. And many tie dyed t-shirt and headband lads and lassies needing a bath hopped the border into Canada to avoid the war in Vietnam. Waiting there eh? Until the get out of jail free amnesty card.

Have All You Need In Or Want A No Thank You Helping Of Something Sliced On The Maslow Hierarchy List ?

And after we got our boys and gals home, the migration of back to the land lovers headed to Maine to settle down. To find themselves. To start a new chapter of their lives in Maine.

Read one story of a group of young men from New Jersey who started the Crow Hill Settlement on two grand a piece.

Feeling lied to by the media, not trusting Big Brother to make it all right like your Mom used to be able to do as a young tike. That was part of the getting away to Maine and start over.

But also the attractive of cheap land, friendly accepting people and a population generally fewer in number than these young people we used to made the area conducive for homesteading. For awhile.

Winter weather had a sobering effect on the happy camper attitudes.

Making a living on minimum wage, migrant field work and several low paying part time hit or miss jobs took the luster of moving to Maine too. Without many skills but full of hope, something else and vinegar, some stayed. Dug in and made do. Others defected. Kept rolling like a rock and looking to find something missing.

(Sang Way Way Off Key) “Whole Earth In Your Hand… You Have The …. “

Maslow back in 1943 came up with a paper on the hierarchy of needs list. What we need to make us tick best. To tow the line, to keep time and march with the masses.

The owner’s manual to you and me was defined in basic needs terms. With 1954 came a book on self actualization, motivation and personality. The colorful graphic does look a little like the Darker Side of The Moon Pink Floyd album cover. We are like prisms that emit and absorb colors right?

What’s that Donna Fargo song I use to spin on Saturday Night Country Jamboree as a teenager DJ, back when they were live and local. About “You Can’t Be A Beacon If Light Don’t Shine“.

Lots in that spinning vinyl 45 rpm about you can’t expect forgiveness if you don’t practice it, or for someone to be honest and true if you don’t practice what you preach. Amen.

Donna claimed to be “The Happiest Girl In The Whole USA”.

Yes, it is a skippity do da day Funny Face.

Thank you Lord. Wake up sleepy head. The infection of some happy people bothers others most that lack inner joy. That are just not in the same frame of mind. An Eeyore Donna was not. Her rainbow colors were not blue.

Hiking, Dining On Food Cooked Outside. Feasting On This Kind Of Maine Scenery. Priceless.

And even Maslow worked with some greats like Einstein, others with clip boards and white doctor’s frocks. That studied the gray matter of the mind, but he did not want to spend his time with his rolled up sleeves and burning the midnight oil on what man has for personality defects.

Not focused on the what’s wrong. But what is needed to be right minded, at peace and contented.

The study of what makes the majority of us happy was the bull’s eye on the target. For helping the 3 out of 4 of us that are not really mentally ill walking around and fending for ourselves in society. Just a little out of alignment from the blur of life and forgetting how to stay centered.

What makes Jane, Thelma Lou and Joey, Jim Bob swim best with themselves and other fish in the community pool.

Human fulfillment, under achievers needed more social interaction, self actualized folks not so much. And happier with yourself spilled over into being more fun and easier to swallow for others to tolerant.

Human needs, physical ones at the bottom of his pyramid to spiritual or transcendental needs like the cherry on the top.

See The Light, Maine Is The Source.

You can see if we were in the stone age, the key to survival of shelter, food trumped a sense of belonging to a group. The color code labels fit the contemporary day and age and have been fine tuned to what was uncertain for needs became more of a given.

What’s your hierarchy of needs in life knowing when you have kids, family comes first.

But how do those needs when day to days are freed up from the Johnny Jump Up hanging from the kitchen door used when preparing meat and potatoes?

Maine is, always has been a beautiful state to find yourself in.

Happy, sad, healing, growing. Maine gives you space, she tugs on your heart strings. She is a old friend that understands and her drop dead gorgeous settings put you in the right frame of mind. As you detach, regroup, build again a new set of inner wells you supply and replenish.

Day Is Done In Maine. Fresh Rain, Sunset Sunshine Combine.

Getting what you need and building it from within is easier in Maine because distractions of personal safety, heavy traffic, over regulation and high crime are missing. Freeing you up to concentrate on more of the basic needs Maslow considers and the list he put into the colorful pyramid design.

Maine, hasn’t it been way way too long since you set foot in the Pine Tree State?

Come visit Maine. Land here for day, end up spending a lifetime.

Find our tourist traps you look forward to falling into and all those unpublished in four color high gloss hype places that only the seasoned locals know and share. If you are nice.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730 USA

October 31, 2016
Tips For Moving To A Small Maine Town, What To Remember.

You climbed the corporate ladder and are coming back to the state where you were raised, Maine.

This blog post is not so much for the local that left and returned. More geared for the never been here for a long stint of time. Just maybe liked the place because of a few vacation stop experiences.

Well, for starters there is the actual making the move itself and here are a few tips for how to reduce the stress. And to have it down pat on what to do, when and why for a time table check list.

It Is The Prettiest Weed I Can Think Of… Lupines.

But now that you are here, adjusting the goggles to see life in a small Maine town is different than the way folks move and groove, shimmy and shake in a large city.

For starters, the locals have the home court advantage. Are established, involved, work pretty hard to make the small Maine town what it is.

But lots of room for more talent to add to the small town community flavor. Whatever you enjoyed in your life giving back to the wherever you lived before are areas to apply locally in Maine too. But holes, spaces where someone passed on that used to hold down a certain event is a place to step in and help out.

The experiences outside Maine are valuable to add to the local mix of what we offer to make the town stand out brightly. What distinguishes it from the other over 400 that dot the landscape in Maine. Small Maine towns are big on youth activities.

Maine. The Jewels Are Out In The Open, Glistening, Sparkling The Daylight. Not Trapped, Under A Light In A Locked Up Tight Display Case.

Whether it is sports, children’s theater, a haunted hayride, play ground improvement, nature trail development, church event, or anything youth oriented, it gets lots of volunteer and financial support. Job shadowing, career days, passing on the traditions of farming, lumbering, fishing are a big part of the Maine culture.

Also, winter is one of the season, not the only one.

We don’t hibernate. It is not the land of igloos. That is further up the globe. We live outdoors all four seasons in Maine. Do dress a little different to match the hanging, displayed month on the calendar.

Forget what you heard about winter from your out of state hair dresser or guys down at the club who have never set foot in Maine.

We watch the national news. And when we see life come to a halt in a city because of a couple inches of snow and drivers and maintenance crews can not keep up, we mutter “amateurs”.

Less people, a lower population makes winter driving easier. Not so many people to watch out for on the roads in Maine. Lots of wildlife though. And in Maine we have the equipment, the experience with snow and a work ethic to get the job done the most efficient, professional way possible. More on Maine weather, the climate.

The move to Maine is motivated because of all we have here that was missing or came at a high price in the city right?

Or lower cost real estate, living debt free and stretching the fixed income monthly checks part of the sizzle. A better place to raise your kids where the village helps in the process of getting them reared right. And the outdoor natural beauty that is respected, protected and all pure, unspoiled.

Year Round, Maine Lakes, Ponds Get Enjoyed. Used Like The Outdoor Living Room.

But get involved, don’t expect folks beating down your door to be dying to meet you. They are busy, industrious and just waiting for you to step up and pitch in. They are connected and related to lots of the neighbors. And in border towns to folks on both sides of the International boundary. Remember, Maine borders Quebec, New Brunswick Canada too.

“The way we did it back where I lived before … “

Go easy on that one. The tone better not be one that is “you guys here are idiots”. If it is heard enough times how stupid the locals are for doing this, this and this coupled with lots of “back in Jersey, Mass, NY..” wherever it was you remind the locals you came from in your past.

Harsh criticism never gets good results. Just like the Pirate logic of the beatings will continue until the attitudes, comradery improves. Resentment, and pulling back happens. For that first year at least, the locals can complain, but you new to these parts can not. Listen, learn, fit in and find a way to work hard to make everyone glad you are in the small Maine town.

Also, what worked well in a populated area to support the event might not in small town Maine.

Simple economics, not enough heads to pay to have what a city supported. Maine is home grown not store bought anyway. Do it on a everyone pitch in and make it like the pot luck supper simple, easy, rich and pleasing.

Don’t let your feelings get hurt or be bent out of shape if your idea is not taken and run with and consider you are in a small Maine town which operates a little differently than the urban center you are used to for the day to day.

Children, Our Greatest Entertainment, Investment In Maine Small Town Living. Kids Don’t Raise Themselves. Or Shouldn’t.

Be kind, a good listener, watch and learn. Pretty much the same advice anywhere you travel and are dropped into an area finding yourself new to these parts.

And hardware store, where is the place to buy no trespassing signs?

On no, don’t put those up. And snow sled trail markets, the ones for ATV across land, think before just pulling up all those stakes. You are going to want to explore and discover the local treasures.

Where you can not get by car or truck, only by foot. In small rural Maine the traffic on these trails is pretty limited. Just some friendly advice from a local, me in Maine. You could have the sign about I have a gun, own a back hoe to keep them guessing. But more for conversation, showing a different way of doing pretty much the same thing. Respect my Maine land, I will yours neighbor.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

October 24, 2016