Author: Andrew Mooers

The Blue Corduroy Jackets With Yellow FFA Stitching.

The boys in blue, the corduroy jackets with the three initials over the heart.

They were on the yellow bus. Roaming the halls of the high school. Those were the future farmers of America, of Maine. I grew up on a farm, learned the art of Maine potato picking spuds as a little shaver.

Veggie Tales, GAP Certified MOGA Organic Food Best Practices Discussed At Farmer To Farmer Conference.

My family raised vegetables that were sold in a roadside stand too.

That cash stashed in the summer/fall labor peddling corn, cukes, onions, dry beans, squash, a variety of veggies. Learned about consumers, marketing, how business works early on as a young grasshopper too.

The family farm trucking gardening in Maine produce sales. All helping keep the potato and grain conventional farming end of the farm operations humming.

Greasing it with some much needed financial lubricate. To keep things moving. The wolf from the door.

Intent Listening, Learning At MOFGA’s Farmer To Farmer Conference In Northport Maine.

All important when most of your hard earned savings dollars are buried. Again.

Scattered over level to rolling farm fields in the spring.

Tended with love over the summer and waiting for good fall weather, healthy market prices.

With just breaking even considered a good year target goal. That’s part of farming in Maine, anywhere.

Planted inches down into the rich dirt. Just below the surface. In the back forty, the side sixty.

In the farm fields waiting for the Maine potato harvest here we go again hoopla. When leaves changes from green to a slew of brilliant colors. One by one spiraled to the ground.

Attended the MOFGA’s Farmer to Farmer Conference in Northport this past weekend. The key note speaker told of farming with his heart, not a business plan. In the beginning it was lots of mistakes that were the lessons that were the farming education.

And that it was passion for the dirt and the lifestyle coming out of being a back to the lander, a homesteader. Highly socially aware.

Reliving The Forty Years On The Same Farm. The Butterwork’s Farm Owners, Jack And Anne Lazor Spin The History.

A bit of a rebel. A graduate of Tufts University.

Lessons Learned From 40 Years On The Same Farm was the story told down front.

Jack and Anne Lazor owners of the Butterworks Farm shared their tale of wrestling, enjoying the twists and turns. Of creating wealth scratching, managing the Good Earth.

Buying broken farming equipment with issues. Reaching out for answers on how to make it work again to produce food.

Recalling farming by the seat of their pants not a farm plan. And fueled with plenty of wonderment to overcome any discouragement.

The Lazor’s emphasized to the MOFGA audience the important of taking care of the farm soil. Be kind to it, to others and that is the key to richness, personal success. Your farm land, wooded sections will take care of you and pull you through.

If you just tend to the basic principles, build up the soil with minerals and keep an open mind to try new ways to improve your farmscape.

Young Families Sit, Sleep Through MOFGA Farmer To Farmer Conference In Northport ME

Lots of young families and a day care to help the little ones enjoy the three day / weekend MOFGA Farmer To Farmer event in Northport Maine.

Plenty of space between the topics to allow for networking in the halls. Asking what is or is not working for another small producer. Some gardeners, others large growers of crops or raising larger scale herds.

Farm tours, break out sessions on labor relations, nut farms, soil husbandry, food safety.

Organic farming in Maine thrashed thoroughly. To mentally sort and reap much that organic farmers could all take back to their operations.

Organic farming in Maine providing good locally sourced food. Grown close to home, full of nutrition and goodness. For a resurgence of sustainable farming in Maine. But on a smaller, more manageable, enjoyable scale.

Food hubs, marketing the organic food to get it to the masses all part of the talks over meals, during the social hour and contra dancing.

Bring The Family Farm Members. Lots Of Young Families At MOFGA Farmer To Farmer Conference.

More on what Farmer to Farmer topics were on the list to pick from for morning and afternoon sessions.

With lots of young families that inspires and excites. Gives hope. As locally grown food in Maine is discussed from A to Z.

To increase availability and avoid dependence on out of state or country marketers.

Close to home food that you feel good about buying, putting on your family’s table.

That gives local control on what we eat, knowing exactly where it came from too. Grown with USDA / GAP certified practices.

Held at the Point Outlook in Northport Maine, the original MBNA compound with neat log cabins of all sizes. To host the Farmer to Farmer travelers that needed lodging. I was lucky enough to tag along with the Nature’s Circle Maine organic food and seed farm gang to the MOFGA event this past weekend.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730

November 9, 2015
Maine, Ooh That Smell.

No, don’t cue the guitar people. Where none are wearing a GI Joe buzz cut among the motley crue bunch.

Or drop the needle on the Skynyrd song about smells of new cars, whiskey bottles and other not so pleasant things. Maine is a natural drug. More like a vitamin or missing trace element your body needs. The good kind of moxie tonic that gets in your system. Keeps you alive and kicking.

The Home Made Goodies Feasted On After A Maine Youth Game Or Performance. Your Sense Of Smell. Is The Oldest, Quickest, Sharpest Of Them All?

But the Maine smells that help the tug.

The ones that don’t stop or let up. On your heartstrings once you take a hit of Maine. It’s all good. With moderation, done in a healthy way.

The only rehab is return visits to Maine for a fix with the entire family in tow.

To add snaps to the life album all four seasons. As new family members enter the picture. Growing straight and tall while Maine happens all around them.

Smell. They say it is the oldest of the five senses. Tied to the earliest parts of the brain development. The take a whiff of Jiff and then the other senses stroll in where only the nose knows. Dares to go and shows up first on the scene.

Maybe smell being the follow the leader of the senses is primal.

Because no food, no live long partner. And when your next meal is an unknown and not tied to a timed three gongs a day dinner bell. Then the sniffer is always on duty. Watch an animal on a walk. The beak breathing holes are in full gear. More on the sense of smell mystery solved.

The Smells Of A Small Maine Town. Each One Pumps Out Something Different From The Many Eateries.

A future daughter in law calls it “reading the paper”. Her little black cocker spaniel walks the same zig zag course.

Stopping here to sample the only he can “see” it smell. Or to leave a little calling card of his own for other K-9’s on the beat. That you and I would be nose blind to in the final analysis.

Or for GPS trail of bread crumb odor to follow his own nose.

Like intricate Google thumb pin markers. Or water skiers who pat their head with one arm. Hanging onto to to the triangular bar with the other. Signalling, had enough. Time to head home.

The sense of smell being the one to ride shot gun. Sit right up front while the other senses take a back seat as you ten and two the life course ahead. Is it a couple millimeters closer to the brain than any of the other senses?

Is that the reason it’s take a deep breathe and settle down or get excited. Especially when the home cook smells of something tasty beam you back in time. Without the Delorean of silver Marty for the transport.

Maine Farm Fresh Blueberries Ready To Be Raked On The Barrens.

Why smells unlock memories.

The sense of smell is not talked about as much as the press all the other senses get. A picture says a thousand words happens when the peepers get to speak up. You don’t just call something green unless it is the color sponsor along with a number and a letter on the Bert and Ernie serial.

Visual relay of what was seen. It’s more fine tuned than that box of eight waxed sticks. Announcing pre stork arrival. That the color of the baby’s nursery walls because it was hard telling without knowing the gender pre-delivery, was a play it safe easter basket grass green.

Or frosted, muted lemon poppy see shade of sunshine amber. But definitely not cobalt sky blue or anything think pink shaded.

So the smells of Maine, the fall damp weather richness.

As the wet hunting dog after tramping the dead fallen leaf crackling forest bed of pine needle ground cover. Bounds up on the open porch and inside the latch lifted rough sawn board door.

Warming up, shivering by a crackling log cabin wood stove like it’s master. While (sniff sniff) In behind the front door of the antique cook stove. In the air around you. Is that baked beans with bacon strips floating on top of the jacob’s cattle variety I smell simmering?

Sample ME. Pick A Place Breathe Deep The Salty Air. Drink In The Sounds Of The Maine Sea. Get Ready To Plant Your Beach Chair Along The Miles Of Maine Coastline.

Sure hope so and that brown bread, home made something to soak up the juices is part of the supper show.

Performing in perfect pitch harmony. With the fresh chopped colesaw or cabbage, banana and mayonaise salad. To chase with the fork or spoon around the tin camp plate.

Fresh coffee a constant up in the woods of Maine this time of year as we wait for winter.

Waffling in the air. To radiate out as it goes down the gullet. To warm the bones from within while the wood heater takes care of the other side.

The smell of snow in Maine. Do you have it. recognize that one? True Mainers do and know there are slew of snow types. Excitement builds if you enjoy the outdoor sports in Maine. Dread if you

Cabin Fever In A Maine Retreat When Spring Teases, Stays Away.

thumb the pages of places to snow bird. Chuck the snow shovel.

If you don’t relish the layers of white blanket that help the hibernation as one by one the holidays at the end of the year unfold again.

Maine. Hashtag #Maine.

Give your senses, all of them a work out. Not just the out of this world food smells along the seacost of Maine. The rich outdoor odors that awake something long dead or just plain dormant inside.

It is way way more too than just Maine eye candy . That you feast on when lucky enough to find yourself crossing the big green bridge at the southern tip of Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730

November 3, 2015
Jobs You Admire But Would Not Want To Touch With A 10 Foot Pole.

Why you do what you put your time in chasing the dollar ?

The gotta get to work by nine. Living just enough for the city.

To make ends meet. To squeeze in a vacation trip when you can. To pay for kid’s braces, college educations and keep the oil drum or wood box full in the Maine home.

Ask most college freshman one question about what is their major, are they sure they will use it and not all raise their hands.

To the question do you know what you plan on doing until you are 50, 55, 59 or 65 years or maybe older. Ourside the four year bubble to get the sheepskin.

Folks Are Friendly, Easy Going In Crime Free Small Maine Towns.

Wear the square for the second time for most.

More times for others. Or not at all to go with the GED earned off hours. Outside the halls of higher learning. Some folks work right along and into a family business too.

Maine is famous for small operations and small towns are loaded with the service providers.

Small, lean, mean and able to sometimes work circles around the slow moving expensive Goliath’s casting shadows overhead.

Others go the trade school route or learn a skill set to make it outside being in the care of Uncle Sam’s armed forces. Most work their way through the babysitting, lawn mowing, flipping burgers and odd jobs.

Maine jobs.

Some telecommute to Maine. Others find pick and chose, collect what you can. Usually a couple part time ones with the trend larger employees are offering. To avoid benefits and keep a healthy employment pool. To compete with off shore cheap providers working sweat shop hours, with OSHA-less conditions.

More Hand Work, Planting, Tending, Weeding, Harvesting On Maine Organic Farms.

Or creating your own opportunities that exist today but did not yesterday spring up. Jumping on the bandwagon of wind generators, border protection and beef up law enforcement as the World becomes a scarier place.

But around you, jobs in Maine, anywhere.

If you were not doing what you do now, would it be an earlier career deep sixed? Or involve going back to school for further instruction?

So jobs in Maine that you admire but wouldn’t want to do them? Or maybe you did and owe them your success with the stick with it. Sounds like the Dirty Jobs show?

The list of worst jobs.

Don’t forget the bartering that happens off hours in Maine to get the job done too.

But think about stress. The kind in a drive thru Mickey D’s or the guys that wear the BK crown, Timmy Ho Ho’s.

Or the Double D for the morning shot of Joe, something sticky and sweet to eat to use the java bean juice to wash it all down. Pass that large double double please. (Slurping sound) Ahhhh, that’s the rocket fuel, the kick in the pants.

Being Able To Hear Yourself Think Is Easier In Maine.

These gals and guys could be air traffic control pros.

Keeping track of this super sized order, that value meal.

And making sure two sweet and sours or BBQ dip your chicken finger get dropped in the bag at the second window. Plus lots of napkins.

For the NASCAR quick here you go, have it your way drive away hit and run for empty calories.

The pay is not the carrot in these minimum wage jobs. The satisfaction and skills to not get rattled and being a team player is the reward.

Like most jobs where if you really love them, you never work a day in your life. And have found your happy spot under the sun and stars.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730

October 27, 2015
Living Our Lives In Locked Chains, Never Knowing We Have The Key.

The Eagles had some neat, catchy wisdom snippets packed into the measures of their many hit songs.

Philosophy on life in three four or more time. Forty song quotes from the Eagles.

The combination of words, putting a different spin on the topic and sneaking it all in for a musical road trip experience. When you were just driving along minding your own business. Humming, thinking, drifting until the next stop. Then the light bulb, the aha moment happens.

Thank you Glenn Frey, Don Henley. Oh and Joe Walsh, Randy Meisner and other Eagle band members.

Maybe Maine is what is missing in your life. Playing an old haunting familiar song refrain repeating loop in the mental tapes in your head.

Maine Is Rich Colors, Simple Pleasures, Natural Beauty.

That tightly wrapped, living too fast, dipped in fear and dripping with sweat a stressful city landscape causes. It takes its toll.

And looking frantically. Following, connecting the blue evacuation dots around an urban area to get out. From the life in the fast lane. Too high an RPM to keep it up.

Maine. Yeah, that might be a good idea. Ah, but an exit strategy. Lots of folks are struggling with that one. To get to Maine. Someday. ” It’s a girl, my Lord In a flatbed Ford.

Slowing down to take a look at me”. Me, you in Maine.

Lots of the Maine land we sell is to folks needing a safety net. For a mental form of insurance binder coverage just in case. Not just for the investment value or recreational fun alone that happens on their piece of dirt in Vacationland.

But purchased, the Maine land acreage or small plot spot for bailing out, the rip cord maneuver. Like break the glass. Pull when needed.

As Far As You Can See, Trees. That Is
Sea Of Trees, Lots Of Wildlife, Not So Many People. That Is Maine.

Just knowing there is a place where they could survive without the plastic card swipes and wracking up debt. Where basics are more than enough in the needs department to meet.

Building a small shelter that is plenty for your needs. Growing your own family table food and knowing exactly what you eat.

Because you started it from seed or did the transplant. With the comfortable, peaceful, easy feeling taking it easy on the spray application. If you care, dare to use any at all.

Because food was not sprayed with anything toxic or exotic to preserve or enhance it’s visual appeal.

Same treatment and respect goes into the meat, poultry, dairy products you tend and nurture from

Hitting The Trail Out Of A Crowded City. You Are (Pointing) Here. Connect The Blue Dots. Head To Maine.

day one. Giving you a best of my love for nutritious food feeling. About what goes down the gullet. At least three times a day around the family table.

Or packed in the bring from home school lunches. Not the slide the tray kind and most of the goop ending up in the metal trash can and wasted.

Heating with wood from your Maine land, being a real son of a birch.

And not following the up and down spike of oil prices with any interest at all. Not caring about the cost of the bubbling crude that Jed sang about before the big move to the west coast.

In small town Maine, there is an intimate connection and everything goes local. Turning within to dig in. And heave ho, make a different in many small ways. That is what everyone that hangs their hat in a small Maine town does.

Steer The Shortest Path To Maine. Get Some Sand In Your Shoes. Never Ending Up At A Hotel California Like The Eagles Crooned.

With greater awareness. Be careful Desperado, don’t draw the queen of diamonds. Look for her sister with the heart to avoid being cut every time if she is able.

Pitching in and bartering the collection of skills sets honed and perfected over the years.

In the trade you this for that? Deal? I’ll be over Saturday morning at the crack of dawn to get started, have the cup of Joe on and those world class fruit explosion muffins the Misses creates.

Has to because if they don’t, bye bye. Not more small Maine town which is what 98% of them are in this pretty under populated, vast state of fresh air, clean water. It is a greatest awareness when money is tight, you respect resources and make survival a game.

Not like life in the fast lane with a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac.

Trapped at your Hotel California.

Where not check out bill is ever slid under your door to wake up to after a hard night. When you are just another garden variety one of the boys of a never ending summer. And you feel strung out, already gone.

What else makes a small Maine town great?

Plenty and usually home grown, like pot luck supper special. Everyone brings something that together makes for one tasty, memorable spread.

Maine, Get High. Lots Of Chances To Rise Above The Static.

Nothing store bought and always about home grown, one of a kind recipes past down over the years. From lots of practice makes perfect runs at family gathers held around the calendar.

Stopping in at the local corner store to fuel up and tap the grapevine. Not for gossip, for details behind the scenes that the column inches of black ink and white space did not delve into enough. Or at all.

Learning this morning Buzzy Nightingale has four acres left of Maine potatoes to harvest. Seeing his harvester crew inching along with a sea of lights at 8:30 on the way home to the lake last night.

Looking like a grounded, landed alien space ship of sorts pulled by a diesel Maine farm tractor.

Plying the fields, back and forth with the tired, hungry crew putting on the big push before Jack Frost takes over and works full time on the landscape.

The harvester followed by a wind rower to set up the next pass to combine six rows into one. For the squeaking digger beds to elevated, shift out the dirt. And then one potato, two potato sort and filter out good from bad. Or the rocks.

Talk about the spending waste, duplication of local services a small Maine town can not afford to ignore in it’s life blood drain.

The local Sear’s appliance and tools moving to serve you better. At a new location and to make room for another dollar store in the old hole. Details that would be mundane to someone not in the six by six mile Northern Maine border town. Or the collection of about forty more in a ring around it.

How People Interact On The Life Team When Everything Is Not So Peachy Keen Is An Eye Opener.

But keeping current and watching, listening in earnest because of every local’s personal investment in their small Maine town.

As the reach for a sugared donut hole from the open bag happens. Then slurping the black stuff to wash it all down.

Staying away from the spicy breakfast burrito knowing there’ll be a heart ache tonight if you don’t.

Want some of that? As you plan your day? Take it easy. Avoid the fanfare. Get away from the hype. I can’t tell you why, but that is the heart of the matter. Drink, eat, breathe in the all natural, pure, never filtered always real Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730

October 21, 2015
The Home In Maine, Anywhere You Enjoy, Not Everyone Has It That Good.

My regular job is to help people trade up, downsize and to get pre approved to buy a Maine home.

Or something tied to the waterfront. Maybe surrounded by a boatload of acres of land to protect their quality of life.

People do buy a house for the home that provides the lifestyle they want.

Picking, Grinning, Spinning The Tale At The Maine Affordable Housing Conference. Jimmy Wayne Performs, Tells About His Homelessness Growing Up.

Or have worked their way up to with blood, sweat and tears. But what about the kids?

The ones that don’t have a home, or it is a foster one. Don’t just raise themselves. Where connect the murky dots of shelter after shelter to somehow get them to eighteen.

And then to expect flaps up, fly straight and true. But attended a Maine Affordable Housing Conference yesterday in Bangor at the new Cross Center.

The one with Paul Bunyan standing guard with an peavey, sporting a warm red flannel shirt and flashing a big wide grin.

The tag line for this conference “Today’s Vision, Tomorrow’s Reality” from the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition.

Listened to an opening speaker named Jimmy Wayne, a country singer / songwriter and advocate for foster children.

The ones who face constant homelessness. Give a listen, check out his chords on a song.

It made me think about those of us wanting a bigger, better home with more bells and whistles. Where just having somewhere dry, warm and safe would make a homeless kid feel like they are on a private exotic island. With three meals included in the package with the clean sheets at lights out. Don’t forget to say your prayers. And now you do have blessings to count you can see, feel, taste.

Maine’s Affordable Housing Conference. Held At The Cross Center In Bangor Maine

Jimmy’s mission is to raise the foster age kid support from eighteen to twenty one. Not to cut off the benefits. Now hold on.

If you are thinking that is too much help, time in a “bubble” or stuck in the system. Hold on now hombres.

He quoted statistics that half the woman in foster care are pregnant within two years and here we go, here come more kids.

Also reminding all of us at the Cross Center plenary area that no kids grows up alone. Kids need you. They can not do it without you.

Wayne citing all the folks along the way that like a pin ball machine, were the navigation nudge in the right direction.

When his compass was missing the needle.

When figuring out what happened in their own troubled childhood, healing from the wrinkles of that crazy train has not been completely dealt with enough. To make sure these foster kids, the majority of them become productive, successful community driven citizens of tomorrow.

Everyone Needs A Roof, Four Walls. Affordable Housing In Maine Is Pretty Darn Important.

Other stats like within the same period of time after the funding gets snipped, the gentlemen in that group are behind bars. In the crowbar hotel and incarcerated.

But with care to get them to the next level and feet planted solidly on the ground the statistics could be way way different.

Lots of other topics at the Maine Affordable Housing Conference were offered up for the break out sessions too.

About housing for our most vulnerable neighbors. Those spending more than 180 days in a shelter. Changing demographics, looking at the future with the seniors.

To protect them from head injuries, broken bones because falls are the biggest worry. When the hair if you have any goes gray or that strange shade of blue tint.

How to make sure the environment in your Maine home is safe and not toxic. And know about those silent killers or cancer causers or just drafts. That make the housing not so affordable, not so healthy.

I liked the economic development and re-use of existing property inventory in places like Biddeford Maine when the mill dinosaur went to its knees.

And downtown Bangor Maine examples of rehabs, development to meet the housing needs of various segments of the local population.

Awards Given To Recognize, To Inspire Affordable Housing In Maine Champions.

We are all partners for success for affordable housing. In my area of Northern Maine, housing stocks is low cost, but aging.

And the jobs to go with the need a house part of the equation are always up for discussion.

To make sure the best bang for the buck for municipal and educational services is achieved.

Or where to cut when only so much money to stretch. Because you can not just keep raising property taxes in a small Maine town or plantation.

Spending like drunken sailors the same old way. Which is time and resources wasted. Like putting a lot of wasted effort into the re-arranging of chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

The trick in small Maine towns is to make them perform like they are way way above their weight class.

To have sustainable housing. A high test grade of rural quality of living that Maine is rich in if the dials are monitored. Holding your mouth just right, the tongue tip exposed. The steady she goes adjusted just so.

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

And more objectives to meet in rural Maine than just keeping housing affordable across the board.

For all segments of the population you need to preserve and protect the vital existing jobs.

Making sure those with retirement checks that follow them wherever they go come to Maine for the Golden Years.

Go into schools to make sure the curriculum matches the outside work world environment.

And to expand on exciting telecommuting to Maine, bringing the new resident’s job with them.

If the broadband is hearty enough to flex, work the Internet muscle better than some other state’s. The up and down speeds are critical to the cyber highway connection. Much needed to stay a thriving, vibrant small Maine communities. Can not do it the old fashion way and just keep it status quo.

To keep thing bright and glowing. Twinkling and no one hollering “last one out pull the chain, turn off the town lights”.

My brother Stephen B Mooers’ Memorial Award was presented too. For the work done by the quality people surrounding him at Penquis Community Action Program. Where he worked for many decades in the affordable housing arena.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730

October 14, 2015
Living In Fear, Worried About What’s Around The Next Corner.

Fear cripples, robs, distracts your life.

But when you live in an area that is not knee deep in it. The shift to tend to other details that are more important, having greater reward happens. Like getting the winter wood in to stay warm. Canning and preserving for the root cellar stash into the winter foodstuff cache.

Protecting The Harbor, Not From Criminals But Navigational Perils.

Fixing the roof leak around vent pipe on the Maine home.

That would be a pretty hard DIY procedure once fresh, fluffy snow piles up around it. When old man winter neck reins the weather channel. Settles in for a few months around the end, beginning neighborhood of the calendar.

So in Maine life skills are not self defense to protect against bad actors, shady characters. Survival is banking your home to make it easier to heat.

Taking care of the ceiling over head, the drafts around the windows and doors. The basics of survival not fight or flight fear engagement with concern about do or die. Your personal safety is not the first consideration. Or thought of at all in Maine.

Making sure harvest of the bounty of the garden produce is stocked away to draw from around meal time.

For the sit down, count your blessings, pass the peas please. Around the supper table of the Maine house you are proud to call home. That is a work in progress. Will never be really done or complete in your lifetime. In the pay as you go, take your time with the hammer, nails, paint brush.

Sharing what you have and helping others in the strong local connection. That is part of small town living in Maine. Take what you need, leave the rest for others. It’s always about others. Not number one moi.

Pinching pennies and Maine simple living in gentile poverty.

Blue, Green Blend. Maine Has A Lot Of Variations Of Those Two Colors.

Getting more from less. And not everything tied to the almighty dollar. Lots of bartering attached to the transactions of goods and services. No dead presidents exchanges from the bank roll.

But living in personal fear.

Sheer terror and always thinking the worst is about to happen. That is lives in the shadows. Lurking around that next corner. That is not Maine. Rural, simpler living in the 4th lowest crime state is not living in fear or feeling scared. It is all about being prepared in battling the elements not people.

Had a continuing education course at this year’s state of Maine REALTOR’S convention at the Samoset Resort. The headline about safety in real estate. I thought it was going to be more about practical applications of the day to day watch yourself around property listings.

Like, when you visit a bank foreclosure which are not the norm in the 46th lowest state for them, but that has knee deep water in the wet basement.

Maine Is Outdoors, Doing Lots Of Fresh Air, Blue Sky Events.

Maybe when the power is on, you should as the real estate agent or broker think twice, thrice.

About stepping off whatever cellar step the water from the spring thaw has climbed to during the inspection with buyer or appraiser.

Electrical safety around the rising ground water.

Things like the laundry basket, picnic coolers, luggage, pieces of firewood floating.

Bobbing in an eerie way and everything looking very out of place as you think about plugging in that sub pump but not being fatally shocked in the process. As you fish for the cord end to slide into the electrical socket if the juice is on.

Or thinking about the sleeping pit bull in the last bedroom down the long, dark, narrow hallway of an older mobile home. The one with the nameplate “Vagabond” above the trailer hitch.

Where one bedroom you suspect the tenant has a meth lab percolating. That is the kind of personal safety issues I think about as a rural Maine real estate broker. Tour guiding with a buyer for the looksie, the once over kick the tires. And figure out the whatta you think?

Maine Explained With Social Media Examples.

Stepping through a rotten neglected deck board. Or keeping customers away from the railing around the structure that is loose as a goose. Gonna cause a buyer, one of their kids to take a Peter Pan off into the lupines, burdocks surrounding it.

Falling into a septic cesspool depression out in the front yard. Or driving up a steep grade around a Maine lake for a showing or listing when there is a skim of black ice.

Not much sand handy for traction in and out. And you gun it to keep from sliding sideways. Keep moving with enough speed for momentum. To avoid the upsy daisy at the Maine lake. The oh oh. Up and over, down a very steep bank heading to the drink. Coming to rest down into an evergreen, all natural vegetation parking spot. A completely camo color protected gully.

In a Maine farm barn watching for exposed nails and being careful where you plant the loafers. It’s on your mind out in the farmstead yard.

More Lupines, No Drive By Shootings. No Gangs In Maine Small Town Rural Living.

To avoid scraping your leg on farm equipment angle iron sharp edges. Hitting your shin walking by a parked pickup with the trailer ball and hitch lining up just so. As you squeeze around the implements parked in the Maine farm machine shed.

Those are the property dangers to be eagle eye as you wander. Out and about in rural Maine property as it’s peddler. As the dealer in the matchmaking that brings buyer and seller together at the property listing.

But never where I live worrying being hit in the noggin. Robbed, your car hi-jacked. All in a split second as you bend over fiddling with a lock box code.

The door is open. We don’t mess with house door locks. Keys left in the ignition of all the vehicles too. Help yourself. Walk right in, sit right down. Baby let your hair hang down is how the song goes right?

Entertaining thoughts that you will be taken out with a baseball bat don’t surface in the gray lobes.

Not thinking during an open house property tour that while you are in the kitchen talking about granite and quartz counter tops.

The other half of the Bonnie and Clyde “buyers” tag team is wrestling with the Monet on the wall. To pry it off. Looting, shoveling jewelry into a black nylon sack to lower out the window. For the drop, hit and run. You watch too many movies or have lived in crime riddled areas too long.

Triple locked doors, cars secured with alarms, clubs to disable them.

You don’t see that in Maine. A car thief looking for a Porsche, something exotic, heads to Martha’s at Cape Cod. More high end, lower mileage late model beauties await the drive it like you stole it routine. For the NASCAR slick five finger discount. Before chopping it up and the evaporation of parts.

Maine Is Space. On Land, The Water! Personal Safety Is Big Here. Crime Is Not.

Got the three credits for the Maine real estate license renewal.

But the having a text on your phone to hit send when you meet up with bad characters. The calling the office and asking for the “red file” to be sent to your email account or phone.

As a secret signal that you are being held hostage or directly in harm’s way. Send help SOS, May Day.

Like someone pushed the silent alarm under the teller station like you and I have seen in movies. Letting the network of people on your personal safety list all know where you are every minute of the real estate day. As you move with special phone apps to catch the loss of signal. When the blip goes off radar sweeps. Save your money, stop worrying. Move to Maine.

In most Maine homes, the treasure is not store bought and sought by a thief to fence it.

Pawn shops don’t have a big market for the personal valuables of a true Mainer. The plaster of paris snow white hand prints of a tiny child or a dead animal from a memorable hunt. That hang on the wall.

The old black and whites images in crooked frames. A little out of focus photos from yesteryear. With old cars, big smiles, family dogs, cats or horses included. Round the capture under glass in the 5×7, 8×10 snap shot. Kodak moments collected, because time goes by.

Maine Is Outdoor Living, Hold The Crime. Second Helpings Of Fresh Air, Clean Water Please.

The SUV with enough miles on it to get to the moon and start the trip back in the tin can.

Who would travel this far north to help yourself to that? The sentimental value wasted on anyone else that has no connection to the events, the people attending them. What is valuable is not store bought but home made.

Whew, you made it to Maine. Life in Little Rock, Arkansas, any high crime population center is a whole lot different than in rural Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton ME 04730

October 8, 2015