Author: Andrew Mooers

The Shift To Just White, Brown, Blue…Maine Colors Of Winter.

Have always thought of the Maine fall season as a “second bloom”.

With the explosion of fireworks grand finale colors. Everywhere you crank your head tooling, bebopping around Maine on and off the highway. But winter becomes more than just icy white. Because open water until it freezes solid, the cobalt skies roll in too. Adding blue hues you won’t find in any size Crayola box of wax colors.
Maine Is Pure, Natural Colors… Different Combinations. Always Stunning. No Matter How Many Sparkle. Show Up.

Blue, brown, white looks good around you when you are in Maine late fall.

On the tittering edge of here’s comes the winter toboggan and swish swish ride. Preparing for the three holidays that the calendar delivers each year end. Ready or not.

Sometimes there are late bloomers, just like you and I in life. Trees that refuse to go along with the rest. That cling, hang on to those leaves of gold, red, orange and green variations. This past weekend a surprise blip on the weather radar reminded all of us.

To snap out of it.

To scurry to wrap up the late fall tidying up the yard. Putting away the summer outdoor furniture and “toys”. Lots of us thought oh a little dusting of white snow.

No biggie. It will melt off quickly, won’t amount to much accumulation. Be gone before you know it and the real white stuff arrives for the 5,6,7,8 of winter’s rhythm.
Collision Of Fall Not Done, Winter Just Dropping In A Tad Early. Seasonal Rivalry.

We have all picked up the tempo a tad. Because a jolt back to reality of what we had hoped and what did arrive courtesy of the weather channel were not the same expectations. But we Mainer’s adapt.

Today thinking of pulling the curtain for the all important get out and vote.

And start looking at new skis, jiffy ice augers, snow sleds, winter apparatus from ice scrapers, wool mittens to jumper cables, red, yellow and blue bottles of dry gas.

To adjust the sails for winter living in Maine. As rhinestones of sparkle on new snow under bright sunshine.

Greeted all of us in rise and shine in Vacationland today on the way to work.
Less Colors Late Fall On Winter’s Doorstep. But All Natural, Stunning Just The Same.

Winter wonderland of crust, swirls, drifts. From what was wet, squishy and heavy snow that has morphed to brittle, settling in crunchy underfoot.

Last call for fall leave deposit memo’s telegraphed to all the Maine hardwood hold outs.

That were miserly, possessive or just plain distracted with the call to let it go of the colors. Or get dragged into winter.

To march along with squeaky turning of the the seasonal backdrop pulleys. To escort in the winter 2014/2015 season.

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

November 4, 2014
The Need For A Production, To Make The Everyday An Experience, Memorable.

<1>When I was a small child, I worked on a Maine farm with my parents, three older brothers in Aroostook County.
Part of my job as a young grasshopper was picking vegetables, fruits, produce we grew and sold at a Maine farm road side stand. Working with the motoring public was an eye opener as a lad.
Maine Farm Fresh Veggies, Fruits, Produce. Nothing Sweeter, Healthier Than Close To Home Food.

The lady with the expensive shiny, squeaky clean, heavily chromed car was often difficult.

Snarky, not in the best of moods to deal with in her Maine farm stand purchases. The driver of a not so new, multi colored fender ride burning oil, needing a muffler was a joy.

And maybe too free with her money that the car would need to keep running. On the road and getting a new vehicle inspection sticker glued to the inside of the windshield. With a new notch cut out of it to be legal.

The lady in the Rambler, Studebaker, Desoto, whatever brand happy with her purchase of fresh Maine farm veggies, fruits. Highly content, humming a song and smiling. With the quality, but also the baker’s dozen of thirteen philosophy we add to the cash and carry trading of what we grew on the Maine farm.

Now it seems instead of just offering close to home, grown local Maine farm fresh foodstuffs, the lowest price, an experience above and beyond helps in the marketing.

To hold your own or increase the bottom line tale of veggie sales.
Small Maine Farm Sustainable Agriculture. Hard Wood, Highly Rewarding Lifestyle.
So instead of the old days of picking a trailer load of pumpkins and placement in one place behind the big front door of the farm barn. The public would rather take a ride. Hop up into the wagon. Lead by a jovial guy wearing overalls, a sun shading straw hat. With a blade of long grass perched, dangling out of the corner of his mouth. As he adjusts, pulls the throttle level a couple notches. To increase the “put put put” speed of the narrow front end iron horse pulling the wagon out back.

Smiling, navigating the antique Maine farm tractor down the winding, twisting field road to the patch beyond sight of the Maine farm buildings.

Destination the rear forty acres. To strawberry fields going on forever. High silk topped rows of soldier straight green corn stalks. All aboard for the deal direct at the source. Coming up, raised from the good Earth. Rich soil rocks removed each spring. The Maine land worked, tilled, fertilized. Seeds planted and tended to produce the loving bounty of hopefully a big yield crop harvest.

The personal escort to the farm field in Maine. For the helping, involvement in the picking the cream of the crop. Just the one you want, that is still hooked to the vine. Fresher, there is not to be found than that. Ground zero. From the very source, selecting not just any old pumpkin, blue hubbarb or acorn squash from a pile. But picking the apples of your eye that are reached up to rip from the tree connection. Plunked for the filling up the basket or bag to carry back to the Maine farm tally it up, check out.
Space Happens On A Maine Farm. Open Places For Raising Critters, Crops. Outdoor Living With Fresh Air.

No just any produce from the boot scoot and boogie from the Maine farm.

But the best of the patch in your personal humble opinion. Having it your way without donning the paper crown with flat illustrated jewels adorning it around the rim. For filling, being king, queen for the day.

People want choices. Have so many options today unlike back in Henry Ford’s beginning days. Where you had selection of just one color of tin lizzy or lizzie. Basic black. Where ice cream was vanilla plain. Maybe a handful of grape nut seeds strewn in the hand churned home made ice cream.

Was it easier when there was less money to fuel the eenie meenie miney moe?

Not needing to be entertained, everything to be fun and light, bright delightful. Just happy to have whatever was delivered, offered to you. Like at meal time, this is what we are having. Mom was not a short order cook with a three plastic coated fold out menu of other options to fit your fancy. If your nose turned up, head swiveled away. And oh oh. Here comes a picky eater when it raised its ugly head.

To please the taste buds. Dulled by too much snacking out of boredom not hunger. Just prior to the sit down for tonight’s special of the day. Prepared in the Maine farm home pantry and placed before you made with many loving hands. And you were grateful to have it served up, just available to dine on. To satisfy the deep down hunger worked up from laboring, using energy and burning up the calories. On a Maine farm where you worked hard, respected the labor process, appreciated all you received from the toil.

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

November 1, 2014
Simple Pleasures Being More Than Enough, Maine Is All Over That.

Do you get excited about being inside a warm home?

A plate in front of you with good food from your own garden or root cellar. Family surrounding you that is happy, chattering, pulling together. Not being up against it with debt and slowly rebuilding over your house as the budget allows. Using more of your own sweat, ingenuity. Staying mentally, physically, spiritually healthy in the total exercise of living in Maine.
Maine, Starts, Ends Simple. All Natural, Unfiltered Unspoiled.

Putting your back into the remodeling, renovations.

Slow going but rewarding because you did not hire it done. You watched the you tube videos on the DIY, your brother Bob is a carpenter. Owes you a favor for helping him with the addition on his woods camp. Shingling his garage last month. Call in those IOU’s and tap into the jack of all trades training all Mainer’s are born and bred with to survive. Prosper and become very grateful, self satisfied, less dependent.

So back to what makes you happy.

Stay that way. Is just being warm as toast or the glow inside that radiates from spending the day skiing or hiking a very high mountain enough? Is the experience from swimming, boating, fishing crystal clean unpopulated water enough to make you sing inside?

Or do you live where the basics are not what trips your trigger. But having more, spending lots on stuff you thought you needed. But after you get it you are not so sure. When all the bills come in in waves of thirty day cycles.

Less in more, enough in Maine and we are taught as young grasshoppers to be content.

Be happy as an inside job you take on. Not expecting it to happen from the outside that involves others that may not have signed up for the role in your play day to day.
The Nature Of Things. The Balance, Harmony, Reality.

Zero lot lines for the postage stamp property measured in inches. In the urban crowded areas make it why bother having side windows? Just to look at the grain in the siding up close and personal in the shade from your neighbors? In Maine the back and side, front yards are measured in yards, acres not fractions of a foot.

More space, less consumption of anything not man made. That’s what we rely on. For the home made fun that uses your imagination. Hooked in tandem to the drop dead gorgeous surrounding. Labeled, called unspoiled, all natural Maine. Looking for some of that?

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

October 30, 2014
Repair Time When You Have A Fender Bender In Maine.

The time it takes to pull out or fill a dent when people trade paint.

Accident repairs are pretty cut and dry when you tool into an auto body collision repair place to tally up the fix it up charges. The pushed in rear tail gate on your SUV means fractions of an hour for each of the detailed steps to remove the damage. Smooth the wrinkles and give it a couple coats of the original color with a clear sealer on top. For the voila, good as new. Or almost.
Maine Is Having Land, Using It For Farming, Hobbies. Or Just Enjoying Wide Open Space.

But life is a little different than tallying up the .3 hour to remove the chrome trim.

The moving on to the .2 hour to apply the bondo filler. Or to drill the hole, to pull out the crease. To replace the entire section that was messed up in the smash together gnashing the metal, plastic, rubber, glass of the iron horse. At least, hopefully, no one got hurt.

Mechanical work in a Maine car repair shop is cut and dry.

Easier to outline how long the procedure should take if you have the skills in the trade you call your career. But fixing problems in a person’s past, way back deep down inside their childhood storage slide show. Places they don’t wear on their sleeve, talk about in public or private.

Not like sliding your index finger down the thin pages of a shop manual to determine how long is this procedure supposed to take. To untangle knots, cut out the burdocks.

In someone’s infinite wisdom of what is supposed to be normal. What to expect to complete the healing and maturity process. To put you back into the pink. Up on your feet. Or closer to that shade of the picture of health color for you as the support around a person can muster up.

It would be easier to bar code scan a person to learn from their past.
Summer Moonlight, Outdoor Fires On A Maine Lake. Peaceful, Romantic, Relaxing.
Where they are in the present day. And what their hopes and dreams are for the future. To navigate them back into safe, familiar waters. For the back on track. Or swamping out the trail of a brand new path. To charter a new healthier course to tack with whatever way the wind blows naturally around you.

Maybe it is just hold on, bracing for major change in life ahead. Or as it happens and the smoke finally settles. To crank your head around and access the situation. Then beef up the stuff deep down inside. The place where we all pick ourselves up by the bootstraps. And are way way stronger for it on the other side of the rewiring, adjustment to the thinking they had going in. That might have been stinking.

Family living in Maine, where we do our best counseling outside four walls.

On the open front porch sitting in wicker or pre-molded plastic chairs from a big box store. Or sitting on that log, a stump for splitting fire wood place skyward. Around a camp fire deep in the Maine woods. Listening to rushing water of a stream or river. the crickets, crackling blaze of mixed hardwoods. Softwood kindling.

To perch, purge, place your scattered thoughts back together. Like the detailing done to the scarecrow after a savage experience.

Flying monkeys, oh my. Or to just unplug and recharge after a long haul success or personal milestone. Where something very important to tackle and conquer was completely to make it all just fine and dandy. Celebration happening in the pause before right back it to swing with both arms, kick with both feet and journey on.

In the game of life and trying to get through the least scarred, learn the most possible. Along the road of frost heaves, potholes, detours and new sunrises when it becomes a brand new day. Maine is one drop dead gorgeous backdrop for whatever excites or ails you. Put her in your background to improve your foreground.

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

October 28, 2014
Best Neighborhoods To Halloween Trick Or Treat In Small Maine Towns.

In many areas of the country the thought of witches, warlocks, goblins of any kind climbing up on your open porch to trick or treat is not happening.

Too much crime, worry about apples with razor blades, etc. All kinds of reasons to avoid the door to door panhandling for treats of any kind.

Maine Small Towns Still Safe To Halloween Trick Or Treat.

Just the transition from gypsy scaling, bounding up the front steps two at a time. To ring the front door bell. Scream trick or treat. To instead having a church or recreation center party on stop shop. All under one roof rather than helter skelter canvassing out in the neighborhoods in places outside Maine.

No danger of someone wearing a sheet or pirate, walking dead zombie being hit by a Halloween night in the dark motorists.

In the dodging across, zigzagging this and that street in the dark.

But small Maine towns are different for trick or treating that still happens. With the fourth lowest crime statistic, and pretty much everyone in a small Maine town knows everyone, it is not a dangerous affair. We know that relative, cousin, whoever.

Behind the gruesome mask, under the gown or white blood stained sheet.

Are his hockey or little league coach. Or know her from church, the neighborhood that is connected. More so than a large sprawling urban area where worry happens when you leave your own backyard. Welcome to Mayberry, welcome to Maine. I’m Andy. Not sure what happened to Opie, Aunt Bea, Barney but you get the drift of the way things roll here.

To outfit, bundle up and get the family of small ones rigged up to trick or treat for Halloween.

To head out starting at 4:30 to look for porch lights left on. The signal we play the Halloween game, are open for visitors. There is candy here. To trick or treat, canvass the neighborhoods in a small Maine town.

Also the best neighborhoods to trick or treat are not necessarily the ones with the highest taxed Maine homes.

No, No, the number of Maine homes per neighborhood. Less busy streets are factors that kids out to collect the sweets quickly figure out. When it is only so much time on the clock before bedtime to ring the bell, open the bag. Holler out trick or treat. Hitting the High Street home example in the video above makes that area popular.

There is a lot of expense and planning to year after year build the trick or treating traffic.

Collecting Candy, Adding To The Trick Or Treat Halloween Stash.

And it is contagious. Others in the surrounding houses up and down, across the street start to ramp up their Halloween game. It takes one to be the red nose reindeer and lead the charge of “trick or treat” heard hollered around small Maine town neighborhood.

But experience from the year before of what you got, remembered and wanted to return for another dose. Those Halloween trick or treating hot spots are talked about through the grapevine of kid’s that tramp the small Maine town.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

October 24, 2014
When You Live Day In, Out With People Way Way Too Close.

Maine is space, wide open gorgeous land, clean water, fresh air. And go easy on the helping of people please.

Not because we are anti-social or recluse hermits. No no, families are tight, close and that kind of people surrounding you is not the situation, type we are hunt and pecking about today.
Way Too Close, In Your Face. That’s Not “Purr-fect”, Not Maine.

This post is not about the fellow I talked with today and his family of fifteen brothers and sisters.

That were about two years apart in age, and his mom lost a set of twins. Died herself at 53 and the older kids helped raise the younger ones. That’s another post to ramble on about and see what rabbit trail it heads down.

This blog post is about what happens to someone living too close to those around them.

When space is at a premium and back yards are measured in inches, feet. Not acres like Maine is like. How to explain rural Maine, small town living to someone that has a hard time fathoming the concept of not many people here. I tell them think of Disney Land’s Space Mountain. But no lines for the ride. No problem remembering where you parked your car. No tram ride or wearing yourself out walking and walking. Trying to avoid bumping into someone. No reaching into your pocket everywhere you turn coming and going.

In Maine, I think people are friendlier because our crime rate is the 4th lowest in the country. People help each other out and there is plenty of space to enjoy if you decide to head out. To spend time at the woods camp. Where big feeds, intense cribbage or poke games happen. Or just enjoying reading the latest Uncle Henry’s looking for bargains. In front of a wood stove crackling, blazing. Throwing off the positive ions, lots of BTU’s from the hardwood sticks.
No Neighbors, The Wind In The Trees. Crunching Fresh Snow Bringing In Some Stove Wood.

Being in a tight prison camp like line, worried about your safety, always fearful of too many people in your face is not healthy.

It is why people pay a premium to commute hours to and fro from the suburbs. Making the city pay scale check. But enjoying a semblance of space a little further from the urban centers where space does not exist. Or comes at a premium. An arm, leg, one of your duplicate organs.

Maine has personal freedom and space. Not everywhere in the world offers space. Overcrowding stress, strain and and worry about safety, where your next meal is going to come from if the big box grocery store shelves go bare. It takes it toll and is the opposite of Maine. Where we grow our own food, have farming backgrounds somewhere in the family. We heat with wood, could easily pull the plug and find alternative ways to avoid the utility power bill.

I think not having crowds, rush hour traffic road rage, eating on the run, gang violence and not worried about your personal safety has to make you a happier camper. Knowing how to conserve and get by with less is what Maine is all about. Survival, enjoying what you have and making it work no matter what. What do you think?

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

October 21, 2014