MeInMaine Blog

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  • Maine, Something Sweet, Natural Like Maple Sap, Syrup, Honey.

    The Spring Sap In Maine Is Running As Warmer Days Show Up.
    Take In A Maine Maple Syrup Open House Happening In Vacationland

    This weekend many local Maine maple syrup operations will open their doors for an open house to the public.

    To invite you in to see how much maple tree sap it takes to boil down, evaporate to make the golden elixir that tastes so devine on home made pancakes. I drove by the Spring Break maple sugar shack operation on US Rt 2 in Smyrna after taking a real estate listing in Patten Maine.

    I saw lots of activity inside the Maine sugaring operation and from this website see this weekend an open house is planned. You’ll see they also have honey bee nectar sweetness available to purchase too. See the nearest Maine maple sugar syrup operation to visit soon. Check the site link for a list of open house times, dates for the Maine maple syrup bottling operation nearest you in Vacationland.

    The syrup running in Maine maples and the bucket collection or more sophisicated tubing with gravity doing its job from a grove is a sight to behold.

    Especially for little ones or field trips from schools to taste a treat naturally, not artificially made in Maine.

    It also signals a spring tradition in Maine, like canoe races. Make plans to visit Vacationland and sample some of the outdoor wholesome goodness and fill your lungs with fresh spring air. Other fun things to to in Aroostook County, that borders Canada on the east below in map form.


    View Houlton Maine Important Locations in a larger map

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

  • Lots Of Folks Spent Time Growing Up On A Farm.

    Maybe it was not a Maine farm.

    Possibly your grandparents

    Hay Is Cheap The Expression...Could Change.
    Where Your Food Comes From, Space And Land To Grow It Locally Important.
    owned the spread and you only came summers. But you quickly learned the farm in Maine, anywhere is not a leisurely walk in the park or easy. Work, round the clock because chores need doing. And weather has a bearing on the final outcome of a crop that you make money on or lose totally.

    The years on the farms with the up and down of the markets to the south, in the cities makes even a break even year a good one.

    You get to farm again and don’t spend money you don’t have.

    But consider you are lucky to be warm, well fed and raise a family learning work ethic. Being a hard worker for survival is an important skill for kids to learn at an early age.

    I listed a Maine farm home with big barn and it had animals in in that 50×30 post and beam structure. More pets really but the smell of hay, even horse manure outside brought back a zillion memories. Of being at my Aunt Ruth’s horse farm as a kid. And working on the potato farm in Maine my parents ran.

    Country is good and no matter how crazy the news gets, you run your own independent show on a farm. Feed yourself, heat with wood from the lot out back. The same one earlier family generations went to for their wood supply too.

    Do you ever worry about city groceries and what if the cupboards were bare, empty? And if you lived in the city, urban area what would you do? Plant vegetables on the terrace of your high rise? Or try to plant rows of something to eat on the roof top and hope you are not caught by the superintendent of the building? Or that others in it don’t poach and harvest your crop before you do?

    If you think alcohol, drugs, gambling is addictive, I think food is right up there with air and water. You have to have it, so do your kids. Where your food comes from, not just what does it cost and will it run out should be in the back of your mind. Because few of us has ever gone to bed hungry, not knowing where your next meal is coming from.

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

  • Spring Flowers In Maine, Begin Again.

    Seeds Scattered By The Wind, Birds, Maine Wild Flowers My Favorite.
    Maine Lupines, So Special Because Not Man Planted.

    Maine’s four seasons all have highlights, hold something special for each person in shared and unique ways.

    Spring after a Maine winter can seem like housekeeping outside is needed. Raking up gravel from plow trucks on lawns. Looking for tulips, crocus and other flowers planted last fall that have bulbs.

    Removing the Christmas wreath you forgot was on the front door that only gets used at Halloween.

    When goblins, trick or treaters climb the front steps, hop on the porch and ring the front door bell in search of a sugar high.

    Simple flowers in Maine with the delicate beauty say it all. Hope, renewal, the passage of time. Knowing summer, fall and the cycle continues right on time. Want to own some of ME? Things to do for fun in Northern Maine in Google map form below.


    View Houlton Maine Important Locations in a larger map

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

  • Calls We Get In A Typical Maine Real Estate Day.

    Every day is new and exciting in listing, marketing, selling Maine
    Maine Has Less Rough Edges In The Real Estate Market
    Maine Is 46th Lowest For Foreclosure, Short Sale, Repossessions.
    real estate.

    Someone yesterday calling from Cape Cod MA about a small home with garage under $40,000 decides to jump in her Ford Transport and arrives at 5:30 to see it in person. Already did the video tour a number of times.

    Today she puts the home under contract and heads home. While another man from New Mexico calls about a property, over an acre of ground, land in Maine for under $4000. Wants a low cost, cheap piece of Maine land for a camper, fifth wheeler use.

    Phone rings from second call with a real estate buyer from Ohio that grows peppers. All colors of them in a large farm and is hunting for Maine land to grow more vegetables. Tells me they have 400% the calcium of milk. Never heard of purple peppers and have seen the green, red, orange, yellow ones having grown many on the Maine farm growing up.

    After his call, a local farmer who rents ground I own is looking for a warehouse for equipment. Have listed an older 1974 potato house for sale in Smyrna Maine that could do the trick. So give him the propaganda for his wife, boys to look over.

    Calls, letters, emails, visits to the Maine real estate office keep it always exciting. Cash buyer on a Court Street home faxed back a contract while another home on the same street goes under contact. The second one for parents wanting to rent a home they buy to rent to their daughter. To get her out of the rent rut and to provide more space for those grandchildren. To eventually deed over as long as she makes the payments, runs a tight ship.

    So when you read about 60% of the problems in four states where foreclosures, real estate short sales and repossessions are happening, you can get a little blood boiling.

    Because Maine is 46th lowest for FSSR (foreclosure, short sale, repossession).

    Our properties are so much cheaper, easy to own. And you won’t have a mortgage for long or at all.

    Don’t like it when the media tries to “one size fits all the real estate market”.

    No spikes up and down, no bubble that bursts because we don’t over spend, don’t put ourselves in financial box canyons.

    Maybe we just live simpler. Without a need for money to impress. Or for “retail therapy” to make ourselves feel better with plastic cards and hearing cash registers rings. The best things are free. Aready in Maine all around us in four season Vacationland. If you are after simple, easy, friendly and without the crime, traffic and high cost of living, Maine is your best case scenario. Always. Get here quick as you can.

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

  • Mineral Rights And Drilling For Maine Water.

    Every so often a Maine real estate call comes in that stikes me
    Don't Worry About Finding Maine Drinking Water, It's Under There.
    Maine Blessed With Lots Of Water, Clean Drinking Water.
    funny, odd.

    But then you realize it is not like in Maine everywhere else. The question today of a Maine property that has a septic system, home framed up, power but no well yet. The Maine real estate buyer suspicious about how come no water, why did the builder stop the process of construction?

    The contractor who owns the Ludlow Maine home and land built it to get it to the point where the hammer could be handed off to a new buyer.

    The find the Maine land, do the site work, pour concrete after the cellar forms installed, framing, getting it weather tight and power in to the place over the new driveway all takes prep work some would like to avoid.

    Outside Maine real estate buyers or local “do it yourselvers” like taking the ball and running at this point.

    They can stay at the property on vacation with a structure all up and no motel or campgrounds with facilities. This property does have a stream and springs the local beavers are having fun damming up, to create a pond. But the lack of a well is not because water is a hit or miss affair when considering the all important Maine water supply.

    This Maine real estate buyer asked if there was someone she could pay, hire to determine if she would have water or not for a well after the sale.

    I told her save her money, call a local well driller directly and pump him with water questions.

    Our water table in Maine is high, many folks have dug not drilled wells. 14 feet deep, concrete 3 foot tiles on top of each other and clean gravel put on the bottom of the well dug out by a back hoe machine.

    In some areas of the country water is pretty rare, special, hard to come by. Maine is not one of those areas. Where do you want the well drilled? Observing 100′ from the Maine septic system guidelines but putting it where it won’t be hit by a snow plow or backed in to by guests. Leaving the steel casing stem that goes down to ledge, bedrock visible so you can add cholrox once a year to shock it, like the habit of changing smoke detector batteries.

    The wells over the last 31 years we see drilled are 60, 125, 175 deep deep. Not 800 or more like some places. I have a brother in Boxford MA that has one of those to “China wells” and the quality, quantity of it are poor. That does not happen in Maine. And the mineral rights, 99.999% of the time go with the land, are not retained. Once in a rare occassion does an old timer tittering on the edge of going senile say he whole heartedly believes there is gold, silver, copper in that land is is toying with selling. And the family guiding him asks if that will hurt the Maine real estate sale. Yes it will and no there isn’t the simple, short and sweet reply.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, Brokerinfo@mooersrealty.com

  • Maine Has Four Seasons, Spring Is Coming.

    Growing up on a Maine farm, I watched my mom plant flower
    Wild, Very Wild Flowers In Maine Are The Best, Hardiest.
    Maine, Flowers Pretty The State Up In A Major, Neat Smelling Way.
    garden after flower garden.

    The wild flowers in Maine that you see everywhere you go are my favorite. But the flocks, bachelor buttons, hollyhocks, brown eyed susans, tiger lillies and lupines are pretty special too. I can see my mom on her hands and knees, humming, in her element. Inside African violets, Christmas catcus always being cared for, dusted, watered, fed Miracle Grow too.

    The visual of new Maine flowers is special eye candy. But the way freshly cut flowers fill a Maine room, sitting pretty on the center of a table entertaining all filling that area with sweet smells is intoxicating too. Adds to the day, the event and is so short lived making it even more precious.

    Early spring in Maine the tulips, crocus, daffodils are a welcome sight. Especially after the final throws of a Maine winter leave for another 3 seasons change, rotation. We love all four seasons in Maine.

    But spring especially is a time of renewal, hope, sunshine with strength and the promise of even more in a Maine summer.

    Not everyone is as affectionate about the same season in Maine.

    It depends on your outdoor interests, your career choice, your age and health and family traditions you grew up with. The ones you pass along and define who you are. What you enjoy doing in Vacationland. This state of Maine way up high, here in the right hand corner of the country. Pick your season, pick your pleasure kind of thinking really right?

    My mom, dad have passed away but the flowers gardens still flourish. The apple orchard and variety of trees planted on the farm still growing well because started with a pair patient hands. The kind with two green thumbs. Discover Northern Maine.

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