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  • Sadies Bakery, Since 1948, It’s Been Time To Make The Donuts In Houlton Maine.

    Sadies Bakery, Since 1948, It’s Been Time To Make The Donuts In Houlton Maine.

    Folks In Southern Aroostook County Are Spoiled With Home Made Sadie's Bakery Donuts, Cookies, Breads.
    Folks In Southern Aroostook County Are Spoiled With Home Made Sadie\’s Bakery Donuts, Cookies, Breads.

    Small Mom and pop businesses, the couple that know how hard it is to make a dollar, eek out a living being shrewd business people like Sadie’s Bakery in downtown Houlton Maine.

    Tim and Sharon O’Donnell for over 32 years set the alarm clock to rise and shine very early. Yes because they have beef cows to grain, hay and water. But also because of the local tradition carried out as sacred. It started in 1948 in the Shiretown, County seat for Aroostook, Maine’s largest of sixteen. Time to make the donuts. Because in a small Maine town the hot fresh coffee and a just made local donut are priceless. The experience of sampling each is the key to jump starting your day. Miss that coffee break routine and you start to back peddle. Nothing goes as planned.

    A different flavored donut each day. Everyone in the area can smell the fresh donuts that are addictive. Or dangerous if you are try to walk the straight and arrow when on a diet. The fellow that does my taxes next door to Sadie’s says your will power increases. But it was a struggle not to trot over every time Tim brings a new fresh batch in to the world. To resist loading up with a bag or two of hot, just out of the fryer, home made not cookie cutter store box donuts.

    He says chocolate donuts are his weakness.

    He tries to limit himself to one or two a week but he is in his 90’s and says maybe they extend life! What would you do at that age? Develop some new bad habits because you can? A local made donut is a small pleasure unique to the small Maine town.

    In addition to donuts, breads, squares, cookies and other baked cooks come out of Sadie’s Bakery. On Midnight Madness during the 4th of July Houlton Maine celebration, there is a line out in to the street of folks waiting for a carnival like dough boy with confectionery sugar, cinnamon on them. Or Italian sausages smothered in onions and green peppers and home made rolls. (Stomach grumbling…that’s mine from not enough lunch I guess).

    Tim and Sharon say the donuts are no secret shared only by local folks here in Houlton Maine or across the border in to New Brunswick Canada either. They ship 8 dozen to Alaska periodically to a fellow that pays a dollar a piece just for the shipping charges thru the US Postal system’s priority mail. The donuts arrive within 48 hours from being made, packed, shipped from Houlton Maine. They went up up and away..all the way to our 49th state, brought on board just before Hawaii.

    What the O’Donnell’s make can not be mass produced and it is a hand made one at a time operation. That is the secret, hard work and what makes each baked good so special, sought after. With the internet, and blog posts like this word can spread and demand increase.

    But as Tim says “When we sell out, that’s it for that day”.

    Similar to the German sandwich shop owner in Bangor Maine that retired recently after sixty odd years with a well known favorite “coffee pot” sandwich. The tradition builds the attachment and spans generations. Nothing trendy or faddish about the delicacy that is not from a copy cat chain but one of a kind offering.

    If the Sadie’s Bakery donuts and our local Houlton Farm’s Dairy home made butter could easily get to Florida.

    If the Jordan or Rices red hot dogs you can not buy out of Maine could get delivered to the retirees in the sunny south. Those folks would pay dearly for those items. Someone could become a very rich man. Scarcity adds to the sparkle and increases the hunger that improves the taste. Ever had a Sadie’s Bakery donut or other baked goods item? You have no idea what you are missing.

    Being just a donut, butter and hot dog merchant, food broker would be profitable. But maybe they are all special because they are unique to Houlton Maine, the way life should be. Breath deep when you drive up in to Market Square. Chances are your nose will lead you to Water Street, the home of Sadie’s Bakery in Houlton Maine. Houlton Maine is the county seat for the Crown of Vacationland called Aroostook!

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

    MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

  • Maine Towns, Cities Would Not Be The Same With Out Rotary Clubs.

    The Boy With The Leaking Boot, Proud Ambassador To Friendly Houlton Maine
    The Boy With The Leaking Boot, Proud Ambassador To Friendly Houlton Maine

    The Houlton Maine Rotary Club is 90 years old.

    And like most Maine towns or cities lucky enough to have a hard working local civic minded Rotary Club, if suddenly there was not a wheel spoke of gold and blue spinning, the absence, loss would be felt in a major way. The Houlton Maine club is part of Rotary District 7810, which is unique. It’s a blend of both sides of the border. The US and Canadian clubs working together to do more as a strong unified group, rather than individuals struggling with duplication of efforts and no cohesive collective horse power to get projects completed to help the local areas they serve.

    Rotary means local business people, professionals that are busy but workers and the top of their job classifications. If you want something done, in my hometown of Houlton Maine, you need to just get Rotary behind it. Efforts to help youth are a particular fancy of the Rotary emphasis with use of funds and time, energies often directed to our greatest resource, the future generation. Here’s a list of just a few of the contributions made by the Houlton Maine Rotary Club.

    1921 Purchased Houlton Maine town band uniforms
    1922 Set up Junior Baseball League/Boys Work Committee (Ice Rink Care)
    1925 Funding started for education student scholarships
    1930 First Christmas auction for help local charitable causes
    1935 College education scholarship funds for Houlton High School
    1950 Raised funds for Ricker College, air shows, club jamborees
    1956 First Rotary Radio Auction, raised $8000 for Ricker College
    1970 Hospitals Madigan and Aroostook receive over $100,000
    1971 Restoration of the Houlton Maine Ambassador, Boy & The Boot
    1975 $40,000 Pool Fund started, used to build John Millar Ice Arena
    1976 First “Paul Harris Fellow” presented to Harold “Baldie” Inman
    (40 Paul Harris Fellows awarded in recognition of club members efforts)
    1977 Restore town clock bell system, take over local Ricker canoe races.
    1978 Get behind downtown Houlton Maine revitalization project
    1980 Raise, award more development funds for Houlton Regional Hospital
    1982 Wrap up three year capital fund raiser, needed hospital equipment
    1983 Houlton Maine tourist information display cabinet donated
    1985 375 SOLD $1000 pewter Boy & The Boot statues campaign starts
    1988 New welcome signs, downtown Houlton Maine beautification funding
    1989 Millar Ice Arena / multi purpose building improvements funded
    1991 Cary Library original building restoration, establish childrens library
    1992 Houlton Maine high school sound system funds raised, donated
    1993 Fund Southside School Reference Library
    1996 Houlton Amphitheater project, $55,000 raised for summer concerts
    1997/8 Complete HA project, memorial, yearly ceremonies, tributes here
    1999 Donate raised funds to Derby Hill, Soap Box Derby, USA largest race
    2000 Houlton Maine animal shelter construction funds raised, donated
    2001 Money raised for new high school curtains, gym floor, history video
    2002/4 Raised funds and construct Houlton outdoor skate park
    2005/6 Southern Aroostook Agricultural Museum auction sponsorship
    2007 Fund from auction for Houlton Community Arts Center
    2008 Fund new Houlton elementary school and park playgrounds
    2009 Fund Houlton Maine area little league, community arts center
    2010 Help fund new addition little league fields, minor hockey association
    Continue to raise funds from pewter $1000 Boy & The Boot sales, now raising money for new seating in the Community Arts Center and much more.

    The Houlton Maine Rotary Club meets Mondays at noon to enjoy always, always a delicious, hearty meal put on by the men and women of the Church of the Good Sheperd. The fellowship, a song, blessing on the meal served in Watson Hall of the Episcopal church on Main Street. We enjoy weekly speakers on a variety of subjects, fund youth group foreign exchange programs, and are working hard to like other Rotarians wipe the disease polio off the face of the earth. As a Rotarian where you live to take you to a weekly meeting.
    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

    207.532.6573

    Email info@mooersrealty.com


  • Maine’s 6000 Lakes, Rivers, Streams Swell In Spring, Canoe – Kayak Races To Take Part In.

    Maine white water rafting, canoeing, kayaking..you don’t have to be a black belt racer to enjoy getting on the water.. a Maine lake, river, stream.

    Spring time means lots of races to signal high water and end of winter’s snow, the thaw creating lively waterways. The Kenduskeag Canoe Stream Bangor Maine Race is well know and televised on local news source. It’s Saturday, April 17th, 2010.

    Here’s the Meduxnekeag River Canoe Race 2009 Video. Small friendly and home grown canoe / kayak racing. Started back in the early 1970’s by Ricker College in Houlton Maine students. Carrying on the tradition were the members of the Houlton Maine Rotary club when Ricker closed its college doors after the Vietnam war end. This time of year you see more than one waterway on the to do list of avid outdoor paddlers too.

    Living in Maine means lots of recreation opportunities abound right in our backyard..literally. The only cost is sometimes a small entry fee to cover the cost of tshirts, trophies and to put on a feed for the in this case paddlers of kayaks, canoes that come together to celebrate spring coming to Maine. Maine, the way life should be. Wide open, unspoiled, fewer but way way friendlier people live here. Especially the further north you go in Maine.

    Leave you taser and hyper stressed life style behind in the urban concrete jungle where you keep your head down to avoid drive by shootings. Not like that in Maine.

    Where you are now you are tied, no actually chained to a desk for your 9-5 torture, I mean work day. It’s not like that in Maine. Get here for a part time or full time dose of Maine. You’re heart is already here. Help the rest of your major body parts get to “Vacationland”.
    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers
    207.532.6573Email info@mooersrealty.com

  • Maine Is Living Within Your Means, Being Careful With Money, Pay As You Go Thinking.

    Picking Maine Potatoes..Dusty, Hot Sun, Long Days But Part Of Growing Up.
    Picking Maine Potatoes..Dusty, Hot Sun, Long Days But Part Of Growing Up.
    Slow Dowh To Live The Good Life In Maine.
    Slow Dowh To Live The Good Life In Maine.

    Around Maine, most folks would consider spoiling a child the worse abuse you could lavish on your sons or daughters. Worse than neglect of that child.

    When money is in shorter supply, better impulse control with that money comes in to play. Kids watching a Maine mom and dad see how hard they work for what they have. How well they take care of, respect whatever they do purchase so they don’t have to run back out to spend more money. Spoiling a child and giving him or her undivided attention, unlimited resources and not insisting they have chores, odd jobs that increase in time and skill as they get older is worse than neglect. They go out in to the world thinking it revolves around them and expect others to treat them the save lavish way. That is not survival of the fittest, or giving something back to earn your keep.

    When Maine kids pick farm potatoes, rake blueberries, dig for clams and help fish or work in the woods, they learn the value of any dollar earned.

    Like their parents, they don’t part with that hard earned money easily unless there is value, quality exhanged with those released dollars held so tightly. When money is not the fuel to run the every day living, it does not become the “drug” to keep those kids entertained, from becoming bored or to waste time.

    If everything is handed to a kid, and nothing is worked for, saved for, dreamed about owning as he or she labors, the items mean nothing special for long when obtained without effort. And just desire for more “stuff”, happens, more material objects to artificially give joy or temperorary contentment. The buying, spending, shopping help kill ideal time that should be spent with chores, household obligations, helping out in the community and making that child’s own spending money. That is real world and creates self sufficient, reliable citizens of tomorrow that don’t have their hand out expecting the world to provide them a living.

    Our Maine youth are not arrogant with an entitlement attitude.

    They are empowered with independence and a fierce pride of workmanship, some control of their own destiny and course of their life. They know their place in the family and that the family would not be the same without them because they contribute, are part of it. Not feeling picked on or abused. Seeing the other members pitching in and working to carry their share too. That makes them more involved, partners in the process. Keeps them occupied in a healthy way too.

    Because Maine is not known as a super affluent state other than pockets of coastal concentrations of wealth, I believe we work harder to create our own existence from the grass roots up. The “necessity is the mother of invention” thinking serves us well and runs thru famliies of three generations..often under on roof like the family farm. When everything day to day does not hinge on having lots of money, or require spending of financial resources a person worked hard to sock away, save, then freedom enters the room and becomes the pattern, rhythm of life.

    Maine’s four season aspect of unspoiled outdoor beauty and license plate label as “Vacationland” means camping, hiking, hunting, fishing local lakes, rivers, streams is the recreation right in our backyard. We’re already in paradise, a heaven on earth setting. And with being the fourth lowest crime state, a sense of local community pride to pitch in and that family is everything, Maine is healthier, sane, simple living. We exist nicely well within our means. Don’t like debt, are not slaves to owing money for anything we don’t really need. Our wants are simple. Family, a house we want to get paid off. Or that we build slowly living in the cellar or in unfinished parts slowing paying as we go with materials and bartered help from friends that we return the favor to. Shouldn’t the country’s government, spending, policies be operated the same down to earth, feet on the ground way? Has that gone out of style or is the pendulum swinging back to minimalist, simple living. Day to day where reduce, resuse, recycle and gain control of spending is the daily goal?

    Maine’s property prices are probably what you are used to divided by three and four or more. Way way less zeros in those real estate selling figures.

    The low cost Maine real estate is one big reason it is easier to live the simple, lower cash outlay life and depend on less of a salary but get so much more quality of living for our kids, families.

    Plus being a little further up here in the right hand corner of the country helps insulate us from all the factors folks do not like about urban areas around cities. We don’t have the crime, smog, traffic, high cost of living. Maine is the way life should be. Inexpensive.

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

  • ME…Tell Me A Story About Maine Will Ya?

    Maine Youth Learn How To Work Early On..In The Potation Fields, On Fishing Boats, Raking Blueberries.
    Maine Youth Learn How To Work Early On..In The Potation Fields, On Fishing Boats, Raking Blueberries.

    You’ve never been to Maine, know nothing about the state parked up in the right hand corner of the world.

    So far north we’re almost in Canada. So for the reader’s digest version..here goes with some highlights about the place in case a question on Maine comes up on Jeopardy for four hundred dollars tonight. To get you up to speed about the facts, just the facts on Maine.

    Maine has sixteen counties, the largest being Aroostook which is the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. There are 6,000 Maine lakes. We are blessed with 32,000 miles of Maine rivers and streams. 17 million acres of Maine is wooded, or roughly 91 percent. Maine’s Baxter State Park is home of Mt Katahdin which is the northern end of the Appalachian trail. Katahdin is 5268′ feet tall, just shy of being a mile’s 5280′.

    The Maine state animal is the moose, the capital Augusta, the gemstone the Tourmaline.

    Our Maine state soft drink is Moxie, the state tree the white pine, the bird the Chickadee. Our state cat is the Maine coon cat. The herb wintergreen, insect the honeybee and state floral emblem, the white pine cone and tassel. Like to fish? Our Maine fish is the landlocked salmon.

    Our Maine state motto is Dirigo (I Lead). Maine’s population is 1.2 million. In northern Maine that means 11 people per square mile. Maine’s crime rate is the 4th lowest, Aroostook County is half that state average again. Maine is 320 miles long, 210 miles wide with over 33,215 square miles (roughly as big as the other five New England states combined.)

    Maine has 65 lighthouses and Portland Head Light was commission by President George Washington. Maine’s wild blueberry industry make it the nation’s largest, raising 98% of the lowbush blueberries in the USA. Maine potatoes rank third in acreage and production nationally.

    York was Maine’s first chartered city in 1641. Maine became a state in 1820 and prior to that year was part of Massachusetts. Nearly 40 million pounds of Maine lobsters are harvested each year. Other shellfish and fin fishes combined mean harvesting over 200 million pounds happens annually.

    Maine’s weather has three climate regions being the coastal, southern interior and northern interior divisions. Recognized as one of the most healthful states in the nation, our average summer temperature in Maine is 70 degrees. In the winter, the average is 20 degrees with snowfall extremely light this year. But normal snowfall is snowiest in Maine in January with about 20 inches in the northern zone. The state wide snow accumulation ranges from 50 inches to 110 inches..depending on your location.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

    207.532.6573

    info@mooersrealty.com

  • Maine Soap Box Derby…Special Needs, Handicap Racers Compete Too!

    We Are Waiting For A Green..And My Passenger To Get In To Derby Race.
    We Are Waiting For A Green..And My Passenger To Get In To Derby Race.

    I call them “wide bodies”
    or Pontiacs.

    These soap box derby racers have a driver, usually a past derby champion or veteran racer and a very enthusiastic passenger who gives the orders, makes the calls as heats are run. The big race for Maine, the entire state, is June 19th. For more on the race, visit the Northern Maine Soap Box Derby site…and our new Maine Soap Box site.
    We’re on facebook..twitter too!

    Since 1996 the Maine soap box derby program in Houlton Maine has grown leaps and bounds. For five years running, the Aroostook County race was the nation’s largest. And its all due to 60+ dedicated local individuals, local businesses that get behind the race year after year. So kids can know the “thrill of the hill” experience. The race is run on a specially engineered course built from stratch. Derby Hill was literally made from a mole hill in to a mountain! Check out a video of the race.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers207.532.6573