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Potato picking in Maine

Potato picking in Maine.

For many of us in Northern Maine, picking potatoes for an area farmer was our first real job. For anyone raised on a Maine potato farm like I was, the fall harvest tradition is a strongly ingrained tradition. Many grown ups take their vacations to work the harvest. It’s was that memorable and enriching for them to remember what working the harvest was like. They like helping out an area Maine potato farmer get the crop in the storage bins.

Lessons Earned Young To Apply To Life For The Youth Picking Maine Potatoes Out In The Farm Fields!

This blog post is all about Maine potato picking.

First things first. Picking potatoes like raking Maine blueberries, collecting apples climbing the ladder, digging for clams, etc all start with a system. My Dad and Mom preached before charging in to plan your work and work your plan. Reminded us enough times to never ever forget. That “you got to have a system.”

There is an art to everything we do in life and Mainers are definitely hard working.

Putting their all into every endeavor with zeal and innovation. Being raised on a Maine farm, the last and most cruel label you could ever wear or have applied was the word “lazy”. You were not, could not be lazy. You learned worth ethic early on in life. Lazy is considered stealing, not contributing for the greater good and is simply being a poor team member.

Watch a local Maine potato picking field operation video … Hear the digger squeaking by, see how the older pickers help the younger ones in this Maine harvest example.

Pitch in, work hard and be proud of your “fire in your belly” passion driven by the industrious gene.

So Maine potato picking, how does it all work? As a kid, waking up early and first turning on the radio to see if farmer Bob or Jim are starting on time was key. You don’t want to be late for work. True Mainers pride themselves on showing up consistently on time. In fact, if you are not early you are late thinking happens. Because you are trained to be dependable, responsible, a constant wherever you work. You want to be present and accounted for and ready to work.

Reasons your potato farmer might not be starting the digging on time, at the usual early AM morning time slot?

There was a frost last night. Gotta wait until the Maine farm field ground warms up and the air temperature is a tad higher. Late in the farm season, snow flurries can happen as the pressure to get these potatoes out of the ground only increases. Often staying in the field to pick hard later into the evening happens when their is a frost in the forecast and it gets down to crunch time.

The Fruits Of The Earth. Farm Fresh Hand Picked Maine Potatoes And Veggies Direct From The Field.

All that work to till the soil, plant the spring crops, tend them over the summer cultivation into the fall fall harvest finale. No one wants to leave any potato acreage behind in the farm field as winter approaches.

Another reason for hold your horses and before firing up the farm tractor that pulls the potato digger?

Rain. Too much moisture last night, yesterday means more time spent getting unstuck as farm harvest equipment sinks in the mud. Only gets mired deeper in the wet saturated farm soil.

Another reason to wait on getting into the field and firing up the pickers and all the agricultural equipment?

Too much potato field dirt sticking to the spuds when it is swimming in wet soil. Precious field dirt that gets trucked into the storage facility. Never gets a ride back to the field where it left.

The loss of farm dirt speeds soil erosion so park it and let the air clear. Wait until the soggy ground dries out the best advice during fall field harvest.

Hurry up and wait can happen picking potatoes by hand.

A potato digger gets reaches down below the buried tubers. Gently lifts them up and out of the ground with a metal revolving bed of hooked together connected sifting digger lags.

To lay out the two hill rows merged into one flat double one. Drying in the fresh air and beating sun before pick em up, put em in the basket potato barrel filing fun.

Quality control starts with protecting the potato from weather damage of freezing early morning temperatures. From blistering heat by afternoon in the Maine potato field.

A kid picking shows up to the field sometimes wearing long underwear, layers of clothing. Shedding them as fall harvest temperatures rise and the barrel count increases. Extra pairs of cotton jersey gloves for when one set wears out, gets snagged on a barrel nail. Or plunges into a rotten potato that stinks to high heaven and is wet. Labor warms you up living in Maine. Whether picking potatoes, splitting firewood or shoveling new winter snow. Exercise is your internal heater. Lugging empty barrels, the spud baskets to fill ‘er up to the brim to win burns calories.

So how’s it work, potato picking in Maine?

You show up at the edge of the latest unharvested field armed with a water jug, a home made lunch, plenty of snacks. You take your pick of potato baskets made of ash at the beginning of the season. That basket is your weapon to create lots of barrels to make money. You keep tabs on your basket and guard from losing it all harvest long.

Picking The Potatoes By Handfuls Into A Basket To Fill The Empty Barrels. Full Potato Barrels Weight 165 Pounds Before Storage In Potato Bins Over The Winter.

Line up behind the field boss picking crew.

He or she hands out your potato barrel ticket number all wrapped tightly in an elastic. You follow him or her up into the potato field and everyone is assigned a section. From this boot soil drag mark so many paces up to this next one. Sure you can handle this territory row and after dug row in the potato field? That is your field section that you promise to keep picked up for the next three weeks or longer.

Maine area schools still go in three weeks early the end of summer in some places so the potato harvest recess tradition can continue.

The kids picking potatoes or working on harvests is vital to the farmer’s harvest plans. Other field workers drive trucks, work on the back loading barrels or running the potato digger.

Others take the filled barrels or bulk body trucks onto conveyors that deliver the field spuds into storage bills. Filling the potato house a pretty important too. Some school districts still recess for fall break to allow kids to work the Maine potato harvest.

The potato picker has selected his section, marked the ends with water jug and lunch box or articles of clothing as things heat up.

You need empty potato barrels to play the game and unearthed spuds to row by row travel across the field. Grab an empty barrel, drag it to the middle of your just dug section if it is a long one to save steps filling it.

Put the empty barrel on it’s side.

Lean over and pick the potatoes to clear the area where the barrel gets set up. The potato barrels will go every other row because space for the farm truck to get through is needed to pick up filled ones, drop off new empties.

Generally an adult or teenage potato picker will fill four baskets to create a 165 pound barrel of spuds. Littler pickers can only lug so large a potato basket and will make more trips to top barrels off to just below the rim.

Three rules of many in the potato farm field to follow.

1) Protect the precious potato crop by clearing a spot in a newly dug digger pass before putting up the empty barrel you fill. 2) “Pick ’em clean” which means don’t leave behind perfectly good potatoes. Look under the dirt clumps and grass clods. And 3) No over filling barrels so truck field hands collecting potatoes cause damage with the “tongs”.

Tongs are the attachment mechanism thrown down from the truck body as it passes your section.

It hooks on and hoists up by grabbing the full potato barrel using hydraulics or earlier models an truck battery. Tongs attached to a cable or chain to land the barrel up and onto the truck platform. Then while the truck is still moving, roll the barrel back into place. To fill the body with fifty or more loaded barrels. The farm truck is a flat open platform, with wooden stakes around the edge all connected by a rope to secure the barrels for the quick unloading trip to deposit into the potato house bins.

Pick Up, One Potato At A Time. Four Baskets Fill A Potato Barrel In Maine. Teaching My Oldest Daughter The Art Of Potato Picking One Fall Years Ago.

Each potato picker field worker takes one of his or her tickets from their numbered bundle. Slides it securely into a groove on the top to protect from wind blowing it off the full barrel.

The potato barrels come in two varieties.

165 Pounds Is The Weight Of A Full Maine Farm Potato Barrel.

Either cedar wooden staves or the plywood sheet kind. Wrapped in a circle and held together by wooden bark strip sections nailed top, middle, and bottom of the barrel. There are cracks in the top wooden strip fastener where you slide your numbered ticket into securely for barrel payment credit.

The tickets collected by the barrel hoist operator as the potato truck slowly plies the field. Tickets put in a two gallon re-purposed oil can with a handle and can opened hole at the top. These cans like the black box in an airplane. Telling the tale of who picked how many today.

I counted many a ticket with my Mom each night after a harvest supper.

That supper involved a version of baked potatoes of some kind. Not a lot of rice eaten on a Maine potato farm. We would clear the table of meal dishes, then lay down newspapers. Then shaking out time to empty the dusty cans one by one.

Lots of fine potato dirt made its way into kitchen table ticket counting process each night.

Lining up the ticket numbers numerically and next counting each pile after all the cans were empties from the field trucks. Wrapping the tickets up with an elastic to return to whoever is assigned this potato picking field number for this fall season. That person could count their tickets to know how they did yesterday but most already had a pretty good idea.

A check at the end of the week barrel count announced in the memo section the total barrel production. Tabulated from the day by day hand tally for the grand total each week to determine the pay check size.

When I was a kid, 25 cents a barrel was the going rate per barrel. My four kids each picked and it was 60 cents for each full picked barrel ticketed during their era. Money you earned, not just handed to you by Mom or Dad without effort on your part.

The Saturday night ritual of going into down town much like the giddy feeling you sense in the western movies.

When some dirt farmer or trapper, miner, whoever rode in off the trail to town for supplies. Kids pitched in an bought their winter clothes to help out the family budget. Most of the checks saved for something useful like your winter jacket. You bought it, you take better care of it.

Very shrewd and careful as you shop with other cleaned up potato pickers you bumped going in and out of store doing the same bargain hunting. When it is your own hard earned money being spent, impulse spending control happens. You keep looking when you don’t think what you are considering buying is worth so many barrels of potatoes or not.

Part of the potato picking money a kid can blow on something fun. I remember saving for a new bike, then a motorized one after that.

Dreaming about it in the field along with awfully good snacks and carefully prepared tasty lunches that helped smooth out the laboring. Every fall, the new Sears or Montgomery Ward Christmas arrived to help the dreaming process take your mind off the pick and fill field drill.

The other field crew pickers are your friends on the potato chain gang.

The grower needs you to show up, pick ’em clean and help get the crop out before old man winter arrives. Fellow pickers who you ate lunch with, talked to in neighboring field sections. You rode to and from the field in the back of a pick up bed with these dusty, dirty hard working spud handlers. You learned other entertaining skills… like walking balanced on a rolling barrel. Or becoming William Tell accurate putting a small potato on the end of a wood’s switch stick that is used in brief potato skirmishes until the field boss comes into view. Back to work after a little potato picking brevity.

Potato picking was your entry level job, your first real employment for money.

Not just a house hold chore like making your bed or helping do the dishes because it is your turn. You picked more barrels if the field harvest yield was higher, if the growing season was favorable, when the potato house was not too far away. Which caused delayed return of the empties you needed to fill to keep from getting behind. Lots can affect your daily barrel count. How much sleep you got last night, if you were on an end field section that kept shortening. Or growing longer and causing discouragement as the hot sun beamed down from overhead. All as you found yourself hopelessly falling behind. How cold or windy or rainy it was, how much the digger pushed you to keep caught up was the potato field dynamics to do the best you can.

Lessons learned in the Maine potato picking field that last for life.

How big a section can you handle? Don’t bite off more than you can chew. You don’t want to get fifty rows behind because it was too long. Although if you did, another potato field rule. No one leaves the field when day is done until everyone is picked up and no dug potato rows exist.

Where Your Love Lies Obvious On The Maine License Plate. Farm to Table Is Pretty Sacred.

You do run out of barrels and that is the time to head to the woods for a nature call. When you use the expression “I have to go see a man about a horse” as you carefully stride across the un-dug potato rows.

If waiting for the empty barrel truck to return from the potato house delays production, might be a good time for a snack or to eat your lunch early. Make good use of your time another lesson learned. Shift gears quickly and expect set backs and road blocks. But you rise to the occasion and take it all in stride as a professional, seasoned potato harvest picker or spud house worker.

Pick the potato tops off your section of newly dug potatoes. That will make filling barrels quicker when you do hear the thud of an empty or two being dropped as the truck passes your section.

Be nice to the truck crew who might land an extra empty because you did. That’s my insider local expert as a long time potato picker in the farm field since a little shaver.

When you run out of barrels, might trot down to a place in the field where there are plenty and folks are behind. To pick a couple barrels and then return to your own section just as empties arrive or the broken digger comes back alive and squeals by. Stay busy.

Some stand up and lean over.

Others drop to their knees and drag the potato basket beside or behind them to fill it with golden, other color spud varieties. Shot in the Sherman Maine area, the video embedded in the top portion early on in this blog post shows the sights and sounds of harvest in case you missed it. The video below near the end show and tells what potato picking looks like in the potato house working the storage / grading lines.

The home made donuts, cookies, sandwiches and ring dings, yodels, ding dongs, moon pies and candy bars. The fuel to keep the potato picker rolling for quick energy. It all tastes so much better out in the fresh air. Enjoyed amidst the brilliant fall foliage colors surrounding you in the scenic Maine potato fields with your friends and relatives.

Picking potatoes, you are out in nature.

You see the occasional deer, rabbit, fox, black bear or moose out of the corner of your eye too. As the wildlife wander by the edge of the field. Crossing it to head to a babbling brook for a slurp of refreshing drink of cold cool running brook water. Or curious and watching what you are up to as you fill barrels and slowly as a group advance across the harvest field.

I was raised on a Maine potato farm where every family member has a vital role. Starting as a young grasshopper, the fall harvest potato picking season just one of the tasks working together with your mom, dad, brothers and sisters. Back when I was a kid, everyone picked potatoes and there were more farmers needing the hand crews.

My Dad always said pickers did a better job and were gentler on the potato crop quality then mechanical harvesters. Now less farmers, more larger Maine potato growers make potato hand picking crews not as common.

On my Maine family farm I bought from my three older brothers, hand crews still used. But instead of barrels, orange baskets gets filled to empty into wooden two thousand pound wooden box crates. All organic with the kids paid by the hour instead of piece meal by the basket.

Sampling The Local Maine Location On Your Cheap Vacation. Learning What Life Is Like Here! Early Morning Heading To The Maine Potato Field To Harvest Spuds.

Not just bending over or on your knees to pick potato for the fall harvest work. Other jobs exist like working on a harvester, in the potato house grading what the bulk body unloaded that ends up in storage bins. There are also jobs over the winter working to get the spuds loaded into tractor trailer trucks to deliver to the produce markets. To plant in spring and cultivate and hoe over the summer to raise the next fall harvest crop.

As the Maine blog post wraps up, this is a short clip on showing with the spuds end up bring graded, working in a potato house. You are there sight and sounds below.

It is enlightening to see the kids today rise to the occasion and dig in to work hard during the Maine potato farm harvest.

The lessons learned in the Maine potato or whatever vegetable field or fruit orchard picking operation are never forgotten. Everything you learn is your system for life and used as you approach any other task big or small. You learn to have a system, develop a plan and stay resourceful with resiliency with lots of passion to do your best. Some of the pickers end up becoming the next generation of farmers to continue the tradition and put food on the table.

Hope you enjoy this blog post on the Maine farm potato picking institution.

Thank you for being a follower of the Me In Maine blog that tries to paint the picture of what living in Vacationland is all about one topic at a time. Maine truly is the way life should be.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

| 207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

October 15, 2021
Recreation Camps In Maine, One Property Owner’s Story

Recreation camps in Maine, one property owner’s story shared today on a blog post.

The attraction for many to get to Maine is less people, more wildlife, wall to wall nature all around you. It can all start with just owning an acre or two, a small piece of ME. Often the old travel trailer sinking up to it’s axles from lack of use in the backyard is tapped. Spruced up to make it road worthy for the last trip up to Maine. To go off road forever.

Meet The Locals! Camping In Your Recreation Camps Up In Maine.

Before graduating to the recreation camp in Maine, the camper or RV used as a command base in operation ME low cost vacation.

Creating a spot to head and camp out every three day weekend, any much needed vacation week long stretch. Slowly a cabin is hauled in already built or one is crafted a stick, log or beam at a time. Nothing fancy because the living room is going to be outdoors. Hitting the trails and exploring or getting out onto a body of water to rest and relax. You do your best thinking and find the greatest enjoyment when you can hear yourself think.

Baxter State Park… The Wilder Side Not So Touristy Appears The Deeper You Explore.

Below radar and off grid and hidden in the woods or parked next to a stream, river, pond or lake is the perfect setting for a low cost Maine vacation.

This blog post is a story about how much one couple from below Bangor Maine enjoyed their recreation camp in the Mt Chase, ME. Owned for 44 years and built from scratch. Nothing fancy and simple. To serve as a jumping staging area place to hit several times a year. A post to hit the many remote waterways around the north entrance to Baxter State Park. Listen to their Maine recreation story. As they explain how much fun they had and what was enjoyed most “uptah camp in Maine.

They miss the place up in the tippy top of Penobscot County but realize it is time to let go.

No regrets and so many memories made up at the recreational camp in Maine. Used to part of the Brown Farm in the Patten area, but the 44 acres of Maine land turned into a woodlot, a camp location. They could have had power, it was running up and down the Shin Pond Road, or RT 159. But they chose not to connect the juice and to make their own with battery packs.

Keeping it simple, close to the ground and immersed in nature.

In the beginning the couple spent less time at the camp and more of their days tramping and exploring. Learning one adventure at a time about all the not so easy to get to lakes, streams and ponds around remote areas of Baxter State Park. The ones that don’t get much traffic and very little press.

Added Later, The Much Enjoyed Screened in Camp Porch.

You find the further north, east and west you plow up into Maine, the more unspoiled and all natural the surroundings become.

As the husband who was a college profession and the wife a nurse got older, more time was devoted to being at camp. In the video you hear them talk about the screened in porch that was added. The storage shed for their outdoor toys was built from scratch too. Nothing elaborate but not because they could not afford to have it that way. Fancy dancy or hoity toity “look at what we have” to post all over social media channels was not the goal. Private, special, all that they needed that was more than enough.

See The Pale Blue Dashes Marking The Trail Ahead? Remind You Of Climbing Mt Katahdin Up And Down?

The trails carved from old logging roads and through pasture farm fields that grew up to trees painted with blue dashes.

You know if you have hikes Mt Katahdin or any of the other foothills around Baxter State Park about light blue dashes. That mark the trail so you get up and down before sunset and having to call the warden’s service to go find you at great tax payer expense.

Hiking Baxter State Park. Which Trails Do You Use The Most And Pick To Hike?

The couple with the recreation camp up in Maine also kept a journal.

To help remember and recall each and every trip to the Maine camp or cabin in the nestled in the woods. Looking forward to getting to the Maine recreational camp was as special as the times cherished made their through the year. All of us have to have something to look forward to for fun.

Who Left The Water Running? Baxter State Park Crystal Clean Waterways!

Many recreational camp owners use four wheel ATV’s and snowmobiles to access the nature trails. Others prefer like this couple to hoof it, to hike, bike, kayak and with no motor involved.

Here’s another from the recreation camps in Maine popular people’s choice category that just came on the market.

Wrapped with fourteen acres high on a hill with a big Maine lake in it’s lap, the simple cedar shingle sided cabin is 20′ x 16′. Built with a loft to expand down the road. There’s a brook that is more verbal after a two or three day rain. You get to hear Maine loons in this Maine real estate video.

You can rent a cabin, reserve a motel room in Maine to move around and explore.

That’s how it starts out to get your feet wet and get your bearings. Good way to start to slowly ease her into your diet. One vacation visit no matter how short or long at a time. But once you find a location that tugs at your heart to return every time you leave, you decide to invest in some Maine recreation land. To own a piece of ME and start the family traditions. To drill down into an area with repeat visits and feeling the relationship growing stronger.

Some Winters Are More Snow Fall Than Others. All The Better For Snowmobiling, Skiing, To Create Snowy Trails To Explore Maine’s Winter Wonderland.

Trips up to the recreation camp in Maine happening more frequently.

To explore and discover all four seasons what folks lucky enough to live in Maine full time get to enjoy.That’s how addictions get rooted.

Drews Lake Night Sky In Aroostook County Maine.

So so lucky to live in Maine full time.

I know I am very lucky and glad my kids were raised in Maine. To not have to only get a morsel, once a year visit and that’s all she wrote chance to get to know her more fully. Maine, come for a day and end up staying a life time. Vacationland, Maine is the way life should be.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

October 6, 2021
Paying For A Parking Spot, You Must Not Be In Maine

Paying for your parking spot.

Worry About Parking Spaces Does Not Happen In Maine. Concern For Other More Important Stuff Occurs.

You must not be in small town rural Maine.

When the space to park your Civic or RAV4 is just not to be found in a crowded city landscape without digging deep into the purse or opening wide your wallet. Had a caller from Cambridge MA looking to relocate to Houlton Maine share with me about a parking spot she saw listed for $375,000. Come and get it, hot and ready admit one vehicle parking spot up for sale. Better hurry. I believe she said it just hit the real estate market in the Charles Street area where parking spaces have all but evaporated.

Like sports or musical arena seats, the better the parking spot, the proximity to where you need to be, the cost increases exponentially.

Parking Near Fenway Park, Home Of The Green Monster And The Boston Red Sox. It’s A Trick And Usually Costs A Few Coins To Be At Red Sox Nation HQ.

For safety sake in the urban jungle, you want to be close to the three chain locks, two dead bolts and security cameras of home sweet home right?

Not to have to hoof it head down and trying to look small. To not call attention to yourself for the stroll of many blocks away from home hoping your tazer still has a full charge. Did you remember to plug it in last night wracks your brain as your breathing increases in the ready to fight or flight.

Paying for a parking spot.

In small town Maine, the down town has plenty of spaces to park the iron horse. Fewer people competing for them and a large supply of where to park that works best for where you need to shop. Not miles from where you want to go in the pouring rain or wading through new fallen white fluffy snow. We spend money on other luxuries like groceries, heating oil or fire wood, property taxes, not a parking permit. The cars and trucks we drive are practical, made to last and treated with respect. Because money does not grow on trees to allow it to be any other way in frugal, common sense thinking Maine.

Not Your Typical Maine Car Seen On The Less Traveled Highways. This One Spotted On The Way Into Boston, MA Of The Maine Turnpike.

This real estate home buyer hoping to telecommute from Vacationland in Houlton Maine.

Plans to pack up the job to bring it up the pike along with the rest of her Worldly possessions.

Where she lives in the Boston area, she says her Subaru has a war torn battle weary front and rear bumper. No reason to repair or replace them because more dings and dents happen daily. She says people more and more drive like they are behind the wheel of a bumper car. Tar instead of a metal floor the only difference.

Maine is easy to drive, not hard to do the parking.

You don’t have to own by buying your parking spot and around your home, lots of where to park options exist. The houses lots boundary lines are not zipped tightly around the buildings and have lots of side, back, front land components for breathing room. You don’t find zero lot lines zoning happening in sparsely populated Maine.

Not Maine, This Is What You See In Cities. Tunnels, Bridges, One Way Streets Of Boston MA. Think Quick And Dig Deep For Another Toll.

With COVID, she read there are 30% more cars in the Boston area circling the parking lots and trolling the streets competing for a parking spot.

New drivers have not mastered the art of parallel parking either. So they screw up 1.5 or 2 spaces cocked eyed sideways when they throw the transmission into park and walk away.

The less than black belt city drivers also don’t hug the curb to get in out of harm’s way of the busy multi lane Bean Town streets.

So their ride is over the parking line and kitty corner spilling into the traffic. Great situation for body repair shops I guess. Depends on who’s ox is being gored who wins or loses.

The commuter lanes are closed off too for repurposing to handle all the bike traffic.

COVID made folks a little queasy about hopping on the many colored lines of growded in your face commuter trains. Many drive or bike that used to climb up and into all those big diesel smelling buses. You never really forget how to ride a bike or to kiss right? It’s more of a sport when vehicles are weaving in and out off lanes like asteroids all around you.

Our Highways To Thrill And Maneuver In Maine. Less Traveled, Sometimes Watery.

But no doubt ER’s have a little more customer base hobbling in the automatic sliding doors due to bike injuries.

Too much traffic moving along way too fast for safety sake leads to casualties and fatalities at a time hospitals are already red line RPM jammed to the max with a high no vacancy COVID census.

Maine, where I live only 11 people per square mile.

Where in New Jersey, the head count per same space is 1000 Earthlings. We don’t lock doors, the cars don’t get stolen. Plus not much that is exotic to temp the car jacker and most rides proudly display 200,000 and more odometer miles. Not all the fender colors match but the longer you hang onto and nurse or doctor a car, the more attached you get to it. You have lots of history with the vehicle that becomes an important part of the family.

Plenty Of Parking At A Maine Ski Area Or A Small School Soccer Game. Welcome To Maine! Elbow Room, No Road Rage, No Paid Parking Necessary.

Maine, where house lots are measured in acres not inches or a few feet.

Parking spaces, paying for one would cause a raised eyebrow at the mere suggest. Parking spots surround going round and round into a dark concrete multi level garage. Or you checking your watch to drop and stop everything. To hustle back in crunch time to feed the hungry parking meter. We park in our yards, own the land far from our houses in all four directions. Lots of breathing room and parking happens in our yards. Not out on the street to compete with a winter snow plow that can steal a side mirror in the blur.

Where To Park? Never Ever Out In The Street In Rural Maine. You Don’t Have To Buy Your Parking Spot In Maine And Have Lots Of Options For Stop And Go.

Plenty of parking, not wall to wall living or pushing, shoving, road rage out of control.

You don’t dish it out like you receive it. Not grazing another’s vehicle bumper to open up a car parking space. Can you imagine being sardined in and hopping into your car, removing the car jack wedged into the steering wheel. And accelerating to ramming speed to push the car in front and behind you hard. A couple of times to open up some room. To back off jack “nulldozer”. To create space back and forth whittle your way and blast off into the high speed stream of traffic.

Paying for a parking spot.

That’s not living, that’s not Maine. Save your money for other more important things. The high cost and stress of parking is missing in Maine. One more reason to consider hanging it up, bailing out, taking your real estate poker chip winnings and high tailing it Maine, the way life should be.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

September 21, 2021
Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) | Simple Living In Maine

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a term I just heard about today.

These Me In Maine blog posts have common themes about using common sense and distilling down into what it really important in life.

FOMO, learning more about a topic can be turned into a blog post as we explore the condition together.

So here we go exploring the anxiety called FOMO or fear of missing out. Crafted and created from a native Mainer’s perspective.

Bored, Wishing They Had Some Wire Cutters To Take A Vacation From The Pen. Do You Have FOMO? The Anxiety Called Fear Of Missing Out? Are You In A Herd Of Sheep Watching Others Every Move?

(Cracking of knuckles sound in preparation.) FOMO is a social anxiety.

Fear of missing out, believing others could be having fun while you are not present. If you are a stranger to social media circles, FOMO might be hard to grasp as so life and death important. But if you post lots of selfies. If you make your social media channels designed to create envy in others in look at me and all the exotic places I go that you don’t. You my friend are stoking the FOMO fires burning from within the followers you try to make envious.

FOMO is regret, that you missed a once in a life time opportunity that will scar or limit you down the road forever.

FOMO is worry about missing a social event or consciously opting out that may be the wrong choice to take for your perfect life ahead. Pressure, guilt, and frankly too much time watching or coveting others. Comparing yourself to others based on their social media feed. Simple living in Maine is not consumed by watching others. And for starters, life is not always as it appears from the outside looking in on a social media channel.

More Space, Always Outdoors, Less People In Small Maine Town Living. You Spend More Time With Yourself Finding Ways To Entertain And For Fulfillment.

Spin, giving a different perception, a slanted agenda hidden from view fuels FOMO.

That’s what highly effective marketing is all about.. to create a call to action. To spark a desired need for something being sold. To improve your life that is seemingly only available for a limited time. That you suddenly think you can not live without and better get on the stick to order before midnight tonight. Something is missing. You need something, you want something you don’t have and can’t quite put your finger on it as a consumer. Others will tell you exactly what you need and where your life is going astray. Lots of opinions out there and they are getting louder.

But like Tom Petty crooned “You don’t know how it feels to be me”.

People come, people go
Some grow young, some grow cold
I woke up in between
A memory and a dream.

Miss you Tom. Now there’s a guy that would not back down if you are looking for musical inspiration.

Small Maine Town Productions, Everyone Pitches In With Talent To Stretch The Budget. These Home Grown Experiences Build Creative Confidence.

To delve into FOMO, you have to back it up a step to anxiety itself.

Anxiety is dread, a feeling of fear or uneasiness that can keep you up at night. Make you feel restless or tense and affect your eating or drinking habits or the lub dub pace of your heart. Anxiety is not taking it easy. Not just doing the best you can and knowing things usually work out for the best in the long run. Anxiety is not confidence, not believing in yourself. Or maybe it is knowing you did not study enough for the test tomorrow crammed for tonight.

Preparing yourself for failure ahead is suppose to lessen the pain and suffering. Knowing that you are ill prepared and somehow not deserving a good grade because you did not work for it. That is what ignites a spark to create the blaze due to a swell of insecurities that sinks your boat over and over. There is a better, more prepared way to live.

Maine Home Offices, Working Online From Home Sweet Home Up In Maine. No Worry About FOMO Because We Are Grateful To Have Beauty & Space.

I think FOMO is boredom, not enough to do or poor use of your time management.

We have an expression in Rotary that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. They size up the situation, attack a problem not a person and git it dunn’ as Larry the Cable guy advises. These people’s life is full and productive. Sitting around swiping social media screens up, down, sideways. To study others to learn what everyone else is up to is a waste of time if hours of every day are consumed. Something else is suffering if that is happening. Like retail therapy, the buying stuff to fill a hunger hole is temporary and artificial and does not last.

This is where a place like Maine comes in.

The way life should be. Less people, more wildlife, a greater sense of your natural surroundings. Hiking up Mt Katahdin, a day trip to the Maine coast, on your knees in the flower or vegetable garden. Working on your house to get it painted or DIY projects completed is satisfying. You learn to entertain yourself, to work hard and create a life you enjoy based on what makes you tick inside. Not by watching what seems to satisfy others that you are told you need to adopt. You are not one of those sheep pictured above right? Right?

Farming News, Part Of The Local Beat For Coverage In The Garden Of Maine, Aroostook County! Lucky To Live In Maine And Don’t Suffer From FOMO Surrounded By All This Natural Beauty!

There is no YOU in that habit of watching others.

Maybe that what the younger generation in the turbulent 1960’s described as being lost, trying to find myself. Far out. Right on. Anyone know how to get to Woodstock? Let’s hitch hike in that direction together, want to? Turn up the CSN&Y.

When you have regular chores around the home growing up, you develop a skill set.

You gain confidence. Taking care of yourself happens and not being dependent on others. Maybe it’s not glamorous that you know how to mow a lawn or do laundry, cook and clean. But you learn to care more and more on your own. That prepares you for life. To fend for yourself. You don’t expect others to do these tasks. No one waits on you. You learn the feeling of accomplishment from a job well done. It defines you and you gain a source of pride.

The Snug As a Bug In The Little Red Log Maine Lake Camp. Telecommuting From Maine. Not Suffering From FOMO. Happy Where We Live.

Maine simple living is the cure for FOMO. Having far less free idle time to watch others and wishing your life looked differently.

Social media channels are programing, not so “real” reality in most cases. Rehearsed, photo shopped, practiced with a teleprompter. Marketing is the desire to get folks receiving the signal to buy a product or purchase a service. Or groove on you for attention. Something you need that you can not live without or that will somehow improve your life is what is being sold and are you buying it?

Time and money, how you spend it when you live in rural Maine is much more practically approached.

That wood pile for next year’s house heating that is worked on slow and sure whenever you can return to the splitter. It is energy independence and good exercise to be boy scout prepared. Not just writing a check to the fuel oil supplier for whatever they want to charge per gallon. You could but you don’t. The climbing up a ladder to strip a garage roof and re-shingle it is confidence. You gain self satisfaction because you know how and were taught not to hire everything out in life.

What’s Happening Around You In Uncrowded Maine. That Kind Of News Is Home Grown, Spread More By Locals Than Media Outlets. We Suffer Less From FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

The youngest in a Maine family and right on through up the line have a role to play in the daily chores.

Set the table, your turn to do the supper dishes. Help pick up. Don’t hog the bathroom. Please, thank you, be considerate. Remove your shoes, don’t leave a mess. No one sits out or is carried and the responsibility increases the older they get. Because the parents prepare them for life flapping their wings outside the nest.

In small town rural Maine, money is not handed to you and if it is to be, it is up to me.

But the sky is the limit if I am willing to work hard and make good decisions. Get my sleep, eat good nutritious food, exercise, volunteer to help others. Those basic but to some boring life ingredients can provide rich real lasting results from the no pain, no gain learning lessons.

When You Live In Maine, No Fear Of Missing Out. You Are One Of The Lucky Ones To Just Be In Vacationland.

Patience, respect for property to take care of what you buy with impulse control shopping to make sure to get quality.

People pay Dave Ramsey to learn this stuff that was missed because no one else showed them the ropes to healthy rewarding simple living. Your parents, family, teacher, your boss because you have a job for spending money are all your mentors and life coaches for free.

FOMO has already been around to a small degree.

Keeping up with The Jones meant awareness of a few successful people around you. But social media channels amplified the watching just a few to hundreds, thousands as you make lots of new “friends”. The needing to fit in, to have more friends than others means conformity to the sea of faces. Letting others make decisions for you to fit in and be hip is not living your life. It is mirroring around others that are not you. More on how FOMO does not help your self esteem.

Lots Of Lobster Fishing, Tourist Boat Rides, Other Industry In The Maine Harbors Of Vacationland. When You Live In Maine, All This Is In Your Backyard And Less FOMO Anxiety Levels Drop.

Embrace JOMO (joy of missing out) because you started making your own unique set of choices.

That’s when you start living your own life and stop the habit of shaping it modeling only others perceived day to day based on social media insertions. Remember the mirror mirror on the wall habit of one aging queen? The need for attention, to be envied or coveted by others is not healthy. No time for it in small town rural Maine where happiness is not found on a glowing eerie blue screen but in the drop dead gorgeous full color outdoor landscape.

Sheltering In Place, Small Towns In Maine Are Ideal For Sheltering In Place. We Are Happy, Self Contained!

True Mainers are outdoors everyday, just dressed a little bit different to reflect the season.

We get what we need from out in nature. What we have is earned the old fashioned way. Not by buying a power ball chance for a million dollar pay out, because we are high on what we already worked hard to earn.

Are you addicted to know what is happening in other people’s lives?

Meet Your Neighbors, Kinda Shy, Have Four Legs. Whew. You Made It To Maine.

Is social media making you feel inadequate or depressed?

Shut it off or at least limit the screen time to create time for healthy rituals. Or use it for inspiration ideals from a Pinterest pin or a DIY YouTube video to glean ideas and skills. But not to see how your life sizes up compared to the thousands of so call online friends. Maybe those you follow are not so happy and part of the enjoyment is to take you down a peg or two to feel like a loser. Who needs friends like that? And who wants to be a toxic friend like that?

Thank you for stopping by our Me In Maine blog post weekly installment on FOMO.

Juggling Your Life Work Balance And Keeping Perspective. More Time In Maine Helps Clear Your Head.

Being grateful for all you do have, for what you cherish. Worked hard for to create, protect and to enjoy living in up in Maine.

Counting those blesses and not lamenting or longing for a long list of what you think you want that you don’t need. That’s the right direction I think most down to Earth Mainers decide to take. Less whining and watching others and more pitching in to help out. And that they pass on to their children by living those kind of examples in the mentoring and skill building to not just survive life. But to glean more from the life they create. Living it fully and richly by keeping it simple all natural outdoors in four seasons Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

September 19, 2021
Amish Lifestyle In Maine

Amish lifestyle in Maine.

Large families of over ten children, farm living off the land. They say the average age of an American farmer is 59 years. But with the increase in Maine micro farmers, more Amish families moving into the North Eastern sections of the country, the median age is dropping.

No Rubber Tires, Steel Wheels For These Amish Farm Squash Wagons In The Easton / Fort Fairfield Area.

It’s not easy living on a Maine farm but many hands make light work. Self sufficient, blessed with survival skills, content is the daily goal.

The local Maine Amish farm families are also some of the best patrons of the hometown libraries. Besides growing local vegetables, the Maine Amish create horse harnesses, peddle metal for your building exteriors and roofing. And small sheds and cabins, rustic furniture also are crafted in all kinds by Amish families for local retail sales.

Lots of bikes used for Amish transportation.

Not just buggies used to play the small circles around an Amish settlement. The youth travel to and from other nearby Amish settlements to visit and share news. To find a partner for continuing the Amish lifestyle in Maine. Their blinking bike lights can be hard to see. Dressing in black, with the same color applied to the carriage as dusk approaches makes motorists slow down or decide to take a different route on Maine roadways. No one wants responsibility for a poor visibility caused accident.

Amish Farms In Maine. They Pop Up In New Settlements Around Maine Each Year.

You see their horse drawn Amish carriages tied to light posts at the local Walmart.

During farmer’s markets, the horses unhitched from their produce wagons and taken down to water by a community river. Most Maine towns sprung up around a waterfront feature that was originally used to power the grist or flour mill wheels. To ply the watery highways for transportation and moving logs and product to market. The waterway essential for sustaining life before private wells tapped the H2O beneath the ground at each private homestead. The security and survival of the early settlement in Maine depended on that river in so many ways. Still does for the Amish stepping back into time to preserve what was lost in the hustle bustle.

Red Rules The Day With This Maine Amish Homestead. One Of A Kind Built By Hand And Sweat And Patience On A Patch Of Dirt Up In Maine.

What do you notice when you visit an Amish homestead in Maine?

No one on an electronic device or face lit up by the eerie glowing screen. Industry happens with many hands making light work creating something from thin air. The Amish are present in conversations and distraction chasing down a text or returning a like or poke is not in their repertoire.

Amish Inspecting Their Crops To Prepare For Fall Harvest Time in Northern Maine.

Fields plowed using horses and harvested the same way.

Barns and other agricultural buildings noticed springing up as Amish settlements spark and grow steadily. Re-working abandoned farm machinery that was two row not eight row fancy dancy. The Amish settlements reverse the tide of less small farmers and trend to just a few larger ones.

During a farmstead visit to an Amish household, it is not uncommon to see eight, ten or even thirteen children size families around you.

Warm, friendly, curious. Some guarded but more genuinely unguarded and interested in what you have to say. I know of an Easton Maine family that is growing organic food for my girlfriend Meg’s organic farming operation. She operates the family business called Nature’s Circle. Thank you Meg for helping supply many of these photos taken from the Maine Amish farm landscapes she travels for today’s Me In Maine blog post.

Maine Amish Farm Fields Of Organic Produce For As Far As The Eye Can See.

The Amish settlements in Smyrna and East Hodgdon Maine have phones in their packing sheds.

In Easton Maine, not so much, which makes the settlements a little more removed and communication not so instantaneous.

The last trip to Easton, Fort Fairfield area, Meg treated to pumpkin pecan chocolate chip squares. I know, sounds good and one proud thirteen year old the cook. The youngest and probably most enjoyed of children as the tail end of the family grows up and eventually starts her own Amish family. Very warm and welcoming and you get lots of questions from everyone in the Amish household when you pay them a visit. Eager to learn and good listeners. Not impatient and polite as they open up their Amish homes. The Amish are very trusting, unless you give them reason not to be and that kind of news spreads fast.

The Barns, The Out Buildings Surrounding The Amish House. The Most Important Part Of The Farm Spread Are The Barns, Equipment Sheds, Stock Pens And Paddocks.

The group of Amish in Easton from Pennsylvania, the ones settling in East Hodgdon and Smyrna are a different order.

Some from Ohio, Kentucky, a few from out west. None drive, some don’t even have rubber on tires and use just wood or metal.

The dogs at the farms are even more special because they love attention but are better trained than your average pups today. The dogs have more of a working role and herd the livestock, other farm animals. You don’t hear the dogs barking.

Large Families Mean Bigger Houses, Lots Of Barns, Sheds, To Sustain The Amish Farm Lifestyle.

Children on the Maine Amish farms extremely well behaved.

They all flock around Meg when she visits to discuss farm orders and how to work around crop obstacles. Interested and happy to see a visitor and more sheltered in a good way. Lots of hands on training from building barns to making butter or cheese or how to grow vegetables.

The best farm practices to build up soil amendments. How to do carpentry all taught to every member of the family. Practical skills, work ethic, simple farm living and extremely well read. The Amish are definitely not flying by the seat of their pants or unprepared.

Big Amish Kitchen, Pretty Hardwood Floors, Lots Of Blue Accent Colors.

You get a sense of the simple values and how hospitable the well kept, hand built Maine Amish homes are run.

The Amish lifestyle in Maine. Neat as a pin, there is an order. Everything around you with a structured order to it. The homes are working farmsteads. All are in a circle, taking your coat and providing you over the top lunches and snacks. Sitting down together, all are paying attention and no one is lost somewhere on a device. The Amish are present and glad you are in their household. Happy to have you as a guest.

A Peek At The Back Of This Blogger’s Homestead. Where Sheep Graze On A Fall Afternoon In Northern Maine’s Aroostook County. Lots Of Buildings For Many Purposes.

You step back into time but sense keen awareness of what is going on around you in their hand built not modular manufactured homes.

Maintaining old order Amish living, without electricity. In Fort Fairfield, Easton there are outhouses. In East Hodgdon and Smyrna, there is indoor plumbing with generators. There are different degrees of Amish living in Maine.

Amish Farm On Ridge Road In Smyrna ME. Toiling Under The Maine Sun In The Field. Transplanting, Using Plastic To Control Weeds, To Protect The Seedling.

Not stressed out or frantic and steady she goes rules the day like a ticking metronome that keeps the beat. There is a time in every season to plant this, cultivate that and for harvest. For stacking firewood, stocking the summer kitchen or filling the root cellar. All the Amish do not want any kind of a fight. The Amish individual wants peace amongst themselves and others. Avoiding dissension, staying reasonable and tolerant and always on task to do their share of chores.

There is much to do and idle time is not found in large supply.

Working hard to stay on the farm, to raise a family. To make a living from many means that keeps it interesting and varied. The weather, pests, the market for what they peddle can cause set backs that they prepare for and expect. They are ready for what is ahead and plan for it. Life is not always easy sledding and hills, dips, curves happen to test a person. To define and improve an individual.

Long Days, Healthy Appetites, Plenty Of Exercise. The Maine Amish Lifestyle Is Like That.

The role of women, in East Hodgdon and Smyrna and how they compare to Easton and Fortfield Maine.

Is there a distinction of how they are treated as a whole in the Amish order or depends on the home, the day? All women are dressed to not bring attention to themselves. But the garb stands out like a visit to King’s Landing just over the northern Maine border into Canada. Where the theme of the day is early settlers, what their struggles were as you enter their World for an afternoon or day long visit to remember. Except with the Amish in Maine settlements, it is not pretend or a re-enactment. Where they period costumes are removed and everyone hops in their Subaru or mini van, SUV to hit the Trans Canada highway to head to their modern homes.

Friendly, Riding Bikes, Always Smiling. Amish Share The Road With Mainers In All The Vacationland Counties.

Practical clothing that lasts and not trendy or the latest style and made from scratch is obvious observing the Maine Amish families. Clean, consistent, no Johnny Rebel, Jimmy Rebel or Leader of the Pack stand out as they all stick together for the greater good.

You are walking back in time with family tradition roles and children precious but seen and not heard is the rule.

Respect, maybe a little fear mixed in or consequences. Limits, better defined boundaries. Are the Amish children raised with a stronger rigorous training? More rod, less spoiling? Do kids know their limits? Or is it lack of routine, ritual, or order that causes no structure to some degree in today’s society? Discipline and not a lot of idle time. Small community schooling with the older kids helping the younger ones with a teacher or two in the settlement. Doing the same pass on what you learn as families work together collectively. No time to sit in your room and pout or live singularly when the day ahead has a long list of chores attached to it. Too many kids for one to ever be spoiled might be part of it as you pitch in and do your part in the Amish household.

Starting The Planting Early In Maine. To Get A Jump Out Of The Greenhouse For Earlier Farm Fresh Produce. It’s Always A Gamble With Maine Weather. See The Wind Generators On The Oakfield Maine Foot Hills?

Community day is Thursday at the Smyrna and Fort Fairfield, Easton too.

Work on projects in the area for the Amish community members is very important. Giving back and helping out. It has its own special day reward. Helping the elderly and learning from their success and setbacks in the lifelong process. There is always something given back, that rubs off in the doing a good deed for others.

Everyone Has A Hand In Farming On A Maine Amish Homestead. Time To Transplant, Many Hands Make Light Work In Southern Aroostook County.

In the Fort Fairfield, East Hodgdon, Smyrna Amish communities there are farmer’s markets on premise.

The Amish bring produce, baked goods into the nearby farmer’s markets community gatherings. The Pioneer Store in Smyrna Maine is full of practical devices. From wood stoves to kitchen utensils that are not flashy but work and last. Jars of old fashioned candy you don’t see at Wally World or as impulse items around the digital scanner at Circle K.

The homes in the Easton, Fort Fairfield filled with plenty of hand crafted hardwood flooring.

Lots of blue paint is used in the interiors for a commonality. Red barns and designs like Boston area housing from before 1900 very prevalent. And all built by hand and horse from scratch. Lumber cut, sawed on premise and constructed to last by many, not a few skilled carpenters. Barn raisings where this week it is your turn, next weekend mine. Jack of all trades is definitely the rule of the Amish day. That skill set runs deep and provides the satisfaction knowing that everyone with a strong back, a clean mind and daily work on your faith brings you peace and contentment. Farming is a noble profession.

Learning Early, Young Amish Farmers Get Dirt In Their Veins When Very Young. Because We All Know The Sobering Truth. No Farmer, No Food.

Hope you liked this blog post on Amish in Maine from settlements in my area of the state.

We’ve blogged about Amish farming in Maine before. Stay tuned. A lot more flowing in for another blog post center around Unity, MOFGA headquarters. That’s where many more Amish families settled to build a better life in Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

September 7, 2021
Ice Cream In Maine

Ice cream in Maine.

The Maine weather forecast of blue skies and soaring temperatures makes folks vocal. Year round the weather consumes a big part of local conversations. Most Mainers are outdoors more than they are inside is part of it. Plus the local weather forecast is pretty important to everyone from the farmer to a plane pilot. For anyone planning for an outdoor event like a wedding, family reunion or even a funeral that’s success revolves around the Maine weather forecast.

Everything Is Bigger In Maine. Like The Pistachio Ice Cream Cones.

3 Scoops Enough? Maine Dairy Bars Aim To Please. Beat The Heat With Something Sweet.

But summer weather when temperatures soar and the humidity index is sky high, time to beat feet for a Maine ice cream dairy bar treat.

We don’t do humid heat well in Maine but adjust just fine to winter cooler temperatures just fine. But when it is hot. They say everyone screams for ice cream. And stocking the blog post shelves

Our Family Hand Crank Ice Maker Was Aqua Colored And Had Lots Of Miles On It.

with regular installments takes some head scratching to avoid brain freeze.

So why not some images to avoid the wall of words to talk about ice cream in Maine?

Young and old, everyone in the middle knows the small pleasure of ice cream in Maine. Growing up, my parents both taught us the skill of making ice cream. It was not open the grocery store cooler door to reach in for something cold and tasty. Or lift the lid to reach down to fish out something from the chest freezer cool and creamy.

Oh sure, we had ice cream that was store bought.

But there was also a hand crank home made ice cream maker in our Maine farm house. To whip out, dust off and to make home made ice cream. Making ice cream where everyone has a turn at the churn to give the cylinder a crank or two. Is a motorized ice cream maker cheating?

Does the make ice cream from scratch and the fruit of your own labor improve the taste?

No pain, no gain.

Thank you ice cream maker inventor Nancy Johnson.

Back in 1843 Nancy Johnson patented the process and is to be praised for her improvements to the hand cranked home made method of making ice cream from scratch.

Ice cream, when made from scratch everyone was eating the same flavor.

How do you think that would go over in an age of too many choices, not just one or two standards? 1st World problem, like the TV channel changer where someone laments 300 channels but nothing to worthwhile to watch.

Ice Cream Cools You Off, For Awhile. Until The Next One Gets Served Up.

How long does it take to make ice cream the hand crank method?

As a little kid it seems an eon. But the ice cream making research shows you eat about less than a half hour hand cranking steady as she goes. Because once the cylinder containing the frozen ice cream becomes tougher to turn, you have arrived. Ready your cones or line up the dishes for hand made ice cream.

It’s not cheating plugging in the electric ice cream maker either.

Instead of hand churning the ice cold favorite flavor of ice cream in Maine, you can rely on the motor. Especially if you are creating more than one kind for the audience where today, everyone is not going to settle for the flavor of the day. The labor of love where lots of people take turns revolving the cylinder packed in ice to create ice cream improves the taste. Also provides a bit of history on how did they did this before power lines ran by your Maine home. The ones needed to tap the juice to improve or some say complicate your life.

Ice Cream, Open Jeep, Maine. Perfect Combination.

What.. what’s that you say about if there was no power, how was their ice to create and preserve the cold ice cream treat?

Our farm had an “ice house”. It was on the north end of the “well house”. The labels help you put two and two together. To figure out just what their purpose was on the homestead. We’ve blogged about ice harvesting in Maine and my grandfather on my Mom’s side, E. Shirley Benn lost one of his best farm horses. It all happened during an ice harvesting mishap down by Mill Pond in Hodgdon, Maine.

Back back to the ice cream in Maine.

When it was hand churned and particular flavors served up in my home during spells of hot humid Maine summer weather.

So what do you need to make ice cream is half and half milk and heavy cream.

Vanilla extract if that’s the preferred flavor. Quite a bit of salt… rock salt, table salt, the kind affects the final results. A towel or kitchen oven mitt. A timer or clock to keep tract of the ice cream making operation.

Do you know or can you remember your parents favorite ice cream flavor?

My Mom’s was grape nut, Dad’s vanilla. Strawberry was a close third because we grew them, threw them into the revolving churn ice cream cylinder to hand crank. Use what you have and it’s more than enough thinking is pretty common during a lean farming year on a Maine patch of dirt.

And when the carload of four Mooers’ boys would drive into a dairy bar wherever we roamed locally or around Vacationland, those were the flavors they ordered. How about you? Early on the available flavors of Maine ice cream was a shorter list. Less choice, more common requests happened. Cookie dough or heavenly hash, death by chocolate were not on the roster outside a Maine ice cream dairy bar in the 1960’s.

Chocolate, vanilla, coffee, strawberry, grape nut were standard offerings you could bet the farm on seeing listed. Somewhere in a poll I read that banana ice cream was a flavor folks loved or shied away from ordering. Another not so popular flavor that I personally like is pistachio ice cream creating the anticipation grin above from your blog post author.

Here’s a graph showing the country’s most preferred ice cream flavors.

Favorite Ice Cream Flavors In USA, One Survey Result.

Personally, not so much a fan of butter crunch or anything caramel ice cream.

But if that’s all she wrote for what you got, deal me in please. It’s cold when it’s hot and beggars can’t be choosers right? In a recent trip to the Wells Beach Maine area to Barnacle Billy’s, the combination of blueberry pie mixed with pistachio was a pleasant twist combination. Now so many choices.

Do you hem and haw but still end up ordering the old standard favorite you developed a sweet tooth fondness for as a kid?

You see banana, the toss up choice if no pistachio flavor did not make the ice cream poll. Chunky Monkey if we’re talking Ben and Gerry’s ice cream or Cherry Garcia please.

When soft serve came to my small Maine border town, it was the vanilla and chocolate that ruled the day.

Maybe the duet of the two was offered from the Taylor soft serve ice cream making machine. More on how to make ice cream from scratch that’s not processed with lots of chemicals or allowed to get freezer burn. Home made ice cream does not linger in a Maine household when the summer temperatures push the thermometer mercury level high.

How to make home made ice cream the old fashion way video.

Today the sky is the limit. Pick a flavor like the colors offered from the rainbow for ice cream choices. Artificial coloring and fake flavor ingredients get infused into the base ice cream frozen paste. But the real deal hard ice cream. Nothing like it when two scoops of ice cold get air lifted down on a piping hot fresh piece of home made pie. Hungry for ice cream yet?

Bike Trip Up Maine’s Cadillac Mountain At Acadia National Park.

Remember being a kid and the hotter it was the faster you had to lick. To contain the drip as it melted so fast it became obvious to all around you what flavor you just had based on your clothing stains?

Rather have the real deal and hard ice cream thank you very much.

Like micro brews, Maine based ice cream makers are plentiful. The treat of an ice cream in a cone or dish is just part of Maine summer living experience. I know how wonderful a cold ice cream bar tastes after pedaling a bike up Cadillac Mountain at Acadia National Park.

Here’s a photo snap on the pedaling up Maine’s Cadillac Mountain thinking of the view, the ice cream reward that awaits on top.

Lots of tour buses on top and folks heading to their own private rock to sit and reflect. Gazing out over the ocean and thinking about Maine lobsters or steamed clams in a few hours. After all this ice cream wears off and time to open the pie hole again.

Your Maine setting or back drop is everything pumping up the volume of whatever you lap with your tongue or scoop with your spoon. Ice cream definitely is one of life’s small pleasures that everyone can afford. Have you been to your local dairy bar in Maine lately?

What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream in Maine?

Whether store bought or uniquely blended by hand crank, ice cream whatever flavor tastes better enjoyed in Maine. With the backdrop scenery second to none. When no people are around to share the eye candy as you slowly enjoy your Maine ice cream.

The worst ice cream flavors?

From the link you will see bacon, eggnog, cotton candy, licorice made the list. Not thinking I would ever order up a scoop or dish of Maine lobster ice cream. But blueberry, Maine blueberry ice cream. Now you are talking. Gifford’s has a wild Maine blueberry ice cream flavor that is pretty dang tasty running solo or pair up with a piece of pie.

No ones made strawberry rhubbarb ice cream flavor yet that I know of but ready to stand corrected if someone knows something I have not gotten wind of yet. Wouldn’t be the first time.

More on Maine ice cream stands.

Sadly, Houlton Farms Dairy which is huge in Aroostook County is not on the state of Maine map. What the heck? Houlton Farms Dairy Bars are a huge draw for folks in Houlton, Presque Isle, Caribou Maine.

My little league team for years had an expense account at Houlton Farms Dairy.

Win or lose, the kids in their uniforms trotted off the baselines away from the ball field dug out to get something cold, sweet. The Mooers Realty coach and his helpers too treated to some local Maine ice cream flavors. Small Maine towns, the ice cream outlets are a big part of the local landscape and were all we had to mingle. Before social media outlets took over for many. Put down the device, turn off the boob tube. You scream, I scream for ice cream.

“NEXT! What Flavor Of Ice Cream Will It Be Today? Soft Or Hard Ice Cream?” Maine Dairy Bars For Something Cold When It’s Hot, For The Social Element.

Ice cream sundaes, milk shakes, banana splits, parfaits.

So many ways to sample your ice cream in Maine. Thank you for following our Me In Maine blog post. This one on ice cream in Maine. There would be less trouble and unrest in the country, the World if we could all sit down and enjoy a bowl or cone of ice cream together right?

I remember being at a Coldplay concert in Manchester, New Hampshire where the audience was promised if they were good and considerate of others, the band would buy everyone a chocolate ice cream. It works on the kids as an incentive to tow the line. A reward of sorts. Here’s hoping you visit a local outlet for your own personal favorite flavor of Maine ice cream.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

August 24, 2021