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Living On A Maine Lake Year Round

Dig in, learn more and sample another helping of Vacationland, living on a Maine lake year round.

Yikes. (Pause, keyboard goes quiet, slurp of early morning black coffee sound). Does that come off a little too vague, lofty or just leave you thinking “people don’t talk that way”?

I am sorry, starting again.

This Me In Maine blog tries very hard not to come off as a sing song tired warp record typical tourist discovery channel.

The conversation should be me seeing and thinking of just how I can help you out there in the blogging audience. Talking about what I know living in Maine.

What do you need, what can I provide starts with pondering who are you?

A big segment of you reading this blog post now have already been to Maine.

She is no stranger and you test positive. Maine has you by the heartstrings hook line and sinker. You cannot wait to visit her again.

Classic Small Maine Downtown Like Houlton Maine. The County Seat, The Craftsmanship Preserved.

I can’t wait to sample something new and different and I live here in Maine.

Always! But choosing to Maine my full time home, living here already provides a unique advantage. To share the local experience with photos, sometimes videos and always helpful links to learn more.

Peaceful, Like A Bottom Smooth And Glassy. Maine Lakes Have Different Surfaces And Change With The Weather.

Simple blog posts on a slew of topics that all distill down into pure, all-natural Maine.

Variety, the hunt for new topics, sometimes revisits to Maine venues but covering them in a different season. My bug to provide information started working as a Maine broadcast journalist.

The decision that I wanted to raise my family in Maine made me realize I did not want to leave Maine to work my way up the broadcast ladder. I did not want to cheat the four children out of the rich experience I had growing up in rural small town Maine.

So now you know and back to giving you something worthwhile to share in this Me In Maine blog post installment today.

I am still at a Maine lake home. Not sure when or if Meg and I will move back in town for the winter. Being on a Maine lake after the summer tourists headed south is so peaceful. And now enjoying the most beautiful fall foliage season I can ever remember has made us drag our feet.

In Groups, Birds Of A Feather Fly (And Float) Together Like Maine Lake Loons.

I know plenty of other people who bought a Maine lake camp and suddenly, when COVID happened, they found themselves living there too like me now.

Figuring if they had Internet, why not park it for a spell on the Maine waterfront and work online remotely. Converting their camp into a simple home. And then realizing if I can work remotely up in Maine, if I don’t have to return to the urban location expensive grind, I’m sticking around in the Pine Tree State.

Thank you COVID 19 for that life detour that turned out all for the better.

Each day living on a Maine lake, you see different wildlife walk, fly over, float by like these white helmet hooded mergansers.

Shy, Getting Ready To Fly South. Feeding On Maine Lake Fish To Bulk Up For The Flap Flap Flap Work Out.

Never saw them before and learned it is because they are shy.

Less people on the Maine lake this time of year reduces the anxiety as the bird in the duck family fish the water and prepare to migrate elsewhere for the winter.

The bald eagle in the big stately pine tree here at the lake is exciting to watch swoop down and clutch a large fish.

Then with serious effort flap his wings low to the water and struggle to get to higher ground and land with the mealtime prize.

The smaller group of year rounders living on a Maine lake are a special group. Banding together to clear private roads of tree limbs that hang over and threaten power lines in the fall. To prevent losing electricity in the winter months when ice and snow bring them down.

The Maine lake properties are accessed by private roads.

Sand and salt barrels are refreshed to be ready to spread on icy roads ahead.

Holiday parties with the local Maine lake community happen. Someone brought a guitar, everyone brought their signature covered dish tid bit.

Folks who own waterfront property used seasonally will reach out to local year rounders who make sure all is well at their vacant lake place.

Living Full Time On A Maine Lake, What’s Like? The Gray Lake Home Where I Am Blogging This Morning. The Red Camp For Kids, Company, Overflow.

You see ice fishing shacks appear on shore around a Maine lake this time of year.

Waiting for the tug across frozen lake ice when the local warden service declares it is safe.

Ice fishing, snowmobiling, cross country skiing and snow shoeing, pond hockey are ahead out front on a Maine lake.

Five Holes, Drill Them In A Jiffy With A Jiffy Or By Hand. To Ice Fish On A Maine Lake.

Plowed roads, groomed ITS snowmobile trails across the Maine lake and small shanty villages of ice shacks start popping up as the winter season unfolds.

Getting the snowplow back on the Ford pickup one the to do list this week.To maybe plow the Maine waterfront properties.

Plow three properties, maybe four this year if we hang around the Maine lake property.

Parked On The Point. Pair Of Drews Lake Homes.

Mainers are prepared and weather speeds up the getting ready process. The lake shore dock all pulled in and parked onshore.

Seadoos, kayaks, pontoon boats all put away with deck chairs and the hammock in the storage shed. Gas grill still ready to fire up and sizzle.

The sunrises and sunsets served up are different now than back in spring or summer on a Maine lake.

Maine is like a gift that you get to keep opening up. Just providing different colors, a not quite the same angle of the sun for lighting and not one constant same temperature. All your senses get a work out living up here in rural Maine.

What else happens this time of year, late fall heading into early winter on a Maine lake?

Every vehicle you meet has something orange on the occupants. Or you see the orange hat visible on the dashboard of everyone you meet on the road.

Hunting for deer, moose, black bear to stock the freezer to pull from over the winter. The winter wood supply is ready, next year’s cut in tree length and being processed to fit the particular stove used to heat your Maine home.

Can I Help You? Here To See A Maine Moose? You Are Seeing Double! Did You Shoot With A Camera Or A Gun? Have A Moose Lottery Permit This Season?

Stars, when I got up this morning you cannot miss them.

Last night when Meg and I got home to the lake, the black velvet sky was loaded with stars. Maine is a dark place said in a good not sinister way.

Maine has some of the darkest, least light or smog polluted skies known to man. I think looking up and seeing the star constellations you learned about in eight grade science just intensifies the awareness.

There’s less noise, it’s more real and up close personal and sometimes just hard to explain. Everyone gleans something different depending on what else is going on in their life to color the Maine experience.

Roads, Across Water Trails That Freeze Over. Over 23,000 Miles Of Snowmobile Trails In Maine. To Allow Stops At Ice Shack Shanties.

There’s Orion’s Belt, the Big and Little Dipper. The Seven Sisters.

Oh how lucky we are to live in Maine where nature and astronomy take turns surrounding us day and night. I think awareness of life, people, the environment all increases as the population around you decreases.

Will share more on life at the Maine lake in future blog posts. Hoping this installment helped share the what’s it like on the Maine waterfront.

Many folks are “uptah camp in Maine” for hunting season now. Lots of them end up spending Thanksgiving enjoying their turkey spread in their rural Maine woods camp.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

November 19, 2025
Exploring My Area Of Maine On A Minibike Growing Up

Growing up in Maine, did you have a minibike?

My first minibike was a 3.5 horsepower Briggs and Stratton model. Just a simple, low-cost minibike that was dark green with knobby tires.

It has a thick long cushion seat to make up for a serious lack of suspension. No gears, the minibike equipped with a centrifugal clutch. Just twist the throttle and away you go.

Straight gas, nothing to mix and fun to ride minibike to explore the area when farm chores, schoolwork were completed.

Simple, Affordable Minibike

I would ride the minibike around my Maine family farm field roads, woods trails and in the beginning stayed pretty close to home.

I was nine years old. My Dad has picked up the minibike I earned with potato picking money at the Sear store in Presque Isle Maine.

Riding the minibike around the farm was fun. But eventually longer excursions to my Aunt Ruth’s farm on the Callaghan Road was a frequent destination. Aunt Ruth lived with Freeman Taylor and ran a horse-riding summer camp.

Camp Little Ponderosa was just a couple miles away by car.

On the minibike, it was about three miles going up and over the Interstate 95 overpass on the Mooers Road.

Mooers Family Farm Houlton Maine

Then crossing the Ludlow Road near my Uncle Fred and Molly’s farm.

Then after looking both ways, zig-zagging to taking a trail through farm fields and tree plantation up through a horse back or esker of gravel deposits on Holland Taylor’s farm. Always, always wearing a helmet.

It was the same route used on the family snowmobile in the winter months, a blue 12.8 horsepower Sno Jet.

The trail just covered with white fluffy snow and I was dressed more warmly with layers.

On minibike or snowmobile, you ended up in the same place. The Lane gravel pit which was just behind, to the east of my Aunt Ruth’s summer horse riding camp.

I put a straight pipe on the minibike engine that was anything but high performance.

Only so much you could do to squeeze a little more speed out of the engine usually used on lawnmowers not a motor bike.

High test gas, experimenting with a different chain sprocket configuration all slightly modified the first minibike.

My neighbors Chris and Bryon Williams had minibikes too. Blue 4 horsepower Bonanza minibike models, a pair of them.

We would ride down the Hagan Road to farm roads that led to Cary Mills .

Over toward the town dump and Donald Guy’s gravel pit. Mostly dirt roads and staying off paved ones where traffic was a danger. And knowing we were not licensed motorcyclists yet and way too young to take the road test.

The minibike was freedom.

It was fun to have the privilege to ride with my friends and go places without mom and dad carting me around here and there. The minibike provided a variation of the same feeling of independence that I got riding the snowmobile with my countryside neighborhood friends.

It was not all gas-powered transportation either growing up in rural Maine. Summer meant going up into Market Square peddling a three-speed banana bike. The same feeling of independence provided weekly riding my bike with the long leopard seat into 5 Franklin Avenue to mow lawns.

The money-making gig grass clipping summer job passed down by my brother Brian.

It paid a whopping five dollars and a included an icy cold can of White Rock black raspberry soda a week. Money carefully managed from farm jobs, birthdays, Christmas gifts, mowing lawns was funneled into the minibike fund.

Helmets, repairs and modifications nibbled at the hard-earned fund that led to bigger and better. Eventually trading in the Sears minibike for one purchased at Tingley Brother’s Garage on the North Road or US RT 1 in Houlton Maine.

The orange Chibi was a serious step up for a mini bike.

3 Speeds, 58cc 2 Cycle Engine Powered The Chibi Minibike

It was really a miniature dirt bike with three speeds, a manual clutch, and tuned exhaust on the 2-cycle mixed oil 58cc Rockwell Industries engine.

The Chibi made by Bridgestone came in two models. For $285 you could but a basic blue model. For $315 you could get a snazzy orange Mopar color paint job scheme and a headlamp, taillight. This helped extend the range of the trips and when I had to be home.

Our parents allowed a group of us kids to take our minibikes to camp out with sleeping bags overnight. Looking back, I really appreciated the freedom I had growing up on a Maine farm. My parents trusted me to make good decisions and had loosened up over the years raising me and my three older brothers.

Fast forward to my own children.

Put on a helmet, tighten it up the chin strap. They started out with four red and white Honda minibikes that were three speeds with a clutch, around 50cc power plants.

I could not find a local outlet to purchase them so went across the border to Dave’s Sport Center in Woodstock New Brunswick Canada. The duty was 28 dollars for the Honda’s from Japan.

Then the growing kids graduated to four dark blue Yamaha 125 cc four-cycle off-road motorbikes. Taller, more bike for bigger trail riders. You could add a light kid and make them legally road worthy.

I know how much I appreciated having the freedom to trail ride growing up and the ability to explore with friends and on my own.

What is it like around you? The minibike was my ticket to find out growing up on a Maine family farm.

Did you have a minibike growing up? What kind, what was the experience like? Were you trusted by your parents to leave the yard and did you have earned freedom that looking back you really appreciate now?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730

October 28, 2025
Blogging About Maine Small Town Peace And Quiet

Peace and quiet, Maine small town living offers plenty of both.

At a state Maine REALTORS convention this past week in Portland, it was great to be in Maine’s largest city for lots of continuing education credits. To rub shoulders, to compare notes with other professionals from around the state is invaluable to my small Maine real estate operation up here in “The County”.

Congratulations to Martin Cates, Maine Association Of REALTORS “Realtor Of The Year” Awardee.

REALTOR Of The Year In ME Broker/Agent? Martin Cates Received The Maine Association Of REALTOR 2025 Award!

Well deserved for years of community volunteering, real estate listing sales mentoring service Martin!

Lots Of Maine REALTORS Attended The State Convention In Portland Maine!

Heading north up Interstate 95 after this year’s MAR convention wrapped up, I thought about all the many areas of Maine there are.

Hard not to as the mile markers rack up and township signs flash by the jeep passenger side windows.

One session speaker had done the math, counted over 480 communities in the great state of Maine.

That’s a big number of small towns. A lot of little communities in Maine.

The common denominator for many seemingly is lots of peace and quiet all for season.

A commodity not so plentiful in population centers outside of Maine. But don’t believe the low bidder ad agency that often wins the contract for providing out state generated tourist information.

I like see, hearing about the real deal Maine. Not the re-constituted spun kind that regurgitates old not accurate story lines.

Here’s the A-Z of what Maine offers in cartoon form.

Maine Is Low Cost High Beauty Real Estate! Welcome To Small Town Maine Simple Living!

Too many paint the picture that small Maine towns once were thriving but not anymore.

Change is inevitable in life and Mainers adapt, retool and press on in highly creative ways.

Squeezing more from what they spend is a life skill learned and earned early in life.

Picking in the potato fields, raking in blueberry barrens or harvesting seafood in fishing villages that dot the rock bound craggy Maine coastline.

One Basket At A Time! Picking Maine Potatoes Skills Learned By The Lucky Youth Growing Up In A Fall Harvest Potato Farm Field.

Please don’t get the wrong impression about what it is like in Maine.

It’s an easy trap to fall into when many are waving their fingers and flapping their tongues. About something making them hot and bothered on the national stage.We don’t make everything about who you did or did not vote for last election, the one before that.

When from our perch in a small Maine town, we think the peace and quiet out in the vast low population setting is the key. To stay balanced and aware of what is really important in life.

Volunteering and helping others is what Maine simple living is all about in Vacationland.

Preserving family traditions and making sure the next generation is taught more than just how to survive life. But to enjoy and cherish how lucky we really are to live in a place so beautiful and unspoiled and not crowded.

Details, Fine Workmanship, Small Maine Towns Are Special! The Community Is The People, Not Empty Buildings.

Maine small towns are not sleepy but many just don’t get the press.

Nothing ho hum or boring. Undiscovered small Maine communities often feel like a step back in time by design.

What’s important is preserved and the respect passed on. All the members of the small Maine community have important jobs besides what they do for work.

Volunteering and signing up to do the task year after years helps all of us get to know the other community members. There is so much local talent and nothing needs to be “hired out”.

Can I Help You? Here To See A Maine Moose? You Are Seeing Double!

Small Maine towns surrounded by serene peace and quiet are left alone by politicians too.

Not enough voters to bother with and too much travel or ROI for their support. Everything is local, grass roots and home grown. Garden fresh close to home always beats out trucked in store bought right?

Simple living in Maine has a lot of advantages.

So waking up on a Maine lake, slurping my hot coffee and peering out over the water, I feel blessed.

Maine Lake Loon Fishing, Feeding It’s Young. Living Here You See The Skill Taught To Baby Loons On A Maine Lake.

Have my do list for the day back from the Maine REALTOR convention hammered out, am wrapping up the blog post on peace and quiet simple living.

Feeling energized to rise above and seize the day.

Knowing I really am so so lucky to live in one of the many small communities that make up the vast majority of the state of Maine. Where we talk not just text.

And most locals don’t suffer from FOMO.

Our energy is saved for the big challenges of day-to-day life.

Not feeling sapped, always filled with the fear of missing out and anxious that somehow, we are missing out on a perfect opportunity. That desperation only leads to hurried or financially unsound decision making.

Laugh. Laugh Loud. Maine Small Town Comedy Is The Most Entertaining!

Small town Maine living teaches you what priorities to keep straight and never forget to deep down contentment and happiness.

What really matters?

That easy living happens with peace of mind. That practical is not square. That debt is a cancer. Knowing relationships matter and need to be tended like a garden. And enjoying what you do for work, valuing your time is the secret. Thank you for reading, sharing, following our Me In Maine blog posts.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

October 10, 2025
Picking Potatoes On A Northern Maine Aroostook County Farm

One spud, two spuds, picking potatoes on a Northern Maine Aroostook County farm.

Was it hard for kids to head out into the early morning darkness to the Maine potato farm field? What work ethic lessons were learned for youth relied on to get the potatoes basket picked, poured into barrels, trucked from the Maine farm field for winter storage?

One Basket At A Time! Picking Maine Potatoes A Skill Learned By The Lucky Youth Growing Up In A Fall Harvest Potato Farm Field.

Have you ever picked potatoes along with your family and friends to earn money for school clothing?

The valuable list of skills and attitudes learned picking Northern Maine potatoes.

Toiling in the farm field under all kinds of weather over school harvest recess is a worthwhile entry level job. But from the outside looking in, today’s youth and parents not exposed to the fall harvest potato picking tradition, it is easy to overlook the learning experience.

So what was it like and why were area Maine youth relied on as an vital component for the fall harvest of potatoes?

My Dad and mom, northern Maine potato farmers said kids did a better job handling the potato harvest picking the crop. Less damage to the valuable farm field potato harvest crop than from fast moving mechanized machinery like harvesters caused. Better for Mother Nature too with less erosion from air harvesters harnessing kid power to pick this year’s crop.

Your family household goes to bed the night before to prepare for the early rise and shine during potato harvest.

By 5AM, you are finishing a hearty breakfast for the day ahead in the Maine potato farm field.

Picnic Food Just Tastes Better Looking At This When Munching What Gets Fished Out Of The Basket. Potato Pickers Move Field To Field In Fall Harvest Colors.

The fresh air during fall potato harvest improves the taste of your lunch, all the the snacks. What you munched on carefully packed to lug to the field.

Along with your water jug, extra warm clothes, back up pairs of fresh brown jersey work gloves.

You learned early to be careful with your lunch box, extra clothes, water jug to keep them from being run over by the barrel truck.

The Maine area potato farmer that hired you for the fall harvest will be at your address with a covered pickup soon.

Barely sunrise, rounding up and delivering the young potato pickers to the new field to dig today. Or to finish up the one from yesterday that was not completed due to sheer size, too much rain, frost or or mechanical breakdowns. You arrive in the field layered with long underwear, extra clothing layers because you can see your breath in the crisp, frosty early morning air.

One by one you hop out of the back of a pickup or van used to collect your fellow potato pickers for this year’s harvest.

Before heading to your “section” in the row after row of un-earthed, not dug potato field, your field boss hands you a fresh pack of tickets. You have an assigned number, usually 50 up to 100 tickets wrapped in an elastic band. A barrel of potatoes weighs 165 pounds.

Yesterday’s barrel tickets tallied the night before. How many barrels did you pick? Count the tickets you get back or the ones missing from your original stack.

Rolling Farm Fields Planted To A New Crop Of Potatoes. Next Year This Will Be Grain. See The Snow White And Yellow Plants?

It takes at least four filled to the brim and over baskets of fresh dug potatoes to fill a barrel. And to earn the right to slide one of your numbered tickets out of the pack to wedge into the groove, on the top of the barrel stave.

That ticket with your number announces to the World that you claim this full barrel for 25, 60 cents or whatever the farmer is paying you this season.

Piece work not an hourly wage. If you don’t produce, you don’t make much or anything.

Clear a spot. You put the new empty barrel on it’s side, carefully using two hands to fill it with potatoes. The ones exposed by the squeaking potato digger that back and forth passes your section over and over through out the day of outdoor labor. As you and your fellow potato pickers advance across the wide open farm field one harvested row at a time.

Pick Them Clean, Get Them All Into The Potato Basket. Do These Kids Look Abused, Picked On Out In The Maine Organic Farm Potato Field?

Your section is how long a portion of the farm field you think you can manage through out the day or until you move to a new one.

The trick to be just getting the last potato picked up and deposited in your basket before moving into the next row. Hopefully the one that was just freshly dug that only good timing and planning causes. Pick a schedule that matches the digger speed to keep caught up. Work steady.

Lessons earnred young piicking maine potatoes in th farm field!

But like life, things happen and you can find yourself getting behind in the Maine potato field.

One of the many observations taught early in the Maine potato field. To learn something that sticks with you for life.

If you took too big a potato field section, you will run out of steam and get behind.

Claim The Barrel, Potato Picking Ticket With Your Number On It.

Some potato fields are grassier than others and have sods to wrestle with to make sure you “pick them clean”.

In the Maine potato field, it is no quality spud left behind. And remember that “bruisers are losers”.

Be careful handling the potatoes.

Slowly dump the basket into the empty farm field barrels. Before placing the next empty barrel upright every other row. So the farm truck can have a lane to retrieve the full ones headed to the potato house storage. You clear any spuds under the barrel first and place it there. In a spot in your section where it a short trip to avoid wasted steps, needless lugging.

No rotten potatoes and leave the green ones or rocks in the field not dumped in the barrels please.

Don’t over fill those barrels lifted up with a boom that lands them on the platform. You don’t want the barrel hoist tong to smash or slice any spuds. Each filled potato barrel is hoisted up from the ground to the truck body using tongs.

Thrown with position to land on the top of the barrel like a lasso. Then tightened up by lifting, using electrical or hydraulically piston pump that grips the barrel tight and secure. To swing up and onto the empty stake truck.

Not the easiest job either to roll full potato barrels to the back of that truck lumbering up a side hill.

Moving those barrels like a game of Tetris, to fill the space quickly. To create a full load to bee line to the potato house.

Then to hurry back with the empties to throw off to each field section of pickers for the repeat the pick, fill, slide on a ticket barrel number filling process.

The further away from the potato house in Houlton Maine the barrel or bulk body trucks have to haul, the more apt a shortage of empties is going to happen.

Nothing hurts production like running out of barrels and trying to make good use of the down time waiting for empties. Picking the tops off the rows you get behind so you can cover your section faster when the fresh empty barrels get tossed onto your section from the truck.

Eating lunch early, doing your business in the woods for a nature call. All part of potato picking field operations. Hopefully your water jug was put in the freezer, slowly un-thawing as the day unfolds.

It Starts With Planting Potatoes In The Maine Farm Field Back In Spring. Cultivating The Hills, The Potato Rows Over The Summer, Harvesting In Fall.

Potato tops need to be removed, shaken as pickers advance across the Northern Maine farm field.

When do you eat? When the tractor pulling potato digger is turned off signally the lunch break. Or sometimes early than noon time because of tractor or digger break down.

There are digger lags hooked together to create the bed with spaces to filter out the potato field dirt.

To lay out the two or more field rows into a flat shaped table of new golden or whatever color spuds to fill a basket to add to the barrel.

Blossoms On Houlton Maine Potato Farm Field.

More on picking Maine potatoes explained by someone who grew up on a farm and picked from age five and on like my three older brothers.

You start out picking.

Graduate to the farm truck or maybe a harvester work shift where you stand and pick out the rocks, the rot and debris.

So it won’t end up taking up space in the potato storage bins.

Over the winter months, the same Northern Maine farmer can use the field tested pickers to pack.

Put up potatoes trailer truck loads shipped to southern markets for distribution.

So what is the occasional cry that picking potatoes is child abuse?

It is hard for someone that never picked potatoes or missed out on the fall harvest tradition to grasp the experience.

You never did it, how could you know without spending time out in the Maine potato field?

School students spending the three to four weeks out in the Maine potato field are social, talk and laugh as they pick, move from to a new harvest section of the farm.

The Red Sox are in a pennant race that fall. Someone has a radio next to your section. It’s one for all and all for one to get those spuds out of the ground before a killing frost. Before snow or dodging rain drops that can interfere with the potato picking process. May work later tonight, or Sunday depending on how’s the weather been this fall in Maine.

Parking Near Fenway. It’s A Trick And Usually Costs A Few Coins. If The Rex Sox Make The Play Offs, Maine Potato Field Workers Tune In, Listen In To Games.

The potato pickers see the outdoor beauty of the early morning fog, the brilliant fall leave color change and fill their lungs with fresh air.

Worked muscles bending over filling potato baskets and lugging them to fill the empty barrels gets students into shape for soccer or other school sports ahead. The field dirt and dust will wash off in the tub or shower tonight when they get home. They tell Mom and Dad about the wildlife they saw out in the field today.

Heading to the small downtown of a Maine community to shop for a new winter jacket is part of the Saturday night learning experience.

Shopping with your own earned money sharpens your spending skills. And if you don’t perceive a value, you keep looking. Impulse spending control is easier to master when it’s your hard earned money. Not twenty dollar bills spit out, handed to you from the mom and dad ATM.

Locally Sourced, Farm To Table Maine Produce, Vegetables Like Potatoes. Priceless. Know Your Local Grower! Maine Is The 5th Largest Potato Producing State.

Learning how to save not just spending is money management.

But what if you never had an entry level job? Did not work for a wage and have to do a good job or you are not asked back the next Maine fall potato harvest? What’s that? Life’s not fair? Life is what you make it. Life is entry level jobs and responsibility to accepting without griping or weaseling out of it. That you have to show up and perform to be an asset not liability.

You stick with it because your family needs the money, the help buying your clothes.

You in turn take better care of clothes you purchase with your own money that is real World right?

The farmer depends on your to help his family get the crop out and into storage. Grit, determination and dealing with colder weather and days when maybe you are not handstand happy about heading to the field. But you do go and eventually less bothers you as your realize the value of this exercise.

Northern Maine Aroostook County Potato Field. A Very Valuable Work Ethic Experience. This Is One Of Your First Entry Level Manual Labor Field Experiences.

Kids that pick and work the fall Maine potato harvest look around and realize I did something worthwhile during the harvest break.

They feel good about themselves and part of something outside their home four walls and a roof. Independent, responsible and dreaming about what part of their picking check they get to spend as they see fit. What they would like to buy with their own money.

And whatever is purchased does not get broken or discarded after the newness is gone. Instead being respected, cared for and put away to protect it because they earned it. Worked too hard not to take care of whatever they bought with their own hard earned money.

Ask anyone who grew up picking Maine potatoes what they thought about the experience.

Some become farmers from the experience digging in the dirt. Remember “No farmer, no food”. You gotta eat at least three times a day.

The harvest workers are part of a proud, capable bunch and learn their value, developing their work ethic. It makes them proud to be from “The County” and that work ethic, dependability to show up and do a good days work is a rural Maine thing.

Four Or More Baskets Of Fresh Picked Maine Potatoes Fill A Barrel. The Barrel Weighs 165 Pounds. Don’t Forget Your Ticket.

Striving to do your part, to keep your potato field section picked clean and caught up and get along with the others on the potato chain gang.

You start to realize that you are not lazy, that you can stick with something that is not for pure entertainment value. Glad my kids learned from the experience of picking Maine potatoes.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

September 23, 2025
Maine, Live Here, Work Anywhere

More and more real estate buyers are thinking Maine, live here, work anywhere.

What’s It Like In Small Town Maine Rural Locations? Each One Shines Uniquely, Brightly.

The Maine real estate calls into our rural Aroostook County office tell the tale.

It’s families moving in, houses filling up, schools gaining student enrollments, and small businesses welcoming new customers.

Remote work is turning Maine around — not just in Portland or the coast, but right here in Aroostook County, all the sixteen counties.

It’s no longer the old story of “no jobs in Maine.” It’s a new story: “Live here, work anywhere.”

Welcome To Maine. You’re Here. You Made It!

Online living in Maine but working anywhere is a reality.

Reliable high speed Internet connectivity is the game changer.

No longer does a young family wanting to raise their kids in wholesome Maine pack the wagon.

Have to leave for more higher paying jobs in a population center.

Remote worker employment often means higher incomes than the local average, which helps support schools, municipal budgets and small Maine town community programs.

What’s the roof like on a property or is there a garage is just as critical as another question asked with greater frequency.

How’s the Internet broadband service at that Maine real estate property listing location?

Remote work is reshaping opportunities. Maine no longer has to rely on job loss replacement for timber, paper mills, potato farming, fishing and small manufacturing industries.

Grab a bar of soap and keep it handy for the local resident that still growls or mutters “no jobs in Maine”.

Ask many young people who outward migrated to southern New England for higher paying jobs if there was more employment opportunities, would you stay in Maine?

Remote work is a game changer that shifts the focus away from lack of traditional, in-person small Maine town and rural county employment opportunities.

The rise of telecommuting and online work is showing geography matters less.

That you can hold a job with employers in Boston, New York or even California while calling Maine your home. Many big companies are seeing it is cheaper to sub contract the freelancing, consulting, online business functions to online remote telecommuters.

Maine Is Small Town Friendly Living. Who Would Trade That For High Crime, Over Populated Not So Friendly Areas To Live If They Had A Choice?

Before Internet connected the state of Maine, rural meant woods, water, wildlife, few people.

Off the beaten path, taking hours to travel back and forth and a harder option for rural remote Maine to compete for business.

The Internet removed the “too far away” aspect. Blew open the Maine real estate market restriction to an audience that is now global not just local.

It made it easier to deliver information on Maine tourism.

To serve up personal experience testimonials from case after case of telecommuters who packed their current job there.

And moved it along to a new Maine location with all their other personal belongings and loved ones to “Vacationland.

Remote work makes if more realistic for younger Mainers or newly relocated to the state folks to stay, to buy homes and contribute locally while working globally.

Maine markets itself as a “quality of life” state. Loaded with natural four seasons beauty, the 4th lowest crime stat, no traffic and an intimate small town community vibe.

With remote work, these unspoiled Maine advantages tug hard on the heart strings of workers who are fed up, sick and tired. Who no longer need to be near corporate urban bub population centers. Local communities, organization and the state got on the bandwagon early. Live here, work anywhere. Maine.

Rural Maine where I live is ahead of the Internet connectivity curve.

In the East Grand Lake region as a recent example, Fidium has strung glass fiber high speed Internet broadband all over the northern Washington and southern Aroostook County. You want 500 meg speed of thought Internet connectivity? Pioneer Broadband Internet is another local Maine company options leading the charge to offer Internet in places that did not have it.

Perks Of Living In Small Town Rural Maine Spelled Out A-Z.

Dial in the speed like remember the old Sunoco gas pumps? To boost performance with street legal race track high performance octane 360 grade in your muscle car back in the 1970’s.

If you work online remotely it is a given that all your higher income goes to support the local small Maine town economy? Probably not. But having the Fed Ex or UPS truck deliver whatever you used to get in the higher population city setting is part of the decision making moving to work remotely in Maine.

You no longer have to trade off all the perks thanks to the same Internet connection that offers go away you want to live employment options.

The influx of new remote online works has helped cause the shortage of affordable housing and the knee jerk for local contractors and communities to get behind new home construction. The what is being built to sell though has to match the market.

How Many Times Have You Climbed Mt Katahdin? Do You Hike, Bike, Climb The Rec Trails? Use The Maine Waterways Or Hunt, Fish?

Your typical Maine home buyer is looking for affordable not luxury unless parked amount the pricey coastal zip codes of Maine.

The Internet has helps home buyers consider their lifestyle choice and where best in Maine to live it out completely.

Like say your passion to ski. It meant the Sugarloaf or Sunday River area built golf courses. Uses the snow ski lift for fall leaf foliage color peeking. Other events added to the local Maine landscape to make what used to be seasonal resorts into to year round full service ones.

Horse lovers are invited to build a new house complete with a stable to bring Flicker or Bullet with you to ride the Maine mountain woods trails.

Want To Horse Around, Life A Small Homestead Farm Experience In Maine?

Remote work can reverse out migration trends and help young Mainers stay home while building careers.

Working remotely helps attract newcomers drawn by Maine’s quality of life. Clean air, community spirit, safety and outdoor year round recreation. The higher income strengthens small local community economies.

Freelance, consulting and digital businesses are giving people more job employment options than ever before.

Crossing Country Skiing, Snow Shoeing, Getting Outside In Maine To Fill Your Lungs With Fresh Clean Air. Is That Possible Where You Live Now?

For Maine, the benefits are telecommuting and working remotely retains young people who want to stay close to family but still build careers.

The challenge is building new housing stock to fill the needs of local and new incoming house buyers. Developers have to consider what the market needs, what is lacking and would quickly sell if it was built to meet the price point.

The building a house in Maine loaded with a slew of convenience features is great if you can afford it and for your own personal preferences.

A New Maine Lake Home Being Built From The Ground Up. Starts With A Foundation. How Many Angles And Jogs In It Drives The Price Up Or Down.

But simple, affordable ranch and cape style house structures are what is needed in rural Maine. Maine is 450 small communities, plantations and a handful of cities and the housing stock

Living Here, Working There. Your Local Life Can Include A Global Job With High Speed Internet.

has to match the need and price range the new home buyer can afford.

Can You Do This Where You Live Now? Everyday In Maine Is A Vacation.

It’s now new jobs not no jobs in Maine.

For years, people described Maine — especially rural Maine — as a place with “no jobs.”

The story was familiar: paper mills shut down, farms consolidated, manufacturing moved away, and young people left for Boston, Portland, or beyond in search of salary and career opportunity.

But today, that story is changing in Maine.

Live in Maine, work anywhere!

Remote work and telecommuting are quietly reshaping our state — and a Maine real estate broker, it is exciting to see the change up close, every single day.

Young Mainers that had to leave the state to “make a living” are returning home.

Their current out of state employer does not want to lose them and their rural Maine work ethic. The moving back to Maine family brings the job they already have.

Out of state buyers are moving in, sometimes sight unseen, because they can pack their current job and don’t need to replace it.

Retirees looking for a slower pace now have child or grandchildren who can follow them north because remote work is possible.

Today broadband availability in Maine matters as much as proximity to a mill or employer once did.

If Maine leans into the shift from live here, work anywhere. And if she continues to invest in broadband and promotes the clean unspopiled, simple lifestyle and supports new housing development.

Then Maine can turn “no jobs” into “new jobs”. Housing demand in Maine is the earliest signal of population and job trends. And the job trend is move, stay, live in Maine, work anywhere.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton Maine 04730

September 17, 2025
What’s It Like Living In A Small Maine Town?

Maine is a handful of cities and over 450 small community rural towns.

Sixteen counties and the one I live in is the largest east of the Mississippi in land mass. Aroostook County, sparsely populated, a little longer drive time to access but so worth the extra effort.

What’s it like living in a small Maine town?

How to share the experience short and sweet? To reflect an accurate representation of day to day life here today, yesteryear and with a hint of tomorrow. To “bring it all home” for someone curious about the area or to use promoting a small Maine town.

Houlton Maine, State Soap Box Derby Site For Down Hill Racing.

This blog post realizes people use their past as a measuring stick of the future.

That your previous experiences heavily influence your perspective of any new place. Plus what works best for you for surroundings shifts and changes throughout a person’s life stages.

So when someone, anyone asks you “what is it like living in (fill in the blank with small Maine town name)?”

It’s important to realize the longer you live anywhere else on Earth, the less you arrive to a small Maine town with a totally blank slate.

It’s like music, food, school, work, relationships, anything. Everyone does not come to the same take away conclusion describing anything.

The bullet points on what we love and dislike the most is not in the same order on the gotta have / don’t want list of where to call home.

Maine’s Highest Mountain, Mt Katahdin. Do You Like To Hike?

So the what’s it like here in a small Maine town question is answered with what was it like where you came from before?

What did you like where you used to live? What was missing or in short supply that you wish was in greater abundance? Something caused you to want to leave your own home and to consider a small Maine town as the new setting.

Brand new to Maine with just the tourism blurb, a little local past history to shape your expectations?

If where you lived last was a sardine packed together crowded city, your take away reaction to small Maine town life will differ greatly. Then say the perspective from a person relocating from another typical rural small-town experience. Not so sharp a contrast to adjust to over time for the latter.

Wagons Pulled By A Team Of Horses. Still Happens Farming In Maine. Welcome To Wide Open Space, Four Seasons Of Maine Recreation To Discover.

If you want your small Maine town to grow, you have to tap into your local brain trust.

Knowing the value and skill set of your local individuals is key. Community involvement from each and every one is needed so no one is sitting on the sidelines. Someone should not be trying to describe the small Maine town if they have not experience what it is like first hand.

They may do the best they can with generalities but after awhile, all the small Maine town write ups and presentations kinda sound the same. Many have a negative spin and it is obvious the writer can not see themselves living here by their description.

The people who live in the small Maine town are the community.

Maine Needed Water Fountains In Their Community Down Town Areas.

Not just the grid work of streets, empty buildings along Main Street, the rows and rows of housing stock.

It’s all about working together with other locals unique individuals to make sure your community shines brightly online. Putting your best foot forward, proudly believing in the local area in Maine you call your hometown.

The vibe, what’s it like summed up in a few words and short sentences is searched day and night online about small Maine rural towns.

That sound bite or snippet is amplified and pushed out into the media stream.

Unfortunately, trying to learn more about a small Maine town is difficult for web visitors if there is not a strong, positive hyper local online presence. Or just a lack of abundance of information to glean.

Bottle Like Maine Lake. Not A Ripple Today On The Lake In Maine.

Relying on a Reddit thread about your hometown or county from eight years ago is not accurate information.

Especially if posted by someone who has never ever stepped foot in your small Maine town.

Or as an unhappy teenager with a poor home life, they picked up and high tailed it never to return to said small Maine home town. And now feel the need to spread discontent and somehow blame the entire town for what went haywire.

Warning others to stay away, don’t you dare go there.

That black eye for the entire small Maine town population is not deserved but it’s everywhere you look with strong opinions from a keyboard warrior.

Even scanning what the tourism folks put online about your small Maine town can make you cringe. Lots of Maine towns had economies revolving around a single lumber mill, fish cannery or agriculture enterprise of some kind. Not very diversified and in deep trouble when that one trick pony employer industry locks the gate and shuddered the factory windows and doors.

Sponsoring A Small Maine Town Little League Team. Go Team!

Not all Maine small towns enjoy thriving economies.

But that’s what develops grit and fortitude and a higher degree of creativity. It makes how you spend volunteer time and financial resources done extremely carefully.

It’s what causes the feeling of being very invested in protecting, advancing and making the small Maine town what it can be. It’s not about just throwing lots of dollars at the problem. Or expecting your local, state and federal government to “fix the problem”.

Living in your small Maine town is like being a member of a very large family.

So when you read a tourism snippet that says your hometown used to be a happening, thriving place.

But not anymore, and everything is described past tense. Why would you instantly feel enticed to visit? You would not. And that write up is not how the locals who live in that small Maine community feel. They are protective, a little stand offish when they see the out of state plate. Sometimes more so from one state over another because of personal experience.

Maine Lighthouses, Big For Tourism And Fun For Locals To Visit. Over 60 Of Them To Collect Around Vacationland.

It takes broadcasting your local achievements, not relying on someone with their own slam bam personal slant to get the spotlight.

I think home grown, fire your belly writers that live where the four color chamber of commerce flyer describes are key. So do local social media feeds from around around the town, the region and county that are fresh, plentiful and constant.

So do whatever you can to put your small Maine town on the map. Study what works in other communities around Maine is easier than ever with the Internet that connects us all.

So it all circles back around to local what’s happening now.

Lots of buzz, local news, local events, plenty of eye candy on the outdoor natural beauty. And making sure every local who is lucky enough to be interviewed in anyway conveys the excitement, enthusiasm.

Making Music, Local Volunteers Fill The Outdoor Theatre To Make Music For Locals.

Building on the rich local community history but not being boat anchored stuck to the past. To a point in time when the economy suddenly shifted in a major way the wrong way.

Smart Maine town planners head in the direction of promoting what we have lots of… space, unspoiled four-season recreation space.

Fewer but friendlier hard-working people, a simpler way of living that’s lower cost, less crime, all about family.

Space, quiet, natural beauty, outdoor recreation, solitude, the intimacy of how tight small Maine towns can be. It’s special. That is the drum beat sauce in the background of everything getting posted, promoted online in many small Maine towns.

Small Maine Town Sports Teams. Hockey Players Go “Good Game Good Game” Down The Line.

Because It’s not like this that many places. Maine, the way life should be remember?

A small town in Maine can not try to compete with a larger population area who has the people to financially support what they promote as a reason to visit. But it can turn the tables and promote what we have so so much of that is lacking in rural areas.

The face cards for a small Maine town are playing the advantage of what we have an endless supply of that never runs out. Taking a David with a sling shot simple but effective approach to nimbly out pace the slow moving Goliath.

I love shoe string creative marketing approaches to get the word out.

Hitching a ride with others in your network sharing on their channels what you produce on your own.

What is the local area like?

What Was It Like In Black And White. Small Maine Towns Have Rich History To Preserve.

What’s it like living in small rural Maine town?

Let’s hear from the locals who have lived her for a considerable amount of time. Not from someone who has spent very little time in your Maine community if at all. Or anyone who their expectations were not well matched and the fit was poor from the get go. And they will harp about it to anyone who will listen.

You don’t want that kind of community thumbnail sketch to be all there is to glean online.

Failure to thrive happens when you stop believing in your small Maine town. I see in my job as a Maine real estate broker the tide is coming this way. There is a shift of folks wanting to live a different day to day. And we all need to speak up and explain why this is the place we are proud to call home here in Maine.

Curious About Why You Live In A Particular Small Maine Town. Ask Locals, Give Them The Mic, Quote Their Responses In Your Local Press.

Why do you live in this particular small Maine rural town?

The person on the street is the best source for print, photo or video capture to share the local community spirit. The more you hear from the real World average Janes and Joes, the broader the appeal because each has their own specific private reasons. Let’s hear from real people in small town Maine communities.

Willing to concede some of the perks heading to Maine.

Replacing them, trading them in for ones that just don’t happen where they live now. A place that is expensive, impersonal and pretty much everything store bought.

Lobster From Maine Anyone? No One Has Anything Close To The Taste Of Fresh Maine Steamed Lobsters!

Welcome to small Maine towns where resourcefulness abounds and passion glows hot and strong.

Someone who moved from a crowded city will experience a small town very differently than someone who moved from a remote farming community. What one person finds peaceful and slow-paced, another might find boring or isolating.

So the focus on small Maine town living should be on the person. The ones living here, the one asking the question “what’s it like” and fishing for a relocation move if they like what they hear.

Rigging Up To Ski Down A Maine Snow Capped Mountain Slope.

What did you expect coming in to a small Maine town?

Everyone has a different take on what is pure bliss in life. Most of the gain is through the pain of pitching and creating what is missing. Or coming along side a group already struggling to create what you desire and you showed up at exactly the right time.

Help row the boat. Stoke the fire.

Be a positive proponent of your small Maine home town.

Whether you were born there or not is not the issue. Your attitude and willingness to pitch in is what matters most. You showed up. Listening, contributing, having a role in how things roll in your small Maine town.

Bored, Waiting For Someone To Show Up With A Pair Of Wire Cutters. People Leave Crowded Cities For The Same Reason Of Feeling Penned In.

Knowing the small Maine town’s history, the ups and downs and why they happened as the locals struggled to adjust through trying economic times.

That’s important to combine with taking stock, creating the inventory of what we have that is attractive to someone that no long does.

Anyone moving to a small Maine town has a background, values and personal reasons for looking for a relocation. It is good to introduce yourself to anyone new to the area by listing why you love living here.

Welcome To Maine. You’re Here. You Made It!

It is also good to describe what the local small Maine community is not, how it might not be a good fit for someone looking for a faster pace of life.

You can not be all things to all people and an honest assessment of the local area has to take priority.

There is plenty to do for new community members and to replace ones that dies and fade away.

Maine Social Media Explained.

Here’s a Maine PBS film on how small Maine towns solve big problems.

My hometown of Houlton Maine just had a film premiere of A Moment In The Sun. The film showcasing the total solar eclipse that happened earlier this year in April in Houlton Maine.

Totality In The Last Place In The USA To Experience It. Houlton Maine’s Total Solar Eclipse.

If your small Maine town had a documentary story to share, who would you pick in the community to make the points? Build a case for living here? If trying to leave a positive impression and the best presentation, what local events or ways of life traditions would you salt and pepper through out the local production?

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, 2025