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Mother’s Day, What The Four Boys Learned From My Mom.

As a little kid, mothers are the first person known for making it all better.

For the there there, you’re okay. If you take a spill, scrape your knee. Get wounded in action on a Maine farm working. Playing outside with three older brothers, the few neighbor friends when it’s rural living in the country outside a small Maine town.

Mom To Four Boys, Nana To Many Other, “Weeze” To My Dad.

Mom is the charge nurse always on duty, on call.

When you are are flat on your back, sick as a dog. Comfort from a Mom to the rescue who guides, leads you back to health. With the homemade soup, the back rubs of witch hazel, the cool damp wash cloth applied to your forehead. Your Mom is a constant. She loves you unconditionally, is selfless.

The Vicks Vapor Rub greasing you up, lubed on to your wheezing, rattling, raspy chest. To get you back on your feet.

The ones with red PF Flyers. That she would use her thumb in the take a spin. Asking where your big toe is at the Boston and Shoe Store. With sneaker or dress shoe pairs brought out by the tall bean pole bald headed guy that always wore a bow tie. Who lived on Lincoln Street, was a fixture at the store with the stool, shoe horn, sliding foot size and width metal tool and those low to the ground mirrors. He hunched down, squatted on the stool to open up, tie down the laces. To help mom get you back on the track of the circle of life.

Mary Lou Mooers, She Was A Benn, Second In Her Class At Hodgdon High! Raised On A Dairy Farm Like My Dad.

Moms. What you remember most. I bet the soothing words, to help you sleep better. Telling you not to worry about something big happening tomorrow. Tucking you in after saying your prayers. Encouragement. To get you through the night a little easier. From the person who brought you into this brave new world. Squinting, all pink, pretty small and very helpless. Mom, the lady who also knits mittens, hats, Christmas stockings for you and your brothers. Gets you to hair cuts, the dentist, school activities as you grow big and strong.

Reminding you before you speed out of the yard on a bike to be careful, look both ways.

Make good decisions. Before the link up with friends. And to be sure to be back for supper hollered. As you wave and peddle or motorbike, snow sled away from the Maine farmstead.

Like my brothers, Dad, I worked hand in hand with my Mom on a Maine farm. Picking fruit and vegetable produce to sell at a roadside stand. Counting tickets from potato harvester workers to tally up the barrel count. What they had earned spud picking each day.

With the newspapers down on the cleared of supper dish Maine farm house kitchen table as two brothers took turns, washed, wiped.

Lots of fine field dust, the numbered tickets placed in piles by Mom and I. After spilling out of a collection can from farm truck crews. That hoisted the barrels, rolled them to the back. To fill the rolling platform spaces. That when fully loaded the creaking truck was shooed. Whisked away to dark potato house storage bins.

One Potato, Two Potato… Well You Know The Rest.

The golden nuggets to be upended, cascaded, to hibernate, snooze through a Maine winter. Before being woke up, graded, packaged. Shipped one potato, two potato… well you know the ditty. Loaded in trailer trucks the family owned to 10-4, breaker one nine.. got your ears on? Get to the large produce markets in MA, CT, NY.

My Mom worked as hard as my Dad.

Both were raised on Maine farms. Lazy was not a label that anyone would ever pin on either of the pair. She could cook, can, shake and bake. Create one of a kind blue plate specials better than any five star World class restaurant. My brothers enjoyed being welcomed to a house full of flavor smells. With a fresh batch of home made cookies, donuts, pastries cooling, waiting. As we walked up the long driveway. After tumbling down the steps in the front of the yellow school bus number thirteen drive by Cy Dunlap, then Hibby Thompson. That picked us up at 7:15, brought us home at 3:45. Sharp.

The conversations around the family Maine farm house table meals were about everything under the sun. Sundays were spent going to church. Then afternoon turns taken rotating through the brothers and sisters homes. Of my Mom’s eleven child family that lived local. So we saw our cousins at a different, revolving take a turn family homestead weekly. To play while the grown ups caught up on each others lives. What was moving, grooving out and about in the small local Maine community.

My Mom taught me about human nature, preached love and moderation.

How to do tasks right or do it over until it was. Not harshly, negative and but reinforced in a positive, with a smile sort of way. My Mom was a strong woman with a deep faith in God and believed in my Dad too. In family, in community, in life. She was smart, trustworthy, had a sense of humor and very disciplined. Not wishy washy or a whiner. A roll up your sleeves, a person you could depend on. To do more than her share of what faced us on the Maine family farm.

When You Live In Maine, Everything You Need Is Right On Your Back, Carried With You Daily For Skills, Talent.

Mom was well read. Taught us about tolerance, to work hard on ourselves rather than judge others. To keep our eyes on our own paper. To be responsible, take ownership when things went bad. Not just through successes. Like Dad, Mom believed in each of her kids, grandchildren, in God. Taught us all she knew to prepare us for our life. For when she was no longer here.

She is gone from Earth now but lived into her 80’s. Her amazing flower beds at the Maine farm I bought from my brothers still grow tall with a variety of colors, types of plants.

The love and care of her handiwork, the many lessons live on. Family is everything. She taught us death is part of our very short lives. Makes it more precious. Death is not to be feared and is the reminder that this is not your real home. Just a dress rehearsal for bigger and better things to come. Love you Mom. Thank you Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

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

May 11, 2014
Strawberries Grown On A Maine Farm.

Big Red, Sparkle, Robinsons, other proven strawberry varieties to plant, train the runners.

Home Grown Fresh Maine Farm Strawberries.
Or what are called the “spider” satellite plants to give direction. Off shoots spinner thin IV lines off the mother fruit producer of red succulent nectar nutrients. Sold by the single box or flat. At a roadside open air farmer’s market of produce, fruit. Food grown close to home in Maine, not imported from California or out of state, the country.

Picking strawberries in early morning when there is glistening dew on the fertile soil.

As the sun shows up to start another summer day on a Maine farm. Creating a scorcher of a picture perfect day. The perishable fruit heaping out and over the wooden boxes. Brought in from the field. To get out of the sun’s oppressive rays with no chance of shade.

We used to load the flats by pickup. Shuttle them to the Earth floor cellar of the Maine farm house I grew up on. Where it was cool, damp, dark and a good place to double park. To preserve, protect the luscious Maine fruit. From settling which meant tapping into another box of strawberries. Loosing part of the profit. To level out the others needing some rounding. That are sinking, dropping from the over heaping by field pickers. Created from the rich fertile soil on the Maine farm. To avoid those losses of air, that compacts and settles the juicy payload.

Where rows and rows, divided by stripes, corridors of straw layers keep the strawberries in line.

The grass too from choking, over powering the red fruit with green seeds. To avoid requiring grass removal until the berry plants are high enough, all established. To hold their own with saw tooth leaves converting sunlight to sugar.

I ate so many strawberries as a kid on a Maine farm doing time picking them. To the point that all the other fruit was game for sampling, enjoying. But took a sabbatical from strawberries for the rest of my childhood. Other than the occasional blend of strawberry rhubarb Mom was known to roll out, tuck in the filling and slide into the oven.
Small Maine Towns, Good Wholesome Food Grown Locally.
Add some heaping ice cream scoops invited, that are escorted to the end of meal celebration. And well, how can you resist a slab of any pie presentation?

Bought a big plastic container of strawberries from Andy’s IGA this week. As I sample them, what a tasty sensation.

Not because they are more flavored than ones we raised on the Maine farm in a three acre field by Moose Brook. But along with the fruit taste explosion, memories of the work that went into planting, training, picking and peddling them as a Maine farm kid adds to the take away. And maybe avoiding them for years created the renewed hunger.

Like falling in love again with an old flame but new knowledge, wisdom and coming into the relationship from a different on ramp that has no exit. The urge to sample the red berry taste that meant long hours, work obligations had been self shelved.

Feeling like a veteran soldier back from fighting foreign wars on other soils.

High decorated from picking potatoes growing up. Season after season. Still have the field dirt in my veins. Doing the circuit. Work ethic happened along with filling the empty barrels. Finding a top slot to wedge in your ticket number for credit before the hoist. Payment at the end of the harvest week of working outdoors. In all kinds of weather and field conditions.

The fourth year we could turn the strawberry fields into you pick situations. What a free for all. Like trying to herd cats. No way to keep the pickers from all over creation that swooped in on the field in just a few sections of the grow. And you better plan on four boxes being eaten picking the one. And sky scraper stacking them to make sure a box was on steroids. High altitude and weighing in at a box and a half. Then plow them under and replant. Do it over in a new spring on a Maine farm.

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

May 9, 2014
Inside A Maine Community, Taking A Peek From Afar.

The first vacation to Maine starts the germination, burning sensation.

The one deep inside that like an itch, is not going to go away. When you test positive for Maine.
You, Fresh Air, Clean Water, Space. Freedom To Roam. Take Off Your Shoes. Let Down Your Hair.
Even with the green square tin of bag balm found on the shelf of every Maine hobby farm is applied for what ails you. Or for protecting cuts, scrapes on the critters with the medicated salve. The Maine farm animals much like kids. That get into the craziest situations around barns, machinery, fencing. Horsing around happens in a Maine rural farm setting.

The visit to a relative or friend who set up a farm spread in Maine is the kindling for the inside passion to take root.

Or renting a place on the Maine coast line. Sauntering through the harbor villages, shops. Sitting outside to dine in open air cafes. Walk the sandy beaches. Smelling salt air, feeling gentle breezes. Building a nightly fire for a brewski, some grape juice, tasty grilled snackage and free form casual get togethers.
Maine Moose, See Them Everywhere!
Unscripted dialogue, outdoor conversations as the sun sets or rises in a circle of chairs. Lake camps in Maine are low cost vacation options to create the backdrop you need to unwind, unplug, recharge, relax.

Making everything camping out and hiking, biking, kayaking or skiing, fishing, hunting that much crisper, sharper, memorable. To blaze in good shape. The images of Maine fan the flames.

These Maine photos fuel the hunger, thirst, reminder that other places are not like this.

The Maine local community videos help you take the trips. To get inside Maine. To the state fairs, farmer’s markets, parades, other small town happenings in Vacationland. These blog posts about Maine are designed to help.

Painting the pictures. To show the sight and sounds of Maine. Formulate the list in the power of writing is what makes this region of the country no longer a deep, dark, guarded secret. Maine people are pretty unique. Why folks want to stay in Maine. Work, retire, raise families here. To relocate, move, invest and vacation in Maine. Thank you for being a faithful follower of Me In Maine blog posts.

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

May 7, 2014
What About ME ?

When you raise kids in Maine, you teach them there is a big wide open World out there to explore, discover.

To sample in the journey of life. The many neat people we bump into along the ride. And things rub off that help shape a person from the experiences, conversations your kids have in new locations with folks far far away from the Maine home town they spent the first part of their life.
Serving It Up, Dishing It Out In Small Maine Towns.

What about ME ?

Some folks spend their whole life here. Maybe other than a stint in the service, two, four or more years of college. The other side of the big green bridge.

Or when their parents moved during their school years for a brief stint outside Vacationland.

But the kids doubled back. Because the bulk of their family is here. Because they liked the environment of where they were raised in Maine with all that four season outdoor, wide open living, friendly people.

The place with the space. Maine is a popular place.

Often the person who has not lived in Maine long, or at all appreciates this Pine Tree State more than a native.

The locals know we are pretty lucky in Maine. But those that have done time in not so much fun busy, crowded, unsafe and expensive city settings outside Maine appreciate the state much more. Because they know it is not like this many or any other places. They have the scars, stripes to prove what can happen when you don’t hang your hat.
One Potato, Two Potato… Well You Know The Rest.
Are not fortunate enough to live, work and play in a small Maine town.

To at least maintain or better yet grow in population the survival goal. To become a destination to consider living, raising families. Working or retiring in.

Not just reach for off the shelf for hit or miss Maine vacations.

Or all the outdoor recreational pursuits in Maine that happen like clockwork the four seasons.

The trick is how to be the cat’s meow to all the age groups. New and improved. Because all the segments are needed to create a well rounded experience in a small Maine town. What makes a small Maine town great, so special, to shine?

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

May 5, 2014
Spin The Pointer (Tick, Tick, Click Sound)… So You Want To Live In Maine Eh?

Dorothy clicked the ruby reds to slipper back to Kansas.

Where do you want to live Toto? Seems the upper right hand corner is one attractive destination. To keep it where you got it for wall to wall natural surroundings if already a local, transplant. Don’t want to leave. Want to stay put.
Best View For A Maine Lunch. I Know Several Places. That Make You High, Giddy, Happy.

Maine people happy where they live as a rule. When polled, quizzed, asked for a show of hands on where would you move to if the getting was good? Or in dire straits, it was deemed necessary to take a swan dive. Like the order on the bridge of the Titanic to abandon ship.

If the bright lights came on, music stopped and in the silence told we don’t care where you go.

But you can’t stay here. If it was last call. Mainers would for the most part sit still, dig in. Park it where they got it for GPS coordinates. That according to a recent Gallup poll this week.

Maine. If you’re happy and your know it clap your hands, stomp your feet. That’s what it’s all about. Hey.

What’s the attraction of Maine?

If you could coil up the bed roll. Finish your coffee, douse the camp fire.
Home Grown, Small Town Pride. That’s Maine.
Tighten the girth a couple saddle notches. Put your lid on. Hit the trail for new parts to roam daily. If you are like so many out of state readers, folks I deal with looking to own Maine real estate, a piece to call home sweet home. Or as an insurance policy, a safety net to bungee cord catch themselves.

To run away to if between the rock and the hard place. Up that creek without the paddle. If ever found free falling unexpectedly off something tall. In the cities where eight out of ten like it or not have to live.

With all those big blue easy to spot dots for the big evacuation. If cities ever did empty during, after something terrible being flashed, splashed on the tube. Over the wire, squeezed through the grape vine, via smoke signal communications. Showing up on radar to force the move, relocation to say oh I don’t know, maybe Maine.

The list of what we don’t have in Maine scores big. Zip for time bleeding out traffic. 4th lowest crime, no gangs, no drive by shootings, no need for dead bolts. Or living in fear.

46th lowest for foreclosure, short sale, repossession due to all those low priced properties. That are easier to pay off, to shift to living mortgage free. Mainers don’t do debt unless they can absolutely help it.

If you rounded up your tribe, were on Family Feud and Richard Dawson, some host shouted survey says (ding ding ding).

Wait for it. The tumbling rectangle slots for the number one, top ten reasons folks say they like Maine. The popularity cake walk for Vacationland would list the down to Earth, family first hard working people.

Spiraling down the list to the wide open spaces colored blue, green, in between. The elbow room. Unspoiled natural surrounding vistas.
Kayak Yak Yak Yak In Packs. Group Paddling, Bobbing, Floating Your Boat.
The moose, lighthouses, blueberry pie, baked potatoes, lobster boats double parked in harbors off coastal villages.

The crystal clean waterways like the Allagash, Penobscot, Kennebec, Androscoggin, Dead. The Mt Katahdin, Sugarloaf, Sunday River, Cadillac for bumps to get you high. To name a few of the peaks, spirals pointing skyward in our Pine Tree State.

But the real attraction of Maine is not something one word descriptions nail down properly. To adequately cover all the bases sufficiently. Score a ten.

There is a small town connection in Maine because of the 108 little, more self contained local communities.

Just a handful of cities. Embracing home grown, local grass roots creativity, self reliance, living in gentile poverty. Elevating it to an art form.

The way life should truly be. Maine, she’s not high school skinny, but big, beautiful with lots more to wrap your arms, head around to love. Go all the way north. Why don’t you come up and visit ME sometime?

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

May 2, 2014
Believing Is Seeing Is Part Of The Warp, Reversed Thinking.

When it was easy to get the truth, when reporting was the who, what, when, where, why and how.

Just the cold hard, black and white facts. And if you read it in newsprint, heard it from Walter, then that’s the way it is. At the movies, good guys were easy to spot. Wearing white lids. The not so honorably, the guys with the beading eyes, shifty forehead reached for black hats after brushing their teeth. Heading out into the day mornings.

Life was pretty much on an 8-5 Monday thru Friday, slower moving roller coaster.

A Classic, 1937 Hudson Terraplane Rolling Iron.
Shorter stint at work wearing the apron Saturday. And no no, Sunday is taboo to labor, chase the dollar. Everything closed. Picnics, big dinners, visiting your Uncles and Aunts on a weekly rotations schedule of where. Because family came first.

That Sunday afternoon nap to catch up for the busy week that starts tomorrow. Getting to church was a given. Maybe waxing the old Buick Roadmaster with the port holes in the hood or Hudson Terraplane. Whatever was saved up for slowly. Bought carefully that sits in the yard or undercover in the carriage house.

Sitting on Maine home open front porches nights. You watched the world go by, it was simple living.

Your neighbors too out for a little air.

To stretch their legs. Walk the dog. That happened by and stopped to talk. Shoot the breeze. Share the “did you hear about Effie? Well poor thing, it’s the strangest thing really. You know how she lined up with that good for nothing blah blah blah …”

The choices in life were chocolate and vanilla. Homemade grape nut before that because it was what was available, in the household pantry cabinet. You made the most with what you had. You were content with less. You took what you needed and left the rest for someone else.

Happy endings in all the movies don’t happen now. Shock value and chainsaws pushed wholesome and good right off the stage you cornball. Heck you can pick the alternate finish you feel in the mood for by dialing it in on movies. Have it your way. Lots of options, a slew of entertainment avenues to use the freed up time with automation for recreation. A distraction from reality as we used to know it. All about having fun now no matter what the cost or neglect.
Chores, Feeding Yourself, Heating With Wood, Simple Living.
It replaced the keeping it real of work, worship, raise a family. Save for a rainy day and the best things in life were free. Because that is all you, your neighbor could afford. Write letters to GI Joe halfway around the world. Pick your favorite mission field to support.

Back to that believing is seeing and turnabout from the other way around.

You could bank on what was reported, politicians had not taken the illustrious job of public servant to power corrupts. Self servant and mastering spin became an art form. Apathy set in and self medication marched in all the doors. Over eating, over drinking. Searching for over the counter solutions to inside missing natural life ingredients. The depletion of what’s good for you home made replaced with store bought, temporary, expensive. Hoarding to amass the most material items seeking the status, fame, fortune. To be remembered.

The shift from “it’s all about others” in your family, community, state and nation replaced, eroded with “what about me?” Shock and awe when Elvis introduced that twitch, hip gyrating dance with the guitar and mic stand. Johnny Cash wearing black and flirting with the crowbar hotel fans that loved his sound, look, timing in life.

The midway extravaganza excitement, razzle dazzle that used to happen only when the vaudeville carny show rolled into town. Set up the rides, exhibits, games. The canvas tents where the snake oil salesman, bearded lady, other circus oddities performed. Hoochie coochie pushed the limits on what was socially, morally typically served up in a small God fearing community. Pass the flask of that dragon breathing high octane firewater would ya please Sport? What a show.

Searching for answers, the truth that sets you free became harder when eight out of ten of us lives in a city, urban population center.

Harder to determine, to see which shell the pea is under in the hocus pocus shuffle. Too busy to notice or really care part of it. Being bone weary, dog tired contributes too. What is important in life and what you can take as real honest to goodness. Is it a case of believing is seeing in the opinions you form on others, how you observe life in general?

Whoever does the best job of spinning, manipulating reality? And do you still do your own thinking, reasoning or is it a throw money at it. Angie’s list, ask a consultant, therapist, total stranger riding the rail to work or waiting for an appointment what should you do? Maine, if you are lost, we’ll cure that. It starts with clean living stripping away all those layers of what you don’t need, hide under. Common sense, self reliance, work ethic still work, apply just fine here in Maine.

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

April 30, 2014