Category: Maine Farms

Maine Maple Syrup Sunday | Sugar Houses In Maine

Maine maple syrup Sunday, sugar houses in Maine.

Every year Maine maple sugar house farm producers open up their woodlot operations. The public gets to sneak a peek. Go behind the scenes for how the maple syrup actually gets collected and refined. To sample and see all the work to transform clear watery liquid sap into what gets boiled down into the honey amber golden syrup.

Maine maple syrup Sunday where the forty to one boil it down maple syrup production woodlot sap collection happens.

The long hard process gets explained by local Maine woodlot tree farmers. To get what you drizzle over tall towering stacks of flap jacks, my by far favorite Maine maple syrup application. Pancakes, ploys taste better with Maine maple syrup. Swimming, drenching Maine made food items in the liquid topping we all love so much.

Maine Maple Sap Bucket Collects Clear Watery Sap To Boil Down To Thick Amber Maple Syrup. Covered Lid To Keep Melting Ice And Rain Water Out.

You can not stop spring desperate to be sprung in Maine.

The seasons change with or without you. The pandemic kinks the hose a little in how the Maine Maple Sunday operations will flow this year on March 28th. But the sap is on tap and it’s almost showtime. You can not stop Mother Nature pair up with Jack Frost. Where the two tag team to yearly produce another batch of highly addictive amber gold Maine maple syrup.

Over 100 Maine Maple Sunday syrup collecting sugar bush tours ahead in this 38th annual event.

All the family friendly entertainment to sample the maple syrup products coming to a sap collection venue near you. From York to Aroostook County, Maine maple syrup tree tapping demonstrations are going to happen ready or not. The fun activities to sample the all natural syrup sweetener await. Mark the date, please circle March 28th a couple times in red on your kitchen calendar. To make sure not to forget. That it’s that time again. For all the Maine maple syrup producers statewide to join together and promote some great maple products.

Let’s check in with Ed and Pat Jillsons to see what a Maine Maple Sunday open house looks like pre-pandemic with the magic of video.

Here’s the Maine Maple Sunday map of sugar houses to find one or more near you “celebrate approaching spring” open house tours.

To protect the public adhering to the state’s COVID 19 safety protocols, Maine maple syrup farm producers will step back. Spacing it out to creatively and safety do the show and tell sugar bush demonstrations. But nothing can stop the excitement surrounding Maine maple Sunday when spring syrup is collected from tapped trees around Vacationland.

While out on the McIntyre Road touring a Maine river front land property listing last weekend, I spied with my little eye the hanging galvanized buckets. Hooked securely to sap taps on maple trees across the road, the inspiration for this next Me In Maine blog post clicked. Like a minister looking for the next week’s sermon, why not ask folks out in the audience what comes to mind from two words, maple syrup?

And do you think log cabin maple syrup or the lady with the bandana smiling at you?

Or Maine maple syrup no matter what the price of the supermarket jug. Pure, natural Maine maple syrup, woodlot to your family table please and thank you. There’s your sign, that’s your brand. Settling for nothing but the best, forgetting all the rest of those light weight, watered down imitations full of fructose and God only knows what else that we all know if bad for your body right?

The Sweet Stuff, Rock Maple Sap That Boils Down 40 To 1 For The Golden Mixture To Ooze On Your Maine Blueberry Pancakes.

New England maple syrup, do you thick of log cabins and the state of Vermont?

Maple Shade Trees Are Full Of Syrup Sap When Above Freezing Days, The Other Way Below Zero Nights.

Well move over Bernie Sanders and Ben and Jerry’s, the state of Maine produces more than 575,000 gallons of maple syrup yearly. Over $27 million dollars from Maine maple syrup production flows into the state’s economy. More than 560 full and part time jobs generate the sugar shack sap house excitement.

If there were no Maine maple sugar houses, it would produce a gaping hole cavity of over $17.3 million in worker’s wages.

Does it hurt a maple tree to tap the sap? Is there a right and wrong way to vampire the live giving fluid? Isn’t natural tree sap needed to jump start the new buds that create the green hardwood solar collectors to continue forest stand growth?

How would you like a high speed drill coming at you from all angles to look for a mainline sap artery to slow drip into the hanging bucket weighing you down?

You know drilling out a tooth cavity is not the most enjoyed Maine recreational activity. But like a colonoscopy, Maine humorist Tim Sample says you’ll get through it like a Maine winter.

What maple trees can be tapped for the best syrup? Maple syrup can be made from any species of maple tree. Trees to tap for the sap are sugar, red, silver, black maple and box elder varieties. But the highest natural sugar concentration maple syrup is from the sugar maple.

Many maple species lack a high enough concentration of sap sugar… kinda anemic and not your super donors. Like down at the Red Cross lay down, roll up your sleeve and give the gift of life.

These light weight minor league maple trees mean you need even more watery sap to collect and boil down for syrup magic. With up to 60 gallons of maple tree sap needed to produce just a gallon of that precious golden syrup.

Here’s one video on tapping Maine maple trees and how to do syrup sap correctly.

I first got the bug about what if there was a local sugar bush maple trees to tap the sap for rich tasty syrup from my Dad.

On the Maine farm my four brothers and I grew up on, the long driveways of stately maple trees were tapped yearly. For way smaller but sweet treat syrup production on the farmstead kitchen gas stove. Sometimes using a wood heater to boil it down. But something larger scale was always on the back burner in my Dad’s thoughts. When just a little shaver of about seven, my Dad fired up the 1966 Snow Jet to head to the maple tree heavy woodlot. The sled were rode on purchased from my Uncle Carl Hagan who was the blue snowmobile dealer in Cary Mills, Maine.

Together, Dad and I made the trek to the 100 acre family woodlot in Ludlow Maine. To weave the snow machine around the ridge of tall hardwood maple trees. To survey them for the best plan if we ever created a sugar bush, a sugar house to create the maple syrup from our own Maine woodlot.

The Solitude, Peaceful Feeling Of The Maine Woods In Winter. Don’t Miss Maine Maple Sunday Sugar House Open House Demonstrations Nearest You This March 28th.

Dad had lots of irons in the fire and was quite the entrepreneur.

With little free time already spoken for to kick off the sugar house maple syrup dream, it did stop him from the mental layout of just how he would do it. To create an intricate series of tubing for sap collection up in the Ludlow Maine woodlot where we yearly gathered firewood to heat our homes. Lack of enough hours in the day to pull it off, Dad still had a vivid detailed vision he shared with me of a large sugar bush maple syrup operation. The one he saw in his head where just everything would go from his life long study and passion for the heavily wooded maple tree forest terrain.

Complete with large long hand made wooden tables with picnic style benches to slide along to find your place for the celebration of a new maple syrup batch.

Walls that open out and up to let in the natural light. Open sides of the forest dining room utilized for fresh frosty air. Served up with baked beans, pancakes, sizzling bacon strips, smothered corn fritters, sweet breads, sweet glazed donuts all with a common ingredient of Maine maple syrup. A communion ritual to invite in all your friends, family and neighbors to celebrate the approaching spring renewal of life. To quell the hunger for new Maine maple syrup infused in the yearly event up in the Aroostook County woodlot.

Maine Maple Sugar Shack Sap Production. No Network Of Tubes Gravity Feeding Into A Tree Sap Reservoir. Just A Simple Bucket Brigade ME Syrup Collection.

To introduce young and old to the sound of the crackling fire under the steaming maple sap evaporator woodlot scene.

As they pushed food around their tin plates in the sugary maple syrup for the bath before open up the hatch and down the gullet. Dad saw maple syrup as one more agricultural endeavor to sponsor to get Maine farmers away from mono-culture thinking. Of potato, potato, potato with a little grain in the crop rotation on small family Maine farms. The one that desperately needed to diversify to avoid having all the eggs in one basket. Income on a small family Maine farm has to come from many sources. To assure you stay on the family patch of dirt passed down through the many generations. To assure someone is around to feed the rest of us that don’t farm.

After a long Maine winter, even Pa Ingalls touted the medicinal health benefits of maple syrup used in the Little House in the Big Woods too.

The all natural elixir that requires a lot of hard work to collect the sap. Then the fun part of maple syrup making of collecting it bucket by bucket. To pour the clear watery sap into an evaporator for the boiling it down. Tending the wood fires to steadily reduce the maple tree sap into the 40 to 1 evaporation. To distill the amber gold slow moving liquid used so many ways. The alternative to white sugar, do you add Maine maple syrup to your fresh brewed morning coffee? Is the Maine maple syrup used in your cooking or to make candies? Are you planing to take in the sights this Maine Maple Syrup Sunday and support the local producers?

One more old fashioned Maine sugar house maple syrup production video.

It is a family day where Mainers bring their kids, can get a horse drawn sleigh ride. To sample some Maine maple syrup candy. Get out, shake off the winter mental cobwebs and break free of cabin fever. A little sugar shack shock of the taste buds does a body good and these open house demonstrations are healthy from many angles. And sure beats sitting on the couch and killing time inside . When you are missing out big time on a worthwhile sugar house demonstration in your own backyard. That supports local Maple syrup producers and the local communities around them.

Another pre-COVID Maine Maple Sunday sugar house operation video to stir the bug to attend one.

I remember seeing an old sugar house up behind my Mom’s home place on Benn Hill in Hodgdon Maine.

When all the cousins rotated our home locations week to week to play Sunday after church. While the Aunts and Uncles all socialized and caught up on local events. Thank you for the stopping by today to read, watch and learn about Maine Maple Sunday that has happened for the last 38 years and getting bigger and better than ever.

These Maine maple syrup sugar house open houses can provide up to 50% of the operation’s golden profit.

Highly important and more than ever this year to recover from pandemic losses as everything we know as normal went through a blender and got reconstituted. This is what’s happening around the “Crown of Maine” for Maine Maple Sunday plans . Up here in Aroostook County, the garden of Maine when talking maple syrup production this year. A lot of Maine maple syrup producers add honey to what they produce and sell like Spring Break operation in Smyrna Maine.

Please make an effort to attend a Maine Maple Syrup Sunday open house sugar house tour or two near you this year.

Remember, no farmer, no food. Think about that when you enjoy whatever is served up three times or more a day. Wherever you hang your hat when the dinner bell rings. The support for the local Maine maple syrup farm producers. Support for the local sugar bushes, the Maine maple Sunday syrup producers is more important that ever this year as we come out the other side of the pandemic tunnel.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com | MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

March 17, 2021
Farming In Maine

Farming in Maine, it was the first noble profession.

Farming In Maine, Transplanting Or Direct Seeding?

Because feeding yourself and your family is life and death important. No farmer, no food, no more life is the most basic law of the jungle. Farming in Maine started out pretty small potatoes in the beginning. Creating what to serve up for your own meals, using what you could produce only. Long hours, plenty of patience, not much in the way of tools to make the farm chores easier. Taking care of yourself first. Before expanding into feeding others with the extra farm fresh food from the Maine farm pasture fields.

Watch a Maine farming potato picking video.

The early Maine farm settlers grew corn, beans, squash and raised oats, barley. Plenty of loose hay for their animals who needed something to eat too.

The apple trees created free food like the wild blueberry, strawberry and raspberry patches. Fishing along the rocky coastline, out on lakes or casting the line into rivers contributed to the what’s for dinner routine.

Team Of Horses For Farming In Farm, Still Used.

Southern Maine small farms began to dot the early map when Vacationland was still technically part of the Massachusetts bay colony. Self sufficient living and pretty much roll and grow your own was the norm.

Maine Farm Tractors. Modern 6 To 8 Row Big Ones, Older Two Row Ones.

Hard life, long hours, no guarantee of reward. Creating more than enough for a food surplus to feed others was slow to happen. Harsh weather, pests and lack of machinery to increase the Maine farm field yield. It made it hard to get ahead of the hand to mouth existence.

And no hustling bustling highways to sail on or an iron railroad to get the Maine farm products to large consuming markets population centers to the south. Lack of transportation options to readily access the Maine farm produce kept agriculture operations pretty Maine home grown small and simple.

Where I live in Northern Maine, family farms dotted the countryside up and down all the country roads in every direction.

That was the norm in rural Maine. Now fewer but larger commercial Maine farm operations create the produce for row crops. The small family beef, dairy and poultry farms too on the same glide path to extinction. Replaced with a handful of larger more efficient operations that can thrive on the economy of scale. Your profit is found in the expenses and no room for loose as a goose or slip shod farming practices.

Despite this national trend, Maine has more micro farmers than ever. The COVID19 pandemic has only accelerated that back to the land agricultural trend.

The size of the farm operation depends how deep you want to go. Whether you plan to mortgage to the hilt, and go big. Or take over a family farm smaller spread and stay manageable. Where everything is paid for and the equipment you use is yesteryear antique but owned lock, stock and barrel.

Early Morning On The Farm In Maine, Nothing Like This Time Of Day To Reflect On Life, Get Centered. Field Grain Just Harvested, Hay With Be Baled From The Chaff Of The Barley Oats Crop Planted On This Field.

Farming profits have always been found in the expenses. How well a Maine farm operation is run is key.

And more than just having a green thumb. Today’s farmer is high tech and savvy across the board on a multitude of disciplines besides planting, cultivating, harvest (repeat). Dairy farming, both my parents came from family farms that grew potatoes but also had milk cows. My mom from a family of eleven who all had jobs on the dairy farm. My dad one of four who had a mile route in town. There were lots of small family dairy farms in Maine that delivered milk products by a wheel cart in summer, sleigh pung with runners in the winter snow.

Got Milk? Maine Dairy Farming Is The Most Intense And Round The Clock Time Consuming.

Cheese can be made to store on shelves, butter and Maine farm milk not so easy to leave around at room temperature.

Refrigeration was needed to advance dairy farming to go beyond just serving product to the producer’s own table. Maine Central Railroad refrigerated train cars delivered dairy products to Bangor, Portland, Boston far away markets. This was long before Thermo King units were bolted on the front of 53′ long reefer trailer units. To create just the right storage conditions during transport from rural Maine to urban produce markets.

Pretty To Look At, Delicious Tasting Too! When The Maine Farm Food Is Close To Home Grown And Raised.

Butter and cream rather than cheese products became the goal of many Maine farm dairies in what they delivered by train to out of state markets.

Silage in silos helped boost production beyond just hay and grain so dairies could increase production to serve beyond just their small Maine town customer base. More on early Maine farming slides and history. In the late 1960’s, the push to get away from a monoculture of agriculture playing just one note in the farm song. Over farming one crop year after year. Because of that age old habit of predominantly planting potatoes in Aroostook County, sugar beet farming was introduced. Grains had been more of a rotation crop only. To give the ground a rotation rest rather than to help pay the farming bills.

Freddie Valshing reintroduced what Maine farmers had already grown along with hops back in the 1880’s.

The return introduced spud farmers to a new sugar beet refinery in Easton Maine. Complete with piggy back rail delivery yards in the Houlton area and other locations in the Aroostook County crown of Maine part of the state. My Dad and Mom planted eighty acres of sugar beets, invested in a harvester and were committed to this extra crop. The one harvested after the potatoes were dug. The foray into sugar beets petered out because of a shift in the audience habits for sweeteners. Also because the one armed Freddy Valshing was not in it for the long haul but the quick buck.

Give Me A Beat… No No, The Other Kind Of Maine Farm Beet.

Why sugar beets did not stick in the Maine farming crop rotation?

There was a resistance to anything interfering with spud production alone which the majority of Maine farmers prescribed to historically. More on sugar beets in Maine and how things went wrong trying to introduce a new farm field staple for agriculture production diversity.

Ever thought of starting a micro farm in Maine?

The type of dirt, the condition of the soil all factor into how the Maine farming, living off the land dream is going to turn out for you. Creating wealth and nutrition from the good Earth with hard work, patience and mastering the learning curve. It is not so attractive to many.

Farming in Maine is not for everyone or those dependent on an hourly wage and a secure weekly pay check.

There are many sacrifices and long hours involved with the odds stacked against you as valuable lessons are learned. The longer you can hang on and adapt to change to all the challenging farm condition variables. Then the more experiences you can draw from to stay on your Maine farm property spread.

Working nine to five on a regular job makes hobby farming in Maine possible but restrictive.

That real job is your “ticket” to stay afloat financially if you run a time ship with your saving and spending. With whole hog farming and you are all in or out, the stakes suddenly are much higher. Having an income that keeps coming into the bank account helps your sleep patterns. If one mate in the partnership has a steady income, hopefully hospitalization benefits, that can be a bonus. Or the only way this family farm in Maine is going to get off the ground.

The farm I own in Maine is leased out to an organic grower, Nature’s Circle.

Starting a farm growing lots of initial crops without a market is not going to work from a business perspective. You need to know who the potential customers are and to tailor your farming to their produce requirements.

What will the customer pay, are there local restaurants, farmers markets, the local area audience to buy what you raise from your piece of Maine dirt acreage?

Don’t just grow what you like to consume, learn what your audience will buy. Verify the market before kicking the Maine farm into gear. Farming rides on a business chasis remember?

Winter Snow And Ice Time Spent Planning What To Grow, Which Field To Raise It On At The Maine Farm. To Begin Again Come Spring Time Temperatures And The Farm Soil Warms Up, Drys Out.

What is your Maine farm design?

Map out your farm fields and define how you are putting each area to work in your farm plan. My Dad always preached “you have to have a system”. Plan your work, work your plan kinda thinking. Winter is an excellent time to reflect on the year before, the one ahead and what to plant where and why figured out as snow piles up and farming slows down.

Become friendly and familiar with your local USDA soil and water conservation agency if you plan to have success farming in Maine .

Funding for your small scale farm projects may be available to transform your Maine land into a farming operation. Fields not used can be seeded down with a conservation mix to help them get built up with soil amendments. Tired, over farmed abandoned Maine land needs to be nursed back to health. Winter rye, a ground cover added to a field helps soil health, prevents erosion too.

Cows In Maine Wait For The Flakes Of Hay, Can Of Grain, Fresh Water To Go With The Daily Staples.

Drainage, tiles installed to drain wet soils that are slow to warm up and that make the farming operation mired down.

Delays getting these fields planted and pulling stuck tractors out of them because of poorly drained wet soils is not fun. If you have enough farm ground to rotate your crops you have a leg up on the smaller patch of dirt agriculture operator who does not have their luxury.

Hi. Maine Dairy Cows Itching To Get Turned Out, To Kick Up Their Heels, To Roll In And Eat The New Spring Field Clover.

The conservation seed mix broadcast on the farm field pastures to grow rich and strong. Sometimes on a Maine farm it starts with animals clearing your weeds and brush and bushes first. They can help get farm pasture fields tidy and groomed if you have the time. How fast you need the Maine farm land cleared is part of your consideration. Waist high weeds are not fun. And is your Maine farm organic or convention using chemicals to tackle prepping your soil. Lots of compost hauled in to prepare your soil and get it nutrition balanced is the foundation of anything you do after than on your Maine farm.

Direct seed or hand transplanted in your prepared soil beds on your farming in Maine operation?

No till seeding where the ground is not disturbed and roots already established hold the soil together is one approach. Transplanting seedlings can jump start your farm operation. Building hoop houses, using a greenhouse nursery instead of direct seeded field crops will optimize your agriculture operation. How long is the growing season for whatever you plan to raise comes after who are the people you will serve in your marketing brand.

Do You Know Your Maine ABC’s? Can You, Will You Say Or Sing Them With Me Please?

What is the personality of your Maine farm and who are you going to be catering to with whatever you raise.

Who you are going to attract for a repeat audience to buy what your grow on the Maine farm? Part of what you end up doing is providing what your produce customers want. Educating them to broaden their purchases into other items you introduce them with care.

Spreadsheets, analyzing your Maine farm production data and study of what the market sale data shows. This is not the most fun in your day to day farm operations but the key to a successful sustaining farm business survival plan.

Local produce, meat and dairy and we’re not even talking operations like oyster farming raised from the ocean depths off the Maine coast.

Or Maine kelp farming. And scallop farming in Maine. Don’t forget Maine seaweed for food and fertilizer. Plus off shoots like hemp farming in Maine. Maybe maple tree sap to boil down into golden syrup is where you want to farm hidden in the woods not standing out in the field.

Local farm to table is alive and well in Maine and there is a resurgence in smaller farms like micro breweries.

Where local agriculture production and supporting your area small Maine farm enterprises is healthy for the family and community.

Building out of pocket and pretty much hand to mouth as you go is not a lifestyle well suited for many. With the prevalence of entitlement in today’s society, the working like a dog nip and tuck to survive is not the lifestyle choice of many. Doing what you have to do to stay on your Maine farm. To make it sustainable would be for the birds. For many too soft and just not so gung ho committed to working the Maine land soil to eek out a simple living.

On the small Maine farm, money is replaced with creative resourcefulness and a ton of patience.

To carefully put it all in perspective. To find gratitude in what you do possess and accomplish rather than lament whining about what you lack. Teaching your children work ethic, the responsibility of chores on the Maine farm and developing their skill set prepares them for anything that comes down the pike to deal with in life just fine.

To do more than merely survive and persevere but to come out on top and prosper with the right positive attitude and respect for how best to use your time and money to get ahead of the farming learning curve.

On the small, medium size farm in Maine where it is pretty much work around the clock through all the seasons that play out on the kitchen wall calendar, your focus is meat and potato basic. Down to Earth simple and very disciplined.

Work comes before play and labor is your pleasure offering it’s own reward in the farming in Maine accomplishment.

Making it better than it was. Or just maintaining the status quo in the tough of war with Mother Nature and the market to break even. To monetize on the other end of from what you raise or grow on the Maine family farm. To offset all that sunrise to sundown labor, letting go of hard earned finances, and yes, taking a chance.

Right Out Of The Earth, Freshly Dug Maine Potatoes Just Seeing Daylight After Being Just Harvested From A Farm Field.

The calculated risk involves a little gambling on what is the best course of action for the family farm. Where you are not wearing a tie or pinned to the wall by a corporate World office desk. The steel toe work boots, warm flannel shirt over the long underwear and Car-hart outerwear wardrobe that replaces the sports coat and button down dress shirt and shiny shoes.

Farming in Maine where you are up at the crack of dawn doing the feeding and watering routine and at the same time pondering machinery repairs that lie ahead.

The kind that require you to work with what you have rather than just trot into town to pick up expensive parts you simply can not afford. Welding, brazing, bolting together bits and pieces from saved not thrown away materials that get re-purposed. Farming with broken machinery because it’s the only option teaches you how to squeeze more out of something many would just discard as junk and seemingly worthless.

Being up against it and knowing if it is to be it is up to me does nor hurt a person but challenges them and makes them grateful for the little things that retail therapy does not artificially create.

Awareness of the center of your World focus which is the family farm brings you down to Earth and clears the heart and head. To see clearly what’s what on the agricultural spread where you wear many hats and do several jobs.

Farming in Maine does require total immersion and just not everyone’s cup of tea.

But sadly, there was a time in history when 96% of us were farmers of some sort because it was basic survival and the cornerstone of small rural Maine living for the bulk of the sparse population. Hope this farming in Maine blog post is food for thought and helpful.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

November 27, 2020
Baked Bean Suppers In Maine

Baked bean suppers in Maine. Friday night in Maine growing up meat putting the yellow eye or Jacob’s cattle or soldier bean in the pot to soak.

My Mom’s Saturday morning ritual was adding the other ingredients to the overnight soaked beans for the feast that night. Often the same batch of beans made a debut at the Sunday morning breakfast along with the traditional eggs just the way you liked them. Along with the baked bread, home made jam, sizzling bacon strips, hash browns with the sliced and diced nicely onions, peppers, mushrooms.

Hot And Hearty, Fill Your Plate With Beans And What Else At The Supper Time Bell?

The Saturday night supper was not the only evening meal starring the beans that rarely came out of a B&M can .

Tap the can kind offer a slew of options beyond the kind the cowboys out West whipped out of their saddle bags. To savor under the star filled sky before propping up against the saddle the horse was glad to have removed for the evening.

Where did the Saturday night bean supper tradition come from anyway?

Some say the gaseous propulsion delight can be blamed on the Pilgrims. Makes sense if you think of the Boston Baked Bean label most associated with the meal. I always heard the baked bean supper originated from Canada. My Dad’s Mom came from Burt’s Corner in New Brunswick Canada.

A full plate of beans and a piece or two of home made baked bread to help the guy or girl who will be washing dishes at the end of the meal that night.

Don’t waste a drop of the baked bean sauce juice. Not so hard to pass in a clean plate for the sink scrub or to tuck away in the dishwasher. Beans, just baked beans can be more than enough in a solo meal offering. Like how you and I love our steak cooked best…. beans recipes vary greatly. The consistency of the baked bean can be mushy, hard as rocks or somewhere in between. Beans tucked away and frozen don’t quite have the same consistency as those from a new batch in the two day to make process.

Over time, the baked beans just improve in taste in my opinion.

Or maybe it is looking forward to the pot of beans made to last longer than just the Saturday night session at the Maine farm house setting growing up with my three older brothers. The recipe your Mom, Grandmother used and past down is a big part of the tradition. But today so many classic heirloom bake bean recipes and new variety introduced to enjoy them so many new ways. Hot or cold, three bean salad, in a soup, re-fried and cheesed up with lots of accent condiments. (more…)

June 22, 2020
Maine Potatoes, Let’s Talk About Spuds

Maine potatoes, I grew up on a spud farm.

Did I eat a lot of rice growing up you ask? (Smiling) Ah no. The Maine potato was king for the entire country back in the 1940’s. Maine grew more potatoes than any other state in the nation. Aroostook County soil is ideally suited for raising spuds with grain and other ground cover crops put into the growing rotation. Be kind to your soil and the production yield increases while the soil lost to erosion is kept to a minimum.

Preparing The Farm Field Soil To Plant The Potatoes, Whatever Other Seed Or Transplant Needs To Be Place Carefully Into The Dirt Hill Rows.

What kind of Maine potatoes are find the eye, cut into seed to put back into the ground for another crop has changed with the appetite shift of the consumer.

Our family table enjoyed home grown farm raised baked potatoes on many nights to go with the meatloaf, pork chops, steak or baked chicken, whatever was on today’s meal time menu. Baked potatoes, a sliced open hot and steamy Burbank Russet scooped out to add a pad of melting butter to what you mash with your fork hard to beat. But think about all the other ways to enjoy your Maine potato.

The shift from table stock potatoes into specialty brands was the only source of agricultural viability available.

My Dad was president of the Maine Potato Council and we heard lots of table time discussions about the need to get away from monoculture farming. When you put your er… all your eggs in one big potato basket, it’s like betting the farm on only one lucky horse to win, place, show in the farming trifecta.

Today about a quarter of the Maine potatoes raised ear marked for seed use for the eastern seaboard growers.

A little under half of what’s left get sliced, diced and readied to hop in the fryolator or to ride on the large flat tin pan slide into the oven to bake and come out when the bell or buzzer announces “DINNNERRRrrrrrr” time boys and girls.

Wash your hands, Jimmy pour the milk or water please and thank you. Let’s count our blessings. Give praise to for the cook that prepared this wonderful farm to table spread. Susan, it was your turn to set the table tonight. So Jimmy and Rod can wash and stack the dishes. While the younger ones help clear the table.

The appetite is always good and the food never disappoints when you are hungry. When you earned that hunger. The Maine fresh air, wind, sun and rain or snow all help give a person valuable perspective. A constant appreciation for what’s really important in life. We keep the needs small, the list short living on a family farm in Maine.

Let’s check in with a Northern Maine potato farming video.

Nearly a quarter of the spuds raised in Maine are headed the end of their life in dark, protective potato chip bags.

That leaves only about ten percent of the Maine potatoes grown and harvested for use as fresh use in homes, served up in restaurants, for other raw product purposes. Value added, already peeled and prepared, mostly cooked and just needing a rip open the box, pull it out of the refrigerator or freezer. For the finish warming it up in the oven or quick like a bunny pop into the microwave meal time ritual. Fast food for busy lives has over taken the more satisfying slow cooked, take your time and unwind after a hectic but productive day.

Early Mornings. Already Worked 40 Or More Hours By Tuesday Noon. That’s Maine Potato Farming. Never Stops. Runs Around The Clock On Family Farms.

The COVID19 pandemic has shaken the meal time razzle dazzle.

More people rediscovering the joy of home cooked meals that are creative, revisited from old family recipe traditions. Do you have copies of relatives known for their potato or other kinds of dishes? You know the killer recipes that everyone in the family wants them to whip up and bring to family reunions, the end of life after the funeral celebration of life exercise.

Farming Maine potatoes, anything involving crops or agriculture with live animals is a big gamble.

Maine potato farming. The weather is your biggest unknown to do your best to prepare for all that can go wrong. The markets can open or dry up with the same 180 degree reversal. Potatoes are not like dry beans that you can hold onto and peddle the next year. Like strawberries, blueberries unless frozen, go bad like cut flowers that dry out and fade away in the table top vase.

Old Farm Tractors. The Tried And Tested But Without All The High Tech Gadgets. These Are My Favorites. All The Tractors Hooked To Different Farm Attachments.

Boiled, scalloped, twice bake potatoes just a couple meal time variations to keep it anything but same old baked potato.

Each variety shines in new ways for however you approach meal time with the star attraction the Maine potato. Chowders, crock pots and shepherd pies can be in the eenie meenie miney moe along with whipped, the mix with cabbage, the rest of the New England boiled dinner creation. Corn chowder is about as simple but tasty meal time entree to consider and your potato cubes swimming around it the stove top pot just do the heavy lifting in the medley marination of flavors. More Maine potato recipe ideas. https://www.mainepotatoes.com/recipes/

With folks rediscovering the comfort of home during the COVID19 adjustment to control the spread and protect your family and community, cooking from scratch is gaining popularity.

Extra time freed up not running the roads and staying in your castle more makes slow cooked dishes even tastier. Working on the catch up with all the projects around the house as you drain the job jar, a person in Maine gets hungry. Savoring life often starts with slowing it down. The nose in the flowers to sample the scent and look around to see what the rest of the World is up to these days. You have lots of time to think on the back of a Maine farm field potato harvester.

Rock In The Conveyor Belt Tread Jammed Again. Where’s The Crow Bar? Trying Not To Waste Sunshine During Breakdowns.

Any true Mainer prepares and rises to the occasion whenever setbacks knock appear on your door step and you hear the knock on your door.

Maybe it’s the ever changing weather extremes or how we are raised to prepare for and expect setbacks. To not just get through them but to make them define you by actions to help out anyway you can in your small rural Maine town. Life on a farm raising potatoes, critters, other crops gives everyone valuable training for life.

The Maine potato growing up on a farm that raised them for generations is a solid staple, something comfortable for folks where I live.

The potato picking experience and worth ethic brand it leaves deep inside any one that worked in the fields or on the truck or in the spud storage house is priceless. That education and appreciation for Mother Earth and being on the potato farming chain gang with others wearing field dirt clothing over sun burnt and wind reddened skin exposure get it.

Start Them Young, Train Them Well. Potato Farm Harvest Or All The Other Seasons Are Special Times.

Pass the Maine potato please.

Yes, I do believe I will have another spud scoop helping or two. It’s awfully lonely sitting all by itself without that green bean casserole to keep it company. Pass that big bowl of cabbage and banana salad too could you Bub? Everything served country style where take what you need and come back for more until your hunger is gone from work on the Maine potato farm.

Looking out over the hillside landscape standing, bent over a potato basket or filling one by dragging it down on your knees.

The good Earth and it’s bounty creates a lasting appreciation for the simple agricultural way of life on a farm in Maine. Raw, windy, but the kids keep pushing along to help the farmer get the crop out of the ground by hand. Watch a potato picking field operation video underway in Sherman Maine.

Looking for a song to help the one potato, two or more put them in the basket then dump four of those into the empty barrel? To slide a ticket in the stave groove on the top to claim it with your number. Maine potato humming song for just that outdoor labor exercise.

Watch, listen the Tater Raisin’ Man video song.

Potatoes, lots of spuds, ate more than my fair share raised on a Maine farm growing up and over the years since childhood. How do you like your potato served up best and which varieties are what you ask for at the Piggly Wiggly or farm stand?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

April 23, 2020
Barns In Maine

Barns in Maine, there was a time when every family farm had one or more sitting in the center of the agricultural enterprise.

One at a time and not mass produced, the original Maine barns built for farming, not wedding events. Yesteryear small growing Maine rural communities rallied together. The local farm families stepped up to take their turn. Much like our Maine Amish communities do one day a week. Thursday is community day which means everyone pack up and meet over at this week’s location to pitch in and lend a hand. All expected to step up and come together over and over like the original farm family settlers. To systematically help create each unique hand built barns in Maine. Built to last, slowly constructed one by one using many hands. To get your very own barn building appointment meant first helping several others put together their farm barns.

The Barn In Maine On A Family Farm. That Barn The Tallest, Biggest Structure With All The Others Surrounding It. Barns More Important Than Your House.

Every family member with a specific role in the barn building on the Maine farm.

Large amazing spreads of local food needed to fuel the hard working hungry builders of the farm barn. Barn raisings to piece together the post and hand hewn beam behemoths took the help of many.

The big stately working barns in Maine each secured with mortised joint dowels to create the amazing structures. Slowly constructed to serve the Maine farm families for generations.

Some barn workers in charge of finding the trees, cutting them down. Others shaping the long timbers needed for the skeleton frame of the barns in Maine. Lumber of all dimensions whittled out of whatever the team of horses twitched in from the woodlot sections of the Maine farm acreage. Still more deputized to create cedar shingles, clapboards, board and baton or whatever exterior covering to be applied to the farm barn exterior.

Scaffolding to protect the barn building workers did not remove the dangers being that high in the air performing carpentry maneuvers. You climb, you fall, you would die. That simple. I know of a local roofer who did just that from high a top a barn in Maine being shingled when a fatal accident happened. The staging plank snapped and still shudder thinking about the Maine farm barn shingle roof repair accident.

Roofing, ventilators and cupolas to bring in plenty of natural lighting and air to remove the moisture of newly mowed hayed to be stored in the barn in Maine.

Sills, rocks foundation supports to work best meant selecting a high and dry location with good soil drainage. Hemlock flooring to support the livestock, whatever to be stored in the large capacity farm barn meant another team of individuals hammered each plant in place. Finishing off the hay mow lofts, the standing and box stall pens in the inside of the Maine farm barn. Laughter, singing, hammering heard while installing windows, the weather tight trim boards.

Crafting and hanging doors on blacksmith created hinges and opening hardware another role in the barn raising.

Creating trap doors, upper openings to aid the efficiency utility of the Maine farm barn. Adding pulleys and ropes to help whatever to be stored inside the big farm barns in Maine. Dormers for ventilation and natural lighting because no power. In later years, stringing metal to connected roof top lightning rods. During approaching thunder storms, you better unplug the pasture fence charger quickly. Or you could be the lightning rod during the frantic unloading into the dry barn operation. (more…)

April 9, 2020
Maine Bees Busy Pollinating Vacationland

Maine bees, the busy buzz pollinating benefits to flower enthusiasts and vegetable farming.

There are over 270 native Maine bee species in the state. Honey bees are not native to Maine and European settlers introduced them to what is now affectionately dubbed “Vacationland”.

Outdoor Flower Arrangements. The Best Kind For All To See. For Maine Bees To Enjoy Too!

Honey bees, bumble bees and roughly 4000 solitary bee populations reside in Maine and are some kind of busy.

Making the rounds, these bees pollinate agricultural crops, vegetable and flower garden plots. All plants found in the wilds of Maine fields and woodlands. The Maine pasture field clover, daisies, black eyed susans, lupines and Indian paint brush wildflowers. All those wild flowers get a shot in the arm from Maine bees making their daily rounds.

Parasitic mites reduced the Maine honey bee populations by twenty five percent. Pesticides, herbicides, insecticides used incorrectly have further threatened the bee population so important to local Maine farming pollination.

Bees pollinating Maine farm crops and producing honey and wax is an important state endeavor.

Like The Mail Man Or UPS Gal, Making Lots Of Stops. Maine Bees Are BUZZZ-sy.

This University of Maine Cooperative Extensive Bee bulletin outlines why bees are so important. Also your Maine property can be made more inviting to the bee population and to increase pollination activity. Read more on how to make your yard more bee friendly.

The work of Maine bees helps others out in the natural wildlife setting too.

Flowering plants, shrubs and trees create seeds and fruit, vegetables for other wildlife to live. In their daily flights, bees, birds, hummingbirds, dragon flies, butterflies and moths all help distribute the important pollen around the Mane plant population.

I was always told as a kid by my parents, older brothers bees don’t want to sting you and just leave them alone.

The fuzzy bumble bee dressed like a Boston Bruin hockey player trapped and buzzing in the rear car

Attracting Maine Bees, Inviting Them To Your Flower Beds.

window of a parked vehicle when you are little can make getting away from them a little harder. Fear to happen. But respect and helping them get out of a building, a vehicle instead of using spray or something else to kill them was something I was taught growing up on a Maine farm. We needed Maine bees. They like the potato beetle that ate an aphid that was no good was our friend!

Planting a mix of flower shapes knowing bees have different size tongues, using perennials that bloom yearly is not a bad approach to encouraging pollination, honey production of the sweet nectar.

Hand broadcast those meadow in a can flower seed collections. Scientists report bees like best vegetation loaded with blue, yellow, purple flowers. Lots of hand broadcast wild flowers with these colors and

Maine Honey Bees, Bumble Bees, Lots Of Buzz Flying Around Rural Maine.

planted in abundance will help assure visits from bees that do so much good to the Maine environment.

More from the USDA Natural Conservation Service education and funding to promote farmer help for pollinators like Maine bees are.

They report one of our every three mouthful bites of food in this country are thanks to the work honey bee pollinators do.

Learn more about honey bees and their benefits spreading pollen to fertilize other plants, for collecting nectar.

Here’s another video that shows even more up close and personal what Maine honey bee do each day and why.

You have a whole new level of respect for Maine bee pollination and how they can transport up to a third their weight in their busy day.

To take the bee pollen trapped on their body and to carry the honey nectar nibbling on flowers and loaded it up for the quick trip back to the bee hive.

The Maine State Bee Keepers Association established in Maine back in 1976.

Get social. Like the Maine State Bee Keepers Association Facebook page. And Google “Maine Bees“.

What’s All The Buzz? Eye Candy And Bee Honey Extraction.

Sometimes it is good not to mind your bees wax.

Growing up on a Maine farm, with potato blossoms to pollinate and a Mom who had three different flower gardens, bees were around our family. The white and purple potato flowers with the bright yellow, hard to miss parts were popular with the local bee population.

The apple orchard, rhubarb patch, the strawberry and corn fields all depended on the Maine bee visits.

The all natural honey sweetness is better for you than sugar. The health benefits of pure Maine bee honey was known and it was part of our medicine cabinet along with cold liver oil, coke syrup, salt water for soaking wherever we were sore. Lots of other simple ailment remedies to get us back on our feet used growing up on a Maine farm up in Aroostook County.

More on the health benefits of Maine honey. The antioxidants help lower high blood pressure, diabetics are cheerleaders of Maine bee honey too.

Are you fan of Maine honey and the bees that produce it?

Maine Farm Fields Buzzing With Bees Collecting Nectar, Pollinating The Acreage.

Before we know it, the birds, bees in Maine spring will be active as the season changes.

Maine bees. Pure and all natural honey from Maine. Is it a big part of your daily life in what you eat, in how your protect as a good Maine stewards of the land? Do you think about protecting Maine bees and their natural habitat? Like the song birds, the Maine bees would be missed greatly if their buzz was gone. Thank you for stopping by the Maine blog post to bone up on your knowledge of Maine bees.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

January 27, 2020