Riverdance live performance at Merrill Auditorium Portland ME, a road trip.
Quick down, spent the night and then head north, uphill back to the home base in Aroostook County. The tickets bought for a live dance performance at Merrill Auditorium Portland ME that holds over 1900 performance seats. Located at 20 Myrtyle Street Portland ME, Merrill Auditorium is in the city’s east section. Built in 1912 and known as Portland City Hall Auditorium, the Merrill Auditorium had a total face lift in 1997.
Riverdance QR Seating Scan At Merrill Auditorium, Portland ME
Seating chart for the Merrill Auditorium. Up close, tucked in back under the balcony or side to side. Everyone has their best perch preference for taking in a live venue show at any Maine presentation right? Before television, going out to attend live performances were a frequent habit for Mainers around the state.
I remember my parents talking about dances.
To hear them talk, live bands and dances were happening nightly around whatever area of Maine you called home address. Both around Northern Maine and crossing into Canada to shake a leg and cut the rug listening to “Little Brown Jug” and other classic dance tunes of the time.
What’s Coming Up To Book And Build Excitement At The Merrill Auditorium, Portland ME?
More on the Merrill Auditorium Portland ME facility that hosts of life performances that are worth exploring to stay current.
Lots of events happening and how would you know without making a website visit to check out the entertainment menu at the Merrill Auditorium right? The schedule link for upcoming Merrill Auditorium life performance events.
Riverdance was the magnet tractor beaming us to Maine’s big city of Portland for this blog post installment.
Waiting To Raise The Curtain, Take In Riverdance, In Portland ME At The Merrill Auditorium.
What’s that I thought I heard for a whisper? “Riverdance” said like a question with raised eyebrows and wonderment. Never heard of Riverdance? Well now, let’s cue a Riverdance video Jimmy.
Roll ’em for the home viewing audience to give them a taste of Riverdance synchronized sight and sound.
With a pre-recorded production, a lot of extra treatment happens in the post adjustments before the upload for the home audience. But in a live performance, nothing can be sped up or slowed down. Or air brush adjusted and made just so before release.
The Riverdance performance in Portland ME hit me first and foremost this way.
Dressed in Riverdance Garb. Say Cheese In Front Of Merrill Auditorium Coming Events Display.
How can they move that fast, to seemingly float and dart around the Merrill Auditorium Stage like that? A buzz like dragon flies mixed in the change up of lighting and sound. Creating local music of many genres, not just the Irish lilt flavor. New York City street dance steps and music part of the many years of Riverdance expression. The lighting all helped to create a lasting experience taking in the 25th year of Portland ME Riverdance live performance.
Dancing in time, creating a visual and audio buzz to tap into and take in.
Got Our Snacks, Refreshments And The Wait. As Merrill Auditorium Fills Up
Definitely not going to nod off enjoying the Riverdance performance in Portland ME last week.
Riverdance is a theatrical show that consists mainly of traditional Irish music and dance. That’s what the Google search for the term “Riverdance” displays. More on Riverdance history.
Leaving Merrill Auditorium Portland ME Riverdance Performance.Riverdance Show In Portland ME Exit in Light Rain Drizzle.
Spring is underway this week in good shape and 80 degree temperatures in our local Maine forecasts statewide.
Opening up lake camps, hosing off the house exteriors and cleaning windows. Putting away winter clothing layers and changing up the wardrobe. Many canoeing or kayaking. On the hunt for fiddleheads. Planning instate stay vacations because we are all some kind of lucky and know it.
Here We Go As The Theatre Fills Up For Riverdance, Portland ME.
Living in “Vacationland” full time as a native with the local insider information on how to squeeze the most of any Maine outing tooling around the state. Feeling very lucky every day in the Pine Tree State.
Hope you are out enjoying Vacationland and thank you for being a faithful follower of our Me In Maine blog posts. What’s it like living in Maine? Each blog post tries to chip away at the day to day in the great state of Maine.
But do locals, the native travel out of state on Vacations? Or is there so much to do and see in our own Vacationland backyard that few venture out? I am the first to admit to feeling spoiled living in Maine and so lucky to live full time in the Pine Tree State with all the farms, coastline, wooded vast tracts of land.
Life Is A Beach. In Maine, But Also In The Caribbean! Blue Green Water And Tan Sand With No Snow Shovel Is A Pleasing Sight.
If you have read a few blog posts, you have one by one learned about areas all around Maine that get sampled and shared.
Each season the same Maine location serves up a different experience that make it never ho hum or boring. The lack of crowds increases the impact of the Maine setting too. Not over commercialized happens because Maine is tucked away and hidden a fair distance from the population centers.
Taking A Boat Ride Vacation Around Some Caribbean Islands. Ever Take Sea Cruise Vacation In Or Outside Maine? Image About In DR, LaRomana.
So can’t talk for the state of Maine local residents as a whole but offer my own personal situation.
Yes, I love hitting a new area of Maine and partly to create fodder for the blog post hunt and peck. To share images and videos of the travels around Maine used to stock the information shelves. I think of the Maine blog as a community library and lots of empty shelves to one by one produce something worthwhile to fill those rows of cyber cabinets. One by one, think of a topic to post and an earlier blog post entry to revisit and update. Days working in broadcast journalism in Bangor Maine’s media market habits die hard.
Rotary International Mission Trip To Hartman School In LaRomana, Dominican Republic.
But travel outside Maine when you live here… what’s my take on that?
I like to ski, I have three snowmobiles, a pair of snowshoes and my Maine winter is not spent shivering and droning out watching TV on the living room couch.
Most of us love where we live but like to explore and discover. Travel like reading is a wonderful endeavor if you can spare the time and do it economically so you still have money left for groceries and other luxuries like car repair, property taxes, student loans, etc. Family moves around the country and that can kick start the travel to witness how the rest of the World rock and rolls.
Happy Kids Proud Of Their Humble Schools. The Needs Are Great But Everything You Do As A Rotary Club Or Service Organization Is Appreciated.
Mainers are outdoors every day of the year.
Just dress a little different with layers added or removed depending on the local seasonal weather forecast.
But cruises, sea cruises, those are fun and have climbed on the boat over twenty times. Not taking a cruise out of Maine yet but bee lining in the dead of winter to places that have boats parked and ready to board.
For sun in the fun. Blue green water, palm trees, and the sea passage to a few islands. To snap a couple shots, to purchase a t-shirt or other reminder of the Caribbean boat ride that shakes off the dust of late winter, early spring.
The Beach In The Dominican Republic. Have You Been On Or Plan To Take A Sea Cruise Vacation?
The days at sea pretty fun when you are on one big floating sea cruise ship resort vacation with lots of neat interesting people.
The kind of tourists vacationing for the same reasons the rest of us are. To get away and look back at your life for the much needed Vacation break. Also the many cultures from around the World that work on a cruise ship. Those friendly, hard working folks are fun to meet. To learn first hand from their experiences living on the other side of the World. They freely talk and share about where they live when not sailing the high seas of a floating cruise ship.
Have taken sea cruises out of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, New Orleans LA, Long Beach CA.
Ever Take A Sea Cruise And Do You Use Carnival ?
The latest one has been over two years in the making because COVID threw a major wrench into flying and sailing kind of vacations.
It also made out sauntering across the USA border into our Canadian neighboring provinces not worth the hassle until recently with relaxed and removed mask, vaccine mandates. The cruise, hotel, motel and airline industry took the biggest financial hit when COVID face masks were applied Worldwide.
So last week, a bunch of us flew a silver bird out of Bangor Maine and made the Carnival Cruise Line’s Horizon ship out home away from home.
The Horizon Carnival Ship Formal Dining Room. Anytime Dining A Good Choice Using Your Hub App.
A couple days at sea starting out, first stop Aruba and then Bonnaire and LaRomana in the Dominican Republic. Before the last island stop at Amber Cove in the DR. The vacation stop in LaRomana was part of a Rotary International mission project. Our local Houlton Rotary club wanted to help the Hartman School who’s needs are great.
The school kids K-6th grade were sharp, funny, appreciative and curious. We hope to keep helping the Hartman School as part of the International Rotary committee work and seeing all the garbage, the need for water filtration systems, bathrooms and more. That was what makes you want to help and at the same time to realize how lucky we are to live in Maine.
Our guide Jessica who met us at the cruise ship dock told us that her Dad, a minister who started the school wanted to break the cycle.
Of everyone working in the sugar cane field and lacking the education to become professionals in any other endeavor. There are jobs and needs far beyond cutting, harvesting sugar cane on these Caribbean island vacation stops.
What do you enjoy doing on vacation besides seeing new sights, total strangers, maybe heading to a beach, eating too much good food?
Do you reach a couple books flying and during your trip? Sip a rum drink or two. Listening to Jimmy Buffett steel drum type island music on a cruise ship deck lounge? Some folks love to gamble, others like to hoist cold and exotic drinks at the water hole bars. Work on their tan. Or buying a t-shirt, souvenir or trinket from the travels for yourself or someone at home.
Something to remember another vacation island stop by.
To share with someone you love on your do to list back home in your regular surroundings. Who took care of the dogs and cats, covered work? Those folks helped make your getaway vacation possible.
Cruse Ship Music Playing As The Ship Eases Away From The Port Of Miami.
Taking images of new destinations, learning about other cultures and locations. Getting life ideas to apply and adjust your own when you get back to Maine. Experiencing a sometimes a 100 degree temperature change in less than a 24 hour period. Sometimes leaving during a Maine winter snow storm and returning with the same weather pattern to greet you after a Caribbean sea cruise vacation.
Vacations are the dessert earned for working hard, budgeting your pay check and saving up time to get out of Dodge!
Or whatever small Maine town, or one of the handful of cities to see how the rest of the World lives. Looking back on your life and seeing the road ahead. Hard to gain that kind of perspective in your natural surroundings when hog tied up with work, community demands and local living routine in small town Maine. Small towns in Maine living means pitching in and doing more than just existing over your life. Everyone has several roles for life living in small town Maine and are greatly missed when removed from the setting.
One Of Many Watering Holes On A Cruise Ship.
Working on your tan, forgetting anything about counting diet calories. You are on a well deserved family vacation on a resort size floating boat of over 4000 souls. But now back to the real estate World and feeling fortunate to be back in Maine. To list and sell Maine real estate and add to the blog post collection with another easier entry story. Where are you going, where have you been now that COVID mask and vaccine mandates are relaxing and being lifted?
Trip Downeast Maine to list saltwater property on the coast.
Maine is one big state and a very popular destination in Vacationland is any coastal region. But when you say you are going up to the Maine coast, where exactly you are referring is not so obvious. Oh sure, this Maine blog post website has one by one exposed different nooks and crannies of the popular coastal tourist haunts. But the further up into Maine you go, the more personal and special the take away experience becomes.
We all seek out our own comfortable corner of Maine.
Maine Island Jewels, Add That Ocean Frontage To The Coastline And Maine Has More Than California!
This blog post highlights a trip down to Washington County, the Bold Coast section of Downeast Maine.
If you follow our blog about Maine, you may remember one post about where exactly is Downeast Maine?
Maine has 228 miles of coastline at first glance.
But wait a minute, when you include all the islands dotting that coast and wind in and out of all those inlets and outlets, get out the pencil eraser. Check your math!
Do some more ciphering. Put some white out on that last figure and insert a much higher number.
Vacationland boasts 3,478 miles of Maine coastline. Topping California’s 3,427.
Let all those islands into the add it up tally time and whoa. More than 5,000 miles of rock bound Maine coastline. You would think that means lots of saltwater coastal properties for sale in Maine. Nope.
This week, loaded up the Jeep with 24 gauge metal real estate signs, had a property listing assignment to GPS along the Maine coast.
The Bold Coast… a little further up in the tippy top of all that water then gets much of the press ink.
Zone A in purple on the maritime map with all the Maine lobster trap markers below.
The Coastal Fishing Zones That Slice & Dice Maine’s Craggy, Rock Bound Coastline.
The address 109 Little Machias RD, Cutler ME. The original owner bought the 2.6 acres of land with 235′ on Little Machias Bay in Washington County. Hired Katahdin Forest Products (Now renamed Katahdin Cedar Log Homes) to build a cedar log vacation home on the Maine coast. We are selling this Maine coastal property for the nephew who is moving in a new location further from great state of Maine.
Maine Oceanfront Log Home For Sale That’s Affordable!
Just a simple cathedral ceiling getaway hidden from view, with a long driveway and an open porch to use sitting and thinking. The owner a Vietnam vet that needed space, salt air and the sounds of the Maine seacoast. He built a Katahdin log home to enjoy the Maine coastal setting.
With a lot of properties, if you are lucky you can say you see the Maine ocean in a limited location on it.
Or brag to your friends that you are close to the Maine coast. But not so many Maine coastal property listings actually border the coastline. This one does and is front row, best seats in the Downeast inventory of coastal real estate. Sadly, not enough saltwater property or waterfront listings for that matter in this crazy busy Maine real estate market.
Front Row, First Class Seating On The Maine Coast. Log Vacation Home Borders Little Machias Bay Downeast Maine.
Everyone wants to own a piece of ME.
Waterfront is top on the list for today’s real estate buyer’s wish list. Especially if you are connected to high speed Internet service to stay in touch and telecommute to work remotely online. Check out this Maine coastal property just listed for sale video.
When you head to the Maine coast, it is not a simple set the cruise control and count the Interstate 95 mile markers. Then take your exit, honey your home. No no, with Maine coastal travel, there are windy roads. Twisting up and down and side to side like a snake. You pay attention. Easy to take a wrong turn. Get turned around and lose your bearings.
You see piles of lobster traps racked and stacked. Blueberry barrens, more rock outcroppings, different terrains and ocean views. Lobster boats parked on stands in yard or moored in Maine coastal harbor settings. Everything revolves around coastal life on the Maine coast.
Sunset, Dusk. The Clam Flats, The Maine Coast In Downeast ME!
Heard a fire engine while wrapping up the media collection and learned from a local the next day it was a blueberry barrens controlled fire that got out of hand.
In small areas of Maine, and most areas are rural, there is a strong connection. Not much happens that isn’t passed around quickly on the local news grapevine.
Cutler Maine named after Joseph Cutler from Newburyport MA.
Back in a time that Maine was not even a state yet and part of the Bay Colony. Before Red Sox nation spread to what now is Maine. Cutler has a little over 500 friendly souls that populate this neat sheltered area of Downeast Maine. Whats to do for fun?
Check out lighthouses like West Quoddy up in Lubec Maine.
West Quoddy Head Lighthouses, A Painted Lady That Stands Out From Maine’s 60+ Lighthouses.
Attend the yearly Pirate Invasion in Eastport Maine. Or paddle a sea kayak out to the front of Little River Island in mouth of Cutler Harbor to see another local lighthouse with the same name.
If you know someone after a Maine saltwater property listing, here is one priced to sell.
Needs a little work, but parked on the Maine coastline. Not near it, on it. Rent it out for profit when not using. The same folks rent this little rustic home away from home each year. Same spot on the calendar like clockwork. Save a few weeks and special holiday times for yourself though otherwise you miss all the Maine coastal salt air and seashore fun.
See those towers across Little Machias Bay?
What Do They Use Those Radio Towers For? Tracking And Talking To Submarines Around The World!
Those are for maintaining communications and listening in on submarine radio transmissions in Cutler Maine.
Low frequency radio broadcasts are the purpose of those Cutler Maine coastal towers.
This installment mixing business with pleasure. A quick trip to the coast to collect images, shoot some video, to go skyward with the real estate drone.
Thank you for following our Me In Maine blog post series.
Small Maine town fire, anything happening in the local community good or bad means everyone pitches in to help.
You don’t go through any local event alone. Last week a fire in my home town of Houlton Maine. Thirty eight people were displaced in the fourteen unit apartment building fire.
The old timers remember the 1902 fire that wiped out a big chunk of Aroostook County’s oldest town.
1902 Great Fire In Houlton Maine, 111 Buildings Losts In The Blaze.
That turn of the century town fire burned 3 churches, 75 houses, covered 20 business blocks. 80 families were displaced. In all, over 111 buildings were lost in that small town Houlton Maine fire.
The town of Houlton rebuilt with brick in the downtown.
The need for a rock solid fire department because a must in any small Maine town. To protect the structures, all the buildings. Wooden structures with cedar shingle roofing were no match for fires that were a constant concern to the locals in the small Maine town.
Watch the video clip in the above link. It was sunny, there was no wind, it was not the middle of the night on the coldest day of the year. The fire in the 14 unit building on Mechanic Street in Houlton took the life of a four year boy.
All area fire departments responded to the 911 alarm call.
Clearing the building out happened quickly and with a lot of hollering, much precision. Had the fire smoldered silently before engulfing the structure in the middle of the night, the loss of life would have been much large.
If that fire had happened with a strong northeast wind to fan it, not just the apartment building would have been lost.
Block after block of houses and anything built wooden in the fire’s path could have been consumed. The headline could have read “All houses in the path of the raging fire lost to the base of Drakes Hill”.
My secretary’s brother is retired from the Maine department of transportation and got a call. Doing anything today? David is retired and says what do you need? He races in from Linneus to hop in a Monticello fire department pumper. To make the many trips one block away to drop the hose and fill up the tanker. Using high spring run off water levels to siphon off the H2O from the Meduxnekeag River.
The local town public works department makes the rounds to top off and fuel up the many pieces of fire equipment battling the blaze too.
The Great Fire Of 1902. Brick Replaced Wood Structures In The Downtown As A Result Of The Blaze.
Flames shooting high in the air are doused with thousands of gallons of water through out the day and night. You don’t leave a structure fire even when the regular work day for most of us is over.
No no, someone sticks around and keeps an eye on the rubble and debris. Working in shifts to make sure nothing gets out of hand as the embers and coals of the blaze finally go out. Or try their hardest to rekindle and ignite again. It can take days babysitting any structure fire.
To remove the threat of fire doing any more damage in a small Maine town.
You think of the fire fighters using their years of training to preserve public safety. To get everyone out, to coordinate as a team to tackle and contain the fire.
Each fire a little different scenario to work around and the threat to life, both inside the structure or with the team trying to put the fire out. Local restaurants and take outs shuttle in the food to fuel the victims and fire fighters.
Local churches and the entire community takes on the role of how can I help?
When fourteen units are suddenly wiped out and everything you own inside is gone, there are so many needs. Clothing, furniture and foremost shelter, meals, support of all kinds. Emotional support and counseling to help all ages deal with the event.
The outpouring of support filters out into the communities surround the Maine small town fire location.
The local Millar Civic Center was used as a temporary shelter for all the displaced apartment renters. Arena ice just went out in the nick of time to become a make shift shelter. Finding an apartment as winter unwinds in a small Maine is not easy either.
In my little home town, there is a two percent vacancy rental rate.
Not everyone wants to be a landlord part of it. Some of the town’s empty units exist but for a reason. Too far gone with frozen pipes and worn out from being ridden hard and put away wet. Usually a foreclosure in the making but it can take years for the rudderless ship to finally run aground on shore. Court house steps and billable hours eat up lots of time in the over burdened COVID cause case back load. Just got off jury duty and was told by the judge in the black robe there were 1900 cases in the docket back log.
Here is a list of all the landlords for rents in Houlton Maine to tap and see if some unit is available to lease.
A local Louisiana Pacific OSB mill has a major expansion going on, the many subcontractors hogging anything available for livable rental units. Motel rooms are jammed with these workers, the snowmobilers who visit the region for some vacation rest and relaxation.
Renting a house for sale is usually short termed in today’s fast paced Maine real estate market.
No long term lease to sign and always month to month. With lots of buyers being toured inside and out of the house rented with a silent salesman for sale sign out front speared in the front lawn.
From Market Square, The Houlton Maine Apartment House Fire Smoke Billows Upward.
One empty apartment in a triplex I manage is available and two of the displaced fire victims are looking into renting it.
In a small town, it is easy to make a phone call or two, to facebook message someone to get information.
The renter themselves provides lots to help in finding the best fit for a rental unit.
Getting a reference is easier when you know the person you solicit to provide one. When you trust reference and their character, you get accurate information based on real live personal experiences with the individuals.
Houlton Maine Fire, 14 Rental Units Destroyed.
One of the renters has up to four grandchildren each weekend. The grandmother says those kids could be too noisy and boisterous for the tenant above and below in this 2nd floor apartment rental. She needs a place but does not want to bother any other building tenant.
The other renter may be going off to college and did not want to lead the landlord on that the leasing could be only until fall. If she goes on to college or not is up in the air.
My reference tells me this is a smart cookie, good person to rent to if a space becomes available. When she heard about the local apartment house fire, she told me she would invite this person into her own house to stay if need be. The is a pretty strong endorsement.
Bean suppers this weekend, donations for the fire victims are all underway and the community supports its own. The outpouring of generosity is huge and constant in a small Maine town. No matter what the disaster event that rocks the community.
Grateful for what did not happen.
Early Morning In A Small Maine Town. Lots Of Folks Up And Hard At Work Serving The Public.
That the fire was not in the early morning hours while everyone was sleeping.
That it was not the coldest day of the year with whipping winds to fan the blaze and cause it to spread to other structures. But the loss of a four year old in the blaze and prayers for others with burns. That thought haunts everyone in a small Maine town. We have the same gratitude for an ice arena roof cave in back in 1998. The building was empty when it went flat under the snow load. But no one wants to think about the loss of life if a game with hockey players, spectators, coaches, the zebra officials were playing a game during the roof collapse.
How the structure next door was not lost in the fire is just a testament to the fire fighters abilities.
The McPartland Plumbing and Heating brick building did get water damage from all those gallons of water soaking the tar and gravel roof. Fans to dry out the attic and business continues up and down Mechanic Street. Lots of moisture from all that water being applied next door and to the sides, roof of anything near the structure fire was done. Now recovery and repair to the damage underway.
Small Maine towns, they share a gold ball from a local basketball team that came out on top in a crucial game. Or they rally around the victims, their neighbors, friends, relatives when something grave happens like a structure fire in a multi unit apartment house.
Some folks enjoy it, many run a tight enough ship so the spring cleaning operation is easier than others have it. Spring cleaning in Maine. Your house, your car, everything you own survived a Maine winter. The calendar hanging on the wall says today, this post hunt and peck session date is the first day of spring.
So thoughts of here come’s spring and whoa.
The list of what needs to be done at first overwhelms. Until you start to triage what needs to be done before any of us living in small town rural Maine. Sometimes the house condition is not just needing spring cleaning. There is need for a carpenter, plumber, electrician before moving on to spring cleaning. Some places look like Stephen King made a movie here. Or was open to the elements. For a long time. No one home… except the four season critters that have roosting here.
De-clutter Happens Before Deep Cleaning Can Occur.
Spring cleaning, a lot of what you want to do is just too early.
Hold your horses on power washing the house siding and windows because snow in the forecast still happens. Winter hangs on and there is always a tug of war with spring. Where to put the stuff that piled up and was not escorted to where it should really go over the winter months? The frugal nature of a typical hard working Mainers makes just throwing away something perfectly good. Not so easy to toss. Just because the item is no longer useful to you does not mean someone, somewhere could really appreciate you throwing something their way.
Sometimes spring cleaning is not soap and water or tidy up, putting away.
More creating a space to fill for the heave ho wherever it goes. Garage sale, dumpster the next stop, maybe something listed on the sell, swap site. Ah, but there’s a problem. The garage if you don’t have a shed is usually the resting space for the next step of spring cleaning. De-clutter and organization starts with shedding the extra stuff that slowly fills up the living and storage space.
Spring Cleaning, Spring Planting. Getting Outdoors. Growing Something From A Seed That You Transplant And Nurture For The Vibrant Colors.
The bay of the garage that should be where most of us park the vehicle it was designed for is always odds and ends.
In many cases, the garage is not used for overnight storage during a Maine snow storm. Filled instead with bikes, canoes, garbage and gas cans, yard tools. So often the spring cleaning process is halted because you need to create the space out in the garage or shed. To start lightening up the load inside for the move to somewhere protected outside. We tend to fill the space we have and not always for the purpose that living area was originally designed for right?
Time happens and slips away too and not every year does the spring cleaning operation.
I see it a lot in a Maine home that was bought or built and lived in for many moons. The original couch still in the living room, just pushed deeper into a corner. The new one fifteen years later escorted in along with extra this or that. The old couches and chairs never left home until it’s time for the settling the estate and fifty years or more of collecting finally gets addressed.
Spring Cleaning Can’t Happen Until Winter Snow Stops, Mud Season Ends.
So spring cleaning, way more than white glove wiping over a door jam or window along a window sill to check for dirt and grime.
Ten hut. Spring cleaning starts with tightening up how you run your household the other three seasons prior to spring has sprung. Melting snow, spring showers and Maine tightening up the household time.
During a Maine winter, you shovel snow, salt the walk, plow the driveway.
Maybe bring in a stick or two of fire wood for the heater stove. But moving things out of the house to create more living space just not so common place. So everything builds up that was put off until spring all of a sudden happens. Roll up the sleeves, celebrate the return of song birds and green grass. Spring is a begin again time after the winter reflection of life’s solitude. After raising four kids as a single parent, I can tell you what I learned.
Big Amish Kitchen, Pretty Hardwood Floors, Lots Of Blue Accent Colors. Bigger Home, Bigger Families, More Time Needed To Spring Clean.
Early on being raised on a Maine farm, my mom taught her four boys to take your shoes off, pick up after yourself, it’s your turn to do the dish, change your bed, etc.
We were not waited on hand and foot. My parents were not “foot soldiers” for their kids and at their beck and call. Hang your coat up, there is a place for everything is not being a task master. It saves time you waste trying to find what you lost that had no home in the first place. But scrubbing around light switch plates, the door knows and removing grime is the build up to wipe away leaving the floors for last.
Like washing a car, you start at the top with the suds, the scrubbing and rinsing as you work your way down.
And where did all these shoes come from, when was the last time you wore this pair that look right out of the disco era? Stuff, too much stuff and the dirt and dust around it makes spring cleaning harder than it sounds. Too small a living area makes spring cleaning and keeping everything ship shape harder.
The Many Flowers You See On Your Orono Bog Walk. Bring Your Camera!
Unless you learn to get rid of stuff before the retail therapy of buy buy buy more. With spring cleaning, any approach to a regular task or duty, you gotta have a system. Take a little time to plan your work, work your plan.
Wrappers, garbage, plates and napkins from the last snack gets escorted to the garbage can.
Picking up after yourself carries over into the way we approach our state parks and hiking trails. Carry in, carry out, don’t leave a footprint.
Respect, trying to avoid making someone else have more work because you don’t pull your own weight. Someone has to instill that in you and as a young grasshopper you need to see it modeled by your elders and mentors.
The total wash down of walls, windows, all the room’s surfaces won’t last long if whoever lives in the Maine house doesn’t play by the rules.
Who spilled the grape juice on the rug, broke the glass or left the cookie crumbs on the coffee table? There’s the culprit making this all out assault spring cleaning operation feel fruitless and why bother. If the folks who live in the house just use the place like a quick pit stop to eat, run, head in and out the door on the fly.
Buying A Home In Maine, Accepting As Is Where Is Condition As The Buyer. No Spring Cleaning Done To These Real Estate Listings.
Lack of time means there is slack in the way the facility is run.
More of a dumping ground then a place to enjoy the living space around you. Kids today often want to be anywhere but home and are looking or expecting constant entertainment.
Spring cleaning the house, not the most fun recreational activity.
When you would rather be out on the rec trails, fishing a Maine lake or tramping the woods. The entryway and kitchen are the battle field that gets the most traffic to address and check off your spring clean up to do list. Some in the audience were born to clean. Live for the orderly, cleanly way to a fault. But better to be a little over the top than living like a pig in squalor.
The winter sanded driveway and mud season of spring thaw in Maine don’t make keeping your house sparkling clean and fresh easy.
So spring cleaning is easier if whoever shares the household is considerate and taught their role in making less dirt and grime in the day to day. Spring cleaning starts room by room.
Growing up, we all pitched in and had farm chores outdoors. Had to run a tighter inside living pattern. But what if you never were taught those short cuts to having less to de-clutter and spring clean?
Spring Cleaning, Opening Up Camp. Digging Out The Canoes, Kayaks And Boats.
Painting outdoor weather window sills and doors, raking away old leaves and picking up sticks, limbs, twigs from around the lawn.
That outdoor “spring cleaning” and getting lawnmowers ready to roll is the most rewarding to me. Spring cleaning by power washing the exterior, power brooming the edges of the lawn near roadways.
It’s too early now the first day of spring in Maine for much of the outdoor work but still will feel so rewarding to finally tackle.
The kitchen appliances, those get a lot of use over all four seasons. Peering in and taking out whatever the refrigerator and freezer hide is part of spring cleaning. A bigger part if you only do this deep cleaning once a year instead of weekly.
De-greasing cabinet doors, adding lemon oil to give them a fresh look. Do you take everything out of each cabinet and clean the surfaces inside? Spring cleaning is more than dusting, running a vacuum through the rooms right?
Farms, Horses, Barns In Maine. They Go Together For The Simple Small Town Rural Lifestyle.
Cleaning mop boards and around hot water radiation coverings.
And if you have hot air heat, removing the register duct to shop vacuum all the debris that collects where you can’t see. Cat, dog, pet hair and dander. Spring cleaning more than polishing the household surfaces and tackling the air you breathe inside the Maine home.
There is a real estate expression “If I can smell it, I can’t sell it”.
Some real estate buyers more sensitive to smoke, odors in a home than others. And if the price is low enough, anything will sell. But some buyers refuse to tackle the blue light specially bargain priced “dirty but nice” home listings.
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When I list a home, to improve chances of a quick sale for more money, it is time to make the home the best it has ever looked. Open house, under inspection time for those home showings so everyone can move along.
With laminate and hardwood, tile flooring, less rugs to shampoo these days in the spring cleaning too. Remember the old long shag carpets of the late 1960’s / early 1970’s? All kinds of things can hide in that matted shag that can look and smell like a wet dog without shampooing and using that toy rake to train the strands.
Shampooing rugs if there are any is not such a priority if everyone in the Maine home does not door dash to their bedrooms to eat.
Spills to clean up and steam clean out happen less if the family eats their meals in the kitchen with the easy clean up flooring and sitting at a table. Not sprawled on a bed or one leg hanging off the edge of the couch watching the boob tube.
Spring cleaning, the bathroom needs the same kind of attention and detail as the kitchen.
If the length and number of showers in a household are high, that bathroom is going to need more than a deep cleaning.
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Water damage where someone never was taught to make sure the shower curtain is closed and sealed is on the list to fix. Rusted lighting fixtures from the daily steam sauna treatment of all the surfaces is another task. If no ventilation or window opened to escort the moisture out of the bathroom, mold, repainting will be on the spring cleaning list to tackle in the bathroom.
Home offices, more of us are telecommuting to work with online remote jobs so spring cleaning has a new clipboard room to check off the list.
The laundry room has more than the dryer lint trap to clean out too. What’s behind, under those washer, dryers will surprise you. More than socks with no mates.
Just because you know what to do for a spring cleaning household operation does not mean we all do it right?
But the effort to tidy up and organize after a Maine winter is a strong one when spring has sprung.
A lot of it is pride and respect for something you worked hard to buy and pay off slowly. The house remodeling projects are expensive and when excessive wear and tear happens, money that was hard earned is being wasted. Our cars, SUV’s, pick ups take a winter beating too.
Spring cleaning is not limited to our castle.
Cars sand blasted and coated with road salt on Maine highways. Maneuvering pots holes and frost heaves and snow chunks, drifting winter snow. The iron horse needs attention due to rough travel conditions. Time for swamping out all the gravel, high pressure washing mats or replacing them, and stem to stern cleaning of whatever you drive.
It’s easier not in the dead of winter with blowing snow and howling winds to keep the vehicles clean.
But detailing your car gets put off in a Maine winter unless you have a heated garage, shop space.
And all the ice scrapers, dry gas, extra winter clothing and outdoor rec gear in our ride in spring get removed for use the next winter snow season.
What’s on your list for spring cleaning?
Where do you begin, where does it end? Do you enjoy rolling up your sleeves or hire it out, or a little bit of both? The inside and outside of your Maine home probably needs some attention after a Maine winter.
The vegetable garden seed catalog arrives in your mailbox.
Thinking spring planting and what goes where in the rich fertile garden soil at your home? Anyone who plants a vegetable, fruit or flower garden in Maine knows the joy of beginning again. Plop down on your knees working the dirt, preparing it for the rows of seeds or transplants. Half the fun of a garden is knowing where what you eat came from and what it was not sprayed with at meal time.
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Giving away the extra bounty of the backyard or side lot vegetable garden seed catalog in Maine is pleasurable too.
Older friends and neighbors around you enjoy those beef stake Earthy tasty tomatoes. Nothing hot house or shipped in from who knows where and gassed with substances to enhance the look. It seems the appearance is more important to the taste for many.
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Lots of people just don’t know what a tomato fresh out of your garden tastes like sliced, diced, raw.
Sadly, many think cooking involves a microwave with a minute timer and revolving glass plate inside. Good food takes patience. Beginning with the buying your catalog garden seeds, raising the food from scratch and weeks, months of tending for the bounty.
Stirring the slowly simmering large pot on the kitchen stove as cut onions, peppers, mushrooms from your vegetable garden slide into the home made mixture.
That food preparation with nothing from the grocery store fills your house with the smell of home cooked, not store bought. Reminding you of family members who taught everyone the tried and tested recipes to pass down to the next generation.
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The catalogs for garden seeds, you don’t have to wait until they all arrive by the postal service.
Internet connections mean head to the cyber store or many Mainers buy their peat pots early. Getting their seeds and onion bulbs from the local grain and feed store. Many a Maine home have glass sun porches turned into garden nurseries. Getting the jump on the growing season inside out of the wind and colder temperatures. Before being planted in the garden that may still be frozen or drying out, warming up to prepare for the new crop. Vegetable garden seed catalog, are they rolling into your mailbox?
Laying out the grid work of what goes where and why.
Often what is in this section of the garden is early harvest and makes way for the later, longer growing season plants to move into the vacated space. Out in the morning sunshine, celebrating spring and saying good riddance to the passing of old man winter. Beginning again, starting fresh and anew. The older you get, the faster the Earth spins and the seasons change. Have you noticed that?
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In rural Maine, what not to plant does not just include just watermelon or other fruit better suited for southern climate gardens.
There is so much Maine farm field food free for the gleaning without even asking if you block out an hour or two. To visit a fall harvest farm field to pick the potatoes of all sizes left behind in the mad dash of a mechanized harvester. Those harvesters don’t do as good a job as the hand picking crews that taught kids work ethic and put some jingle in their pockets.
Growing something and peddling it in an open air farmers market in Maine is a great childhood experience.
But gleaning field tip number one for Maine farm fields.
Shortly after the field crew leaves the field, move in. Don’t wait. Because if you do the exposed potatoes will turn green from the overhead afternoon hot sun. Or the dip in temperatures tonight to below freezing will damage the produce. Not allowing it to last as long in your basement root cellar.
On a Maine farm I own, gleaning for perfectly good potatoes, turnips, rutabaga, squash and red, golden beets is encouraged.
And free for the asking because it is a shame that a third of the food produced in this World is wasted, never served up and dished out onto meal time plates. In Maine, the potato capital, don’t bother cutting up the seed for Caribou russet, Kennebec or Yukon Gold yellows, Purple Majesties, Red Marias or Russian banana fingerlings.
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Ever tried German Butterball potatoes? Not all potato are the same. It’s goes way beyond, much further than just how you cook or prepare them.
Vessey’s Seeds, Fedco, Johnny’s, there are all good outlets for what you need to plant your Maine vegetable garden seed catalog.
How has your experience good, bad or meh been with any garden seed outlet?
The revolving steel display packed racks often have duds. Not the highest seed germination rate. Precision planting means don’t waste areas of your garden with too large a spacing of seeds. Or empty spots that nothing grows and wastes the effort put into creating the fertile seed bed to plant, feed, weed, water, harvest.
In Maine, lots of Amish farm settlements mean you can inexpensive get your tomato and pepper plants cheaply from up the road.
Checking the PH of the soil, adding the amendments to keep it fortified and side hill dressing to nurture your vegetable garden plants. All part of the garden prep and ongoing maintenance to increase the enjoyment and bounty of the home grown farm to table food. If you have been on the Me In Maine blog before, you no doubt have caught more than just a few posts on growing family farm food.
I get excited to scan the seed catalog pages of corn, peas, beans of all types.
New garden seed varieties that are touted as bigger, better, tastier and some that you never allocated a space to try. Egg plant, usually start with six transplant tall healthy seedlings. Then thumbing through a good book or scanning the net for ways to good them differently than last year. Radishes, leaf lettuce, scallions and shallots.
And talk about farm fresh Maine corn.
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Gotta have corn on the cob but which varieties to grow tall and offer the best variety?
When we sold garden produce on the Maine farm growing up, there were two main choices of corn.
Smaller red and green ears of white and yellow corn, called Sugar and Gold variety. Big, full yellow only kernels of corn that had size and taste when boiled up and butters, salted.
The best variety of Maine garden seed corn we found on the farm to be Early King.
Vegetable garden seed catalog. In the final analysis, the truck garden customer driving in and out of the farm give their two cents. Farm fresh vegetable sales reflected the people’s choice of what they loved most and returned over and over for more.
You may gave heard the story of the rusted Rambler and shiny Lincoln that visited the Maine farm stand.
As a nine year and growing up on a Maine farm, it was quite an experience dealing with the public. Maintaining the quality of the vegetables picked and arranged for sale. For anyone turning into the yard and looking for farm fresh vegetable produce.
We also grew lots of varieties of strawberries which need to be stored in a cool cellar and can perish quickly even with the best handling practices. Vegetable garden seeds catalog.
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