Climbing on Interstate 95 traveling to Augusta for Maine Agriculture Farm Trade show.
Yesterday hitched a ride with my partner Meg who is a New Limerick Maine organic farmer up here in Aroostook County. We climbed in the van and headed down I-95 to attend the Augusta Maine 85th agriculture farm trade show.
We met, listened to the Maine agriculture farm commissioner Amanda Beal.
Got to network with lots of other agriculture farm producers, talk to vendors at this 85th Maine agriculture farm trade show.
Attended a couple break out sessions to tackle farm operation problems everyone has to hunt down solutions for in Maine farming.
I love farming, grew up on one and still own the family agriculture spread where the four boys, my brothers and I were raised.
By renting out the Maine farm in the video for agriculture organic farming to Nature’s Circle farm, to Meg I can keep my hand in digging in the dirt.
The thing that hits you at the Maine farm trade show is how diverse, how small and precious the agriculture operations really are in Maine.
Nice Antennae. Maine Honey Bee Producing Out Of This World Nectar Food.
You have to stay small to survive and to keep your expenses low to the ground on a Maine farm.
Nothing Compares For Taste, For Health Benefits! Wild Maine Blueberries.
The love of raising, growing something and the farming lifestyle is the Maine attraction.
Farm to table is so important and finding a market to make agriculture in Maine sustainable is the constant battle.
Making A Living Peddling A Product Made Form A Small Maine Farm.
Teenie weenie itsy bitsy Maine micro farms make it happen with keep it simple homesteading.
If you keep it small farming in Maine, the rewards are rich and home grown. Nothing is taken for granted and your family raised on the family farm really benefit.
Big And Small. The Equipment To Farm Is Old And New. Depends On How Deep You Want To Go Out On The Financial Limb.
It was refreshing to see Maine Future Farming high school members in attendance at the agriculture show in Augusta.
Blue Corduroy Jackets, FFA Future Farmers Of America Members At The Maine Agriculture Trade Show! These Ladies From Mars Hill, Aroostook County.
I list and sell them all the time and Maine is a vast rural state. Where you can know your local Maine farmer.
Where In Maine Do Your Farm And What Kind Of Agriculture Are You Involved With Today?
When you think of draft horses, not just big horsepower Maine farm tractors. The farming types are diverse and have to be to carve out a living you really have to be born into to enjoy. Not that long ago, everyone was a farmer, agriculture was kind.
I did see a booth at the Maine farm show for the state grange.
Everything under the Sun arranged around the Augusta Civic Center for this three day Maine AG farm show.
Maine Agriculture Trade Show In Augusta Civic Center.
Break out sessions to work on a slew of topics. Big industrial drones for spraying and more.
Farming In Maine. Do You Team A Pair Of Draft Horses, Mules, Ponies?Agriculture Uses For Drones Of All Kinds And Prices.
Glad I tagged along and zipped down to Augusta for the Maine agriculture farm show. Hope you enjoyed the videos, the farm images collected yesterday from my travels.
Thank you for watching, sharing the Me In Maine blog posts. I appreciate you being out in the audience on anything the state Maine.
Ready to start 2026 with plans for a healthier, happy life? New year, new plan, new set of variables to work around for most folks.
Maine, Read Read Read All About It. Thank you for following our Me In Maine blog in 2025.
You are not alone and Maine is in the top ten places people want to vacation, to make the big move and relocate to this New England state.
Why Maine? The attraction is less people, more unspoiled natural surroundings and common sense still works in Maine.
Raising a family in Maine is attractive to many. Or starting a small business here and building it up slow but sure.
To some day leave to your kids or sell off and do some traveling in and out of state.
Retirement in Maine or just having a second home away from the southern heat.
All prime motivation factors for why Maine gets all the hoopla attention there says.
I hope the variety of blog posts help keep you coming back for more. Please reach out and let us know stories, videos, whatever you want us to cover stories on. It’s everything Maine at the Me In Maine blog.
Here’s a few suggestions on blog posts to tap and enjoy.
Roads, Across Water Trails That Freeze Over. Over 23,000 Miles Of Snowmobile Trails In Maine.
Cold fresh air, pure white snow of a Maine winter can do a body and mind good.
I remember as a kid the joy of bundling up, putting on hats and mittens hand knit by my mom. To head outside to dig impressive snow tunnels, to make snowmen with brothers, sisters, the neighborhood kids.
Playing in the outdoor fresh clean Maine winter air kept us healthier.
We did not, still don’t hibernate inside over a Maine winter.
The Dog Rides In The Sled, Not Pulls It In This Maine Ice Fishing Lake Photo.
Maine winters. Not counting the days on a calendar like a prison sentence sitting in a iron bar small space.
The crisp cold Maine winter air purifies and stimulates our white blood cell production. It is the shot in the arm that boosts our immune system.
Let’s snowmobile out to the lake ice shack and see what everyone’s up to this weekend.
Get off the couch, turn off the television, put down the cell phone device.
Go sliding with the kids. Support a local ski mountain or local ice rink.
The shoveling snow off the steps and clearing walkways, opening up driveways provides physical exercise that boosts our energy levels. Gets those endorphins pumping while filling our lungs with crisp clean fresh air.
Playing in the white flakes of snow, moving and handling it around our Maine homes got us outside.
Look what happened over night while sleeping. Wow.
Rotate slowly 360 degrees around you at the sparkling crystal outdoor landscape.
You become very aware of the World around you spending time outdoors in a Maine winter.
Living in rural areas of Maine. Growing up, we all had family jobs and responsibilities in rural Maine. Snow handling was one of them. But we also played in the fresh Maine snow powder.
There is self-satisfaction pitching in and being needed as a family member no matter which of the four seasons growing up in Maine.
The natural beauty of a few inches of new fallen Maine winter snow transforms the backyard overnight.
The lower temperature, whitewash frozen splash of pretty much one primary color. Mother Nature performs a one-color chip instrument solo of white.
Maine Is Small Town Friendly Living. Who Would Trade That For High Crime, Over Populated Not So Friendly Areas To Live If They Had A Choice?
Winter white on white. In stark contrast from just a few months earlier.
When Jack Frost waived the baton. Conducting the vivid harvest color explosion light show with a huge orchestra of peeper popping hues.
Picnic Food Just Tastes Better Looking At This When Munching What Gets Fished Out Of The Basket. Potato Pickers Move Field To Field In Fall Harvest Colors.
Bundle up and go outside in the Maine winter landscape.
The endorphins you create and natural feeling of wellness and contentment from crunching snow on a brisk walk improves the mood.
Look up, take in the Maine winter night sky light show of stars on the black velvet backdrop.
That natural beauty can not go unnoticed.
Develop a short walk habit and embrace not fear a Maine winter. Burn some calories just easy does it on the chunky sweater and too many clothing layers.
Bringing The Outdoors Indoors! Maine Winter, We Don’t Hibernate. Can’t Wait To Get Out In The Maine Snow!
Anyone in a northern tier state, with Scandinavian country heritage who loves to ski or snowmobile, ice fish and snowshoe knows how to dress.
All can agree if you are cold, you’re not dressed to match the Maine winter temperatures of the day.
And when you turn off the light and head to bed, cracking the window a tad.
There is nothing to compare to winter slumber and restful complete sleep during a Maine winter with some bedroom fresh air. (Unless you are not prepared for winter and have nightmares about not being ready.)
Stay caught up, don’t fall behind is simple Maine survival 101.
Welcome To Maine. You’re Here. You Made It!
If you are new to Maine, welcome. If just visiting during a Maine winter, there is lots to do and enjoy. Native Mainers are outdoors every day and just change up the wardrobe.
Attend a local community homemade supper, a very affordable snow sled club breakfast.
Climb into the stands of an ice hockey or local high school basketball game.
And definitely hit the recreation trails to witness wildlife, the smell of the woods and sheer expanse of Maine.
Maine, Less Colors Than Fall’s Explosion Can Be Dramatic Too!
Clear a lake or pond and skate on the sheet of smooth frozen water with fish swimming below. Down hill or cross country ski in Maine to take in the natural unspoiled beauty. Fill your lungs with clean fresh Maine air.
Being prepared for a Maine winter creates heighten anticipation and erases any fear and regret.
Insulating a Maine house to tighten up the cracks of cold air. Shortening up the square feet of living space. Heating with more than one source and playing the energy market.
Less people, more space, tighter connections in small Maine rural communities.
Boats Floating Along The Maine Coast In The Lincolnville Beach Area During A Maine Winter. Anyone Feel Like Fish Chowder Or Crab Cakes, Broiled Scallops?
Maine winter weather causes you to batten down the hatches and stay ahead rather than fall behind of the day to day. You become heartier and more resilient and appreciative.
The landscape shapes the local Mainer who is fiercely independent and hands on actively involved.
Chopping, splitting their own firewood, canning and preserving to fill their root cellar provisions.
Excited about the sugar bush maple sap collecting ahead during spring thaw. Boiling it down to amber sweet syrup to drizzle on your pancakes, waffles and ployes.
Saps Running As Temperatures Moderate And Winter Starts To Sputter.
Getting a new garden seed catalog to plan what to plant and where when spring renewal happens again.
Maine farmsteads with empty storage houses plant again. Work the soil, prepare the dirt for cultivating and planting another homestead crop on a Maine farm.
One Basket At A Time! Picking Maine Potatoes A Skill Learned By The Lucky Youth Growing Up In A Fall Harvest Potato Farm Field.
Summers on the waterfront, riding and hiking the recreation trails. Then another Maine winter spent like the other three seasons, outdoors.
A winter in Maine that you greet and look forward to like a reunion with an old friend.
But like being nervous before you get to know someone that becomes a friend for life, a Maine winter takes effort on your part.
Take a chance. Experience a Maine winter and don’t limit yourself to one or two seasonal visits.
Waterfront Islands, Sandy Beaches Make Never Fade, Memory Rich Vacations.
I know, I know Maine summer weather is hard to beat but layer up, find the value of wool and come on.
You and I are heading out in a snowy landscape in Maine to explore and discover.
Use the Maine weather to your advantage.
See how an old haunt like one of the 60 plus Maine lighthouse visits is so so different picking a different season to sample it.
Windy, No Tourist To Shoot Images, Video Around. That Is Why Winter Lighthouse Visits Leave A Lasting Impression.
Make the effort, see what happens and maybe what you have been missing during the end and the beginning of another trip around the sun.
Temperature 62, It Was Clear Blue Sky Sunshine On Total Solar Eclipse Day Houlton Maine. It Was April 8th, 2025. Perfect Weather For Viewing The Totality.
Before you just dismiss a Maine winter as something to dread and avoid at all costs. And instead of drawing the wrong conclusion from lack of trying and a lot of Maine weather myths. Gain perspective, log some hours in Maine besides when temperatures are highest.
Try the peace, the stillness, sample the quiet and learn a lot from the solitude of Maine’s snow white outdoors.
No black flies. Not as many tourists. No traffic and we never ever have to park on the street in small town Maine.
Everyone waves, says hello in Maine, the 4th lowest crime state. The cheapest state of car insurance and lots of other great things to set Maine apart from the rest of the World..
Maine Lighthouses, Big For Tourism And Fun For Locals To Visit. Over 60 Of Them To Collect Along The Rock Bound Craggy Coast.
Meg and I have skipped closing up the Maine lake home this fall. We are having fun spending the winter living on a Maine lake and blogging about the outdoor experience.
Thank you for following our Me In Maine blog posts series on living on a lake this winter.
Wildlife, water, woods and do you see bald eagles in Maine?
You experience it all when you spend time in Maine.
If you were living here, you would be already home right? On a short weekend trip or a week’s vacation, you get a taste of living in the state of Maine. But nothing like living here for a stretch of months or all year long.
No Two Maine Lake Sunsets The Same. Cause You’re Not. They Hit You Differently.
Like on a Maine lake, bald eagles.
Here’s one from this morning’s coffee as the pink, blue shades of sunlight appear around the waterfront.
Usually Up In The Tall Pine On The Point, But Not Today. Needed A Drink. Bald Eagle On A Maine Lake.
You have to be quick, before gotta go happens. Bald eagle heads away and not because of being startled.
Bald Eagle Taking Off On Drews Lake.
The lake in Maine offers a change of seasons perspective too. Like the ice over so we can have winter fun on the Maine lake. The tug of war between Old Man Winter and Mother Nature is a strong one.
Winter in Maine changes the habits of the bald eagle too… swooping down from the big lone point pine for a fish differ is hard. When your Maine lake has a sheet of ice for a lid that can only be opened with a Jiffy Ice auger and limited to five hole traps.
Maine lakes are very peaceful as the ice freezes over to prepare for different ways to enjoy them.
Make way for ice fishing, pond hockey and skating, cross country skiing and snowmobiling. Do you own a set of snowshoes to tramp out to the ice shacks that pop up when the Maine game warden announces the lake thickness is enough to be safe?
This morning circles of ice form with the spin like a potter’s wheel on Drews Lake.
Been at the lake longer this year and seeing lots that goes unnoticed other years.
Ice Thin Sheets Appear Out Front The Maine Lake Home. Ice Forming In Unique Ways. See The Ice Circle Forming?
Glad you are following our Me In Maine blog and images.
When you are parked on a lake in Maine full time, lots more eye candy is generated.
We toss in a few videos like this scene of a pair of Maine lake otters early one morning.
The photos of Maine lake life doing the heavy lifting today.
Mist, Color, The Temperatures Change On A Maine Lake.
Living on a Maine lake, the experience is not just summer BBQ’s and let’s take a dip, go water skiing.
Dig in, learn more and sample another helping of Vacationland, living on a Maine lake year round.
Yikes. (Pause, keyboard goes quiet, slurp of early morning black coffee sound). Does that come off a little too vague, lofty or just leave you thinking “people don’t talk that way”?
I am sorry, starting again.
This Me In Maine blog tries very hard not to come off as a sing song tired warp record typical tourist discovery channel.
The conversation should be me seeing and thinking of just how I can help you out there in the blogging audience. Talking about what I know living in Maine.
What do you need, what can I provide starts with pondering who are you?
A big segment of you reading this blog post now have already been to Maine.
She is no stranger and you test positive. Maine has you by the heartstrings hook line and sinker. You cannot wait to visit her again.
Classic Small Maine Downtown Like Houlton Maine. The County Seat, The Craftsmanship Preserved.
I can’t wait to sample something new and different and I live here in Maine.
Always! But choosing to Maine my full time home, living here already provides a unique advantage. To share the local experience with photos, sometimes videos and always helpful links to learn more.
Peaceful, Like A Bottom Smooth And Glassy. Maine Lakes Have Different Surfaces And Change With The Weather.
Simple blog posts on a slew of topics that all distill down into pure, all-natural Maine.
Variety, the hunt for new topics, sometimes revisits to Maine venues but covering them in a different season. My bug to provide information started working as a Maine broadcast journalist.
The decision that I wanted to raise my family in Maine made me realize I did not want to leave Maine to work my way up the broadcast ladder. I did not want to cheat the four children out of the rich experience I had growing up in rural small town Maine.
So now you know and back to giving you something worthwhile to share in this Me In Maine blog post installment today.
I am still at a Maine lake home. Not sure when or if Meg and I will move back in town for the winter. Being on a Maine lake after the summer tourists headed south is so peaceful. And now enjoying the most beautiful fall foliage season I can ever remember has made us drag our feet.
In Groups, Birds Of A Feather Fly (And Float) Together Like Maine Lake Loons.
I know plenty of other people who bought a Maine lake camp and suddenly, when COVID happened, they found themselves living there too like me now.
Figuring if they had Internet, why not park it for a spell on the Maine waterfront and work online remotely. Converting their camp into a simple home. And then realizing if I can work remotely up in Maine, if I don’t have to return to the urban location expensive grind, I’m sticking around in the Pine Tree State.
Thank you COVID 19 for that life detour that turned out all for the better.
Each day living on a Maine lake, you see different wildlife walk, fly over, float by like these white helmet hooded mergansers.
Shy, Getting Ready To Fly South. Feeding On Maine Lake Fish To Bulk Up For The Flap Flap Flap Work Out.
Never saw them before and learned it is because they are shy.
Less people on the Maine lake this time of year reduces the anxiety as the bird in the duck family fish the water and prepare to migrate elsewhere for the winter.
The bald eagle in the big stately pine tree here at the lake is exciting to watch swoop down and clutch a large fish.
Then with serious effort flap his wings low to the water and struggle to get to higher ground and land with the mealtime prize.
The smaller group of year rounders living on a Maine lake are a special group. Banding together to clear private roads of tree limbs that hang over and threaten power lines in the fall. To prevent losing electricity in the winter months when ice and snow bring them down.
The Maine lake properties are accessed by private roads.
Sand and salt barrels are refreshed to be ready to spread on icy roads ahead.
Holiday parties with the local Maine lake community happen. Someone brought a guitar, everyone brought their signature covered dish tid bit.
Folks who own waterfront property used seasonally will reach out to local year rounders who make sure all is well at their vacant lake place.
Living Full Time On A Maine Lake, What’s Like? The Gray Lake Home Where I Am Blogging This Morning. The Red Camp For Kids, Company, Overflow.
You see ice fishing shacks appear on shore around a Maine lake this time of year.
Waiting for the tug across frozen lake ice when the local warden service declares it is safe.
Ice fishing, snowmobiling, cross country skiing and snow shoeing, pond hockey are ahead out front on a Maine lake.
Five Holes, Drill Them In A Jiffy With A Jiffy Or By Hand. To Ice Fish On A Maine Lake.
Plowed roads, groomed ITS snowmobile trails across the Maine lake and small shanty villages of ice shacks start popping up as the winter season unfolds.
Getting the snowplow back on the Ford pickup one the to do list this week.To maybe plow the Maine waterfront properties.
Plow three properties, maybe four this year if we hang around the Maine lake property.
Parked On The Point. Pair Of Drews Lake Homes.
Mainers are prepared and weather speeds up the getting ready process. The lake shore dock all pulled in and parked onshore.
Seadoos, kayaks, pontoon boats all put away with deck chairs and the hammock in the storage shed. Gas grill still ready to fire up and sizzle.
The sunrises and sunsets served up are different now than back in spring or summer on a Maine lake.
Maine is like a gift that you get to keep opening up. Just providing different colors, a not quite the same angle of the sun for lighting and not one constant same temperature. All your senses get a work out living up here in rural Maine.
What else happens this time of year, late fall heading into early winter on a Maine lake?
Every vehicle you meet has something orange on the occupants. Or you see the orange hat visible on the dashboard of everyone you meet on the road.
Hunting for deer, moose, black bear to stock the freezer to pull from over the winter. The winter wood supply is ready, next year’s cut in tree length and being processed to fit the particular stove used to heat your Maine home.
Can I Help You? Here To See A Maine Moose? You Are Seeing Double! Did You Shoot With A Camera Or A Gun? Have A Moose Lottery Permit This Season?
Stars, when I got up this morning you cannot miss them.
Last night when Meg and I got home to the lake, the black velvet sky was loaded with stars. Maine is a dark place said in a good not sinister way.
Maine has some of the darkest, least light or smog polluted skies known to man. I think looking up and seeing the star constellations you learned about in eight grade science just intensifies the awareness.
There’s less noise, it’s more real and up close personal and sometimes just hard to explain. Everyone gleans something different depending on what else is going on in their life to color the Maine experience.
Roads, Across Water Trails That Freeze Over. Over 23,000 Miles Of Snowmobile Trails In Maine. To Allow Stops At Ice Shack Shanties.
There’s Orion’s Belt, the Big and Little Dipper. The Seven Sisters.
Oh how lucky we are to live in Maine where nature and astronomy take turns surrounding us day and night. I think awareness of life, people, the environment all increases as the population around you decreases.
Will share more on life at the Maine lake in future blog posts. Hoping this installment helped share the what’s it like on the Maine waterfront.
Many folks are “uptah camp in Maine” for hunting season now. Lots of them end up spending Thanksgiving enjoying their turkey spread in their rural Maine woods camp.
My first minibike was a 3.5 horsepower Briggs and Stratton model. Just a simple, low-cost minibike that was dark green with knobby tires.
It has a thick long cushion seat to make up for a serious lack of suspension. No gears, the minibike equipped with a centrifugal clutch. Just twist the throttle and away you go.
Straight gas, nothing to mix and fun to ride minibike to explore the area when farm chores, schoolwork were completed.
Simple, Affordable Minibike
I would ride the minibike around my Maine family farm field roads, woods trails and in the beginning stayed pretty close to home.
I was nine years old. My Dad has picked up the minibike I earned with potato picking money at the Sear store in Presque Isle Maine.
Riding the minibike around the farm was fun. But eventually longer excursions to my Aunt Ruth’s farm on the Callaghan Road was a frequent destination. Aunt Ruth lived with Freeman Taylor and ran a horse-riding summer camp.
Camp Little Ponderosa was just a couple miles away by car.
On the minibike, it was about three miles going up and over the Interstate 95 overpass on the Mooers Road.
Mooers Family Farm Houlton Maine
Then crossing the Ludlow Road near my Uncle Fred and Molly’s farm.
Then after looking both ways, zig-zagging to taking a trail through farm fields and tree plantation up through a horse back or esker of gravel deposits on Holland Taylor’s farm. Always, always wearing a helmet.
It was the same route used on the family snowmobile in the winter months, a blue 12.8 horsepower Sno Jet.
The trail just covered with white fluffy snow and I was dressed more warmly with layers.
On minibike or snowmobile, you ended up in the same place. The Lane gravel pit which was just behind, to the east of my Aunt Ruth’s summer horse riding camp.
I put a straight pipe on the minibike engine that was anything but high performance.
Only so much you could do to squeeze a little more speed out of the engine usually used on lawnmowers not a motor bike.
High test gas, experimenting with a different chain sprocket configuration all slightly modified the first minibike.
My neighbors Chris and Bryon Williams had minibikes too. Blue 4 horsepower Bonanza minibike models, a pair of them.
We would ride down the Hagan Road to farm roads that led to Cary Mills .
Over toward the town dump and Donald Guy’s gravel pit. Mostly dirt roads and staying off paved ones where traffic was a danger. And knowing we were not licensed motorcyclists yet and way too young to take the road test.
The minibike was freedom.
It was fun to have the privilege to ride with my friends and go places without mom and dad carting me around here and there. The minibike provided a variation of the same feeling of independence that I got riding the snowmobile with my countryside neighborhood friends.
It was not all gas-powered transportation either growing up in rural Maine. Summer meant going up into Market Square peddling a three-speed banana bike. The same feeling of independence provided weekly riding my bike with the long leopard seat into 5 Franklin Avenue to mow lawns.
The money-making gig grass clipping summer job passed down by my brother Brian.
It paid a whopping five dollars and a included an icy cold can of White Rock black raspberry soda a week. Money carefully managed from farm jobs, birthdays, Christmas gifts, mowing lawns was funneled into the minibike fund.
Helmets, repairs and modifications nibbled at the hard-earned fund that led to bigger and better. Eventually trading in the Sears minibike for one purchased at Tingley Brother’s Garage on the North Road or US RT 1 in Houlton Maine.
The orange Chibi was a serious step up for a mini bike.
3 Speeds, 58cc 2 Cycle Engine Powered The Chibi Minibike
It was really a miniature dirt bike with three speeds, a manual clutch, and tuned exhaust on the 2-cycle mixed oil 58cc Rockwell Industries engine.
The Chibi made by Bridgestone came in two models. For $285 you could but a basic blue model. For $315 you could get a snazzy orange Mopar color paint job scheme and a headlamp, taillight. This helped extend the range of the trips and when I had to be home.
Our parents allowed a group of us kids to take our minibikes to camp out with sleeping bags overnight. Looking back, I really appreciated the freedom I had growing up on a Maine farm. My parents trusted me to make good decisions and had loosened up over the years raising me and my three older brothers.
Fast forward to my own children.
Put on a helmet, tighten it up the chin strap. They started out with four red and white Honda minibikes that were three speeds with a clutch, around 50cc power plants.
I could not find a local outlet to purchase them so went across the border to Dave’s Sport Center in Woodstock New Brunswick Canada. The duty was 28 dollars for the Honda’s from Japan.
Then the growing kids graduated to four dark blue Yamaha 125 cc four-cycle off-road motorbikes. Taller, more bike for bigger trail riders. You could add a light kid and make them legally road worthy.
I know how much I appreciated having the freedom to trail ride growing up and the ability to explore with friends and on my own.
What is it like around you? The minibike was my ticket to find out growing up on a Maine family farm.
Did you have a minibike growing up? What kind, what was the experience like? Were you trusted by your parents to leave the yard and did you have earned freedom that looking back you really appreciate now?
