Category: Living in Maine

Winter In Maine, Living On A Lake, Watching The Approach

Winter in Maine, living on a lake as a new season ushers in slowly.

It’s a chance to reflect in front of a crackling wood stove fire. To sample good locally sourced food that is farm to table. Prepared with no one watching the clock. Slow cooked, easy does it wins out every time over fast food created and consumed but not savored.

Here Comes The Ice. First Thin Skim And Then Thick Enough To Drive A Car To The Ice Shack.

Maine winter is a myth to those who have not gone through a few.

It is not hibernation. Like the other three seasons, outdoors is where we seek to be. Dressed appropriately and always left in awe of her splendor.

Winter is a peaceful time and everything Vacationland is re-known for transforms with the dusting of white snow flakes.

Powder, ice glazed, whipped crystals and flakes. The swirls of snow naturally sculptured by time and Jack Frost himself. It gives Maine a whole new presentation when the temperatures are played with outside our homes. Fewer colors but more shades of them is what the frost and winter snow do the look of things.

Winter offers more than downhill and cross country skiing adventures too. Is not just opening up a Maine lake five times each drilling session. Can opening down through the many inches with a Jiffy ice auger to angle for fish. The transformation when the temperatures drop and any moisture from the clouds turns from rain to sleet or snow. It is a slow methodical process watching the approach of a Maine winter. Saying goodbye to the season of fall.

Winter expertly reworks the Maine landscape.

Spiked Ice For The Rock’s Hairdo. Styled By Waves, Cold Temperatures.

The fall leaves that did not quite get raked, mulched, bagged or burned. They don’t matter once snowfall occurs. Next spring you can deal with leaves from the hardwoods around your property that shed like dandruff.

A sudden winter storm can catch a fall tree unaware. The memo of the change from fall to winter is often missed. The buttoning up a Maine home tradition picks up the pace much quicker when temperatures go lower.

Sparkles twinkle from the ice crystals on the snowscape. The mosaic patterns of what covers mud puddles like brittle thin stained glass. That a young child struggles with the temptation to attack with the heel of their snow boots. Snow boots crunching as you take in the winter wonderland around you.

Looking around in the day, up at night sky and blown away living on a Maine lake.

White, Blue, Green… Not So Much Harvest Gold. Snow And Ice Change All That.

The brilliant stars on a field of black velvet are so many in number. No light pollution, no sky scrapers or obstructions to smother the night sky enjoyment experience.

You might spy a lone blinking red airplane navigation light far far away. Just one now and then passes over head for activity. Relax, you are in Maine remember? Less people, no traffic, little crime and more wildlife.

As a Maine lake see saws in a tug of war from open water to iced over and thickening.

Back to open water. The cycle starts and stops. It is like an orchestra tuning up for what is ahead when everyone settles down to read the sheet music together. It gives a native time to prepare mentally for the change of seasons.

Not Quiet Ready To Ice Skate. Animals Better Stay Off The Thin Ice Too!

You need lower temperatures to make Maine all it can be. To allow pond hockey games, ice hut shanties for fishing to be placed over the deepest fish filled lake regions. If you have ever lost a loved one.

You may know the experience of witnessing the ebb and flow of life before they go for good. You see the aging process speed up. Transforming whoever you are never ever quite prepared to lose in the hospital bed.

On a Maine lake, the ducks, loons, sea gulls and otters paddle around continuing their daily routine.

But they know from the increasing chill of the water they ply that a Maine winter is approaching. Slowly but with determination and the letting go of fall is the same regret each season in Maine presents. The older you get, the faster the Maine seasons change. You hang onto and cherish each of them.

I watched ducks and loons catch small fry this past weekend on a Northern Maine lake.

The Fake Owl Takes The Winter Off From Scaring Away Canadian Geese.

But it was catch and release. As soon as the fish dinner was in their beaks, a seagull in the background suddenly took over. Bullying them to fork it over. Witnessed this over and over which makes you feel sorry for the ducks and loons who have families to feed too.

Maine weather is never boring or predictable. True Mainers are prepared and the road highway crews are veterans at using the wing plows to keep the pavement clear, salted, sanded.

Life goes on but with a marshmallow coating. With promise of Christmas traditions and New Year’s resolutions to celebrate another completed twelve month calendar cycle.

There are segments of Maine’s population where winter is their busiest time.

Those making snow and shaping it for a down hill recreation ski area. That push and place snow from the the drive, highways, parking lots and walkways to better locations out of the way. Groomers of snow sled and cross country ski trails help the local economy. Working late into the night to have the smooth trails set up and ready for vacationers. Those putting on studded snow tires and installing or repairing the plows to clear driveways and highways.

Ice arenas and kids of all ages on skates lace up the hockey or figure skates.

New options are what a Maine winter presents us. Hard to ski or snow sled or slide down hills on the

Playful And In And Out Of The Cold Lake Water. Otters, Other Winter Wildlife Entertain!

toboggan or flying carpet sled without snow. A sheet of ice makes ice skating and hockey possible inside

or out during winter. New sticky snow is best to form ammunition for backyard battles. To make forts and dig snow tunnels. To roll something small that becomes the parts of the snow people wearing a stick arms, a bright colored scarf and carrots, rocks for face parts.

The folks who service the oil furnaces, the plumbers who repair frozen pipes when a place runs out of fuel or the heating system simply dies. Winter causes activity in different sectors that you don’t see in the other three seasons. It is also a chance to ease back and slow down for the folks right out straight those times of the year when it is not winter.

Have you ever been out in a Maine snow storm?

Ice Cold On The Rear End. Birds On A Lake Fish And Compete For Food.

Where there is a deafening sound of a million flakes accumulating from above? The hush and rush gets the volume knob twisted. Being out in the weather no matter what time of year increases your awareness and is humbling, spiritual.

You quickly realize time on Earth is short. That we are all specks and a small part of the blue and green globe that rotates under our feet. Take nothing for granted and strive to improve to make a difference helping others.

The snowstorm on a lake and the mist when the air is colder than the water temperature makes the Maine lake in winter disappear for a bit.

Maine winter living, living on a lake, adding the clothing layers. Pulling your gloves and hat hand knit by your grandmother off the expanded stretched out clothes rack. Strategically parked next to the wood heater. Walking slowly as you leave the house steps assuming ice is under that new fallen snow blanket. The fresh Maine air becomes crisper, cleaner, sharper.

The Winter White Transforms A Maine Lake.

The lake, rivers, ponds and stream water surfaces transform. Becoming a polished solid thickening sheet with any wave action gagged and hidden completely under a lid. When you own waterfront property on a Maine lake you see it all happening right out front on the big flat screen.

As the freeze slows down the pace of life in Maine.

It shortens the list of what needs to be done outside to clearing snow, scraping your iced windshield. Taxes your vehicle battery overworked with defrosters, heaters, the use of lights to cut through the earlier longer darkness. Winter forces you to relax, to reflect, to feel freed up to create the space. To work on what is important or missing in your life routine that the tranquil Maine winter provides for best.

I love Maine winter living on a lake.

There are those who do not and options to bug out and snow bird to take a break. Digging out your skis, snow shoes, ice skates and snow sled gets you ready for a Maine winter. Having the windshield ice scraper and snow broom to clear your vehicle from what fell overnight helps tame months at the end and beginning of a new year.

Smile Seagulls, Loons, Duck. Hold Still… (Click). Got It.

Night fall comes quicker that just makes the cobalt blue sunny days we do have more precious. Basketball and hockey season happens in winter. So do snowy trips to Baxter State Park for winter camping and hiking.

The time at a Maine lake is sacred when folks are gone. Where you and the wildlife and the few locals remaining around the waterfront have it all to yourself. Less distractions with more moments of peace and quiet.

If you only come to Maine during the summer months, you are missing so much of the what goes on in the Pine Tree state.

The changing weather makes every experience radically different. Same Maine surroundings but a whole new take away caused because someone played with the temperature settings.

Whether you are exploring the Great North woods, parked in a quaint sea coast harbor town venue or sporting camp setting, take take away is the exact same. Maine people are friendlier, the majority spaced out, living in rural small town and village settings. Feel the home town connection and down to Earth ease you connect. Less people, more wildlife, Maine is pure and natural.

Spend more than a weekend to witness what you are missing on the Maine lake in winter.

On say a Maine lake where loons and ducks are robbed by a lazy seagull. Giving up their fresh small fry

Winter Still Popular Place For Seagulls To Hang Out on A Maine Lake.

catch of fish to the larger feisty coastal white bird repeatedly as you watch the injustice from shore. Another lake property owner on the South Shore tried rescuing a loon frozen in ice that a bald eagle had selected for a lunch option. You realize the food chain, the survival of the fittest.

The Maine photos magneted to your refrigerator you collected back in spring, summer, fall. Those full color reminders of a more recent trek to Maine on vacation. Add to those same settings but in winter for a new snow twist. Don’t forget to bring your camera.

In winter in Maine, living on a lake, it is you, just you.

Nothing is shared, diminished or delayed with the chatter of Maine tourists. No traffic, no spin, keep your wallet in your pocket or purse. Take your time, stay as long as you want to fill to the brim, cup runneth over. Until you get inside and out what you need gleaned from a Maine winter living on a lake setting.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

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

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November 19, 2019
The Lake Camp Up In Maine

The lake camp up in Maine.

Parked On The Lake’s Edge, The Log Camp In Maine Is Getting TLC Attention Today.

Home remodeling, working on a property in Maine is very satisfying. Hands on, not hired out is something Mainers enjoy in construction projects. I am lucky to live on a Maine lake and a property next to mine came up that was a good investment. Waterfront in Maine is never ever a bad place to put your hard earned money. But this one needs tweaking to make it more comfortable.

There is no other investment known to man that is as enjoyable than real estate with water attached.

Like the ocean beach, just show up. The food cooked outside on the grill parked on the open deck. The sounds of family and friends laughing, talking. The natural reminder you have a lake, river, pond or ocean for a neighbor is spiritual. You can always rent out a waterfront property to vacationers looking for the same setting for when work is done. And unplugging to recharge needs to happen.

The camp on the Maine lake next to mine is a log variety.

It is an LC Andrews version of Maine log home. But as my oldest daughter reminded me “Dad. it’s time to remodel”. I want the two bedroom vacation place to be comfortable. Grand children staying with their parents “uptah Maine at the lake” can use the extra bedrooms for family gatherings. Most Maine camps or log cabins are loaded with natural woodwork. Pine, cedar mostly but flooring can be anything goes to make it solid and be a test of time.

This Is Why You Are Here. They Say Maine Water Fixes Everything.

The lake camp up in Maine.

Everything has to be white washed… and that ceiling has to go to hoist it high to see the eaves. That suggestion planted in my ears by daughter number one. So has the rehab of the log camp in Maine happen quickly?

Heck no.

But this morning with a more determined than effort fire in my belly, things are going to pick up the pace. The ceilings in the main living area and kitchen, bath are gone. The bedrooms have bead board new tongue in groove overhead that will no doubt be white, light, bright like the walls.

New slider in one bedroom makes for lots of glass to enjoy the view. To peel back and with the screen listen to the lapping waves because the Maine lake is right there. Up close and personal. Another glass sliding door to the open deck did not need to be replaced.

Kitchen cabinets are already painted white and birch in the Maine lake camp.

Little Bit At A Time. To Make It Better Than It Was.

The rug flooring has been deep six removed. The black rubber backing that hangs around is slowly being scraped and peeled off by hand. The slower you take to remodeled a place, the more time you have to consider the options. I enjoy the pondering how best to do this or that job.

Not everything can be done by me, myself and I with help from family and friends though. The roof that was asphalt is not standing seam metal wrapped.

The electrical fuse panel hiding in the wrong place of the bathroom is gone. Re-located to a better neighborhood out in the living room.

I bid high and successfully for a thousand board feet of native cedar tongue in groove from Katahdin Log Homes. Just have to pick it up when the roads are not wet or snowy. Winter is a good time to put some heat in a place and rip out and replace what ails it. Not sure how the Maine Homes & Design magazine started showing up in the box with the lid on front. But it’s great for inspiration. Some of those ocean front places are a little too hoity toity and gold plated, diamond encrusted for my tastes. I’m not a trust fund baby. But to each his own approach to comfort style for rest and relaxation right?

The Juice From Houlton Water Company Power Grid Now On Circuit Breakers Not Fuses.

Insulation up in the eaves when the roof rafters are not perfecting straight.

Like Santa with the list to check once, twice and more times. Lots of projects tackled at the same time. To keep pecking away at the items on the paper slips in the little red log job jar. Tackling the inside chores now while Old Man winter does his thing outside. Then moving on to the exterior work when the bare bald trees start to bud and the song birds return from the sunny south.

Adding insulation to make this a cathedral ceiling sturdy and sealed in properly. That’s the only slow patch on the vacation property that might be put in the rental pool. You can control the neighbor or it you want one at all when you own the place next door.

Best Way To Insulate The Cathedral Ceiling In A Maine Lake Camp!

Consideration for how best to insulate and to vent to bring air up from the lower rakes up to the tip top roof vent heavily toyed with mentally. Much to consider for all the approaches that could be taken. But ahh… what is the best route for functionality and to go easy on the pocket book.

Stealing a peek out the front pair of sliders to dream about summer BBQ’s and talks on the lakeside open deck when a few sheets are ripped off and removed from the wall calendar. I want the Maine lake camp structure to breathe without ice, heat build up or winter condensation causing wetness.

Getting The Inside Done The Plan. Over The Winter. To Spend More Time Out On The Open Lake Deck.

Dry as a bone. That’s the plan Stan. To get rid of any moisture if used in the winter months now or for after I am dead and gone on the Maine lake camp.

Or to keep it cool and comfortable in the summer months when the red in the tube goes up in Maine. Insulation has lots of valuable uses for heating, cooling, sound deadening. But the space from the inner cathedral ceiling roof boards the standing seam metal roof rides on.

I need enough so the air funneling up from the soffit vents will escort the lake camp air exchange best.

Highest R value roof rafter area insulation using foil backed foam to make it warm and toasty in the winter and to protect the open cathedral ceiling. Doing it right before all the finish work means study of the best practices with other hammer time professionals.

If I wake up in the middle of the night. When the mind starts churning, thinking of life. Switching channels to the DIY log camp next door on the Maine lake helps everything simmer down.

Maine Lake Camps, Working On The Pair Of Them Happens Year Round. Today’s Snap Shot On The Way In To Work. We Got A Dusting.

To get back to counting sheep for some quality sleep. I have learned I need to be doing something and the most relaxed happens when doing something productive. Pulling it off the best possible way possible to make it not perfect but better than it was. With what I have to work with and the budget, the local materials available.

My Dad preached the important of son, you got to have a system. Plan your work and work your plan. The old wisdom of measure twice, cut once. It saves time, money, frustration. Not all the kids today have that practical easy does it approach before charging in helter skelter.

So much of the construction work is just tearing out, hauling away the old camp debris.

The actual updating with the tools and staging in place goes pretty fast and smooth. Hiring the electrical, the roof and lots of odds and ends will happen. But to give the hired an idea of what I want the finished product to look like. It means I have to study the situation. To ask for feed back from family and friends who will be using this extra place on the Maine lake.

The lake camp up in Maine is my passion today.

Heading Up The Ladder. Venting, Insulating, Fixing Up A Log Lake Camp In Maine.

What do you do to pass the time in Maine? Some people restore old cars… like talked about in the blog post on abandoned cars. How some are lucky to be fished in and picked for the restoration in the heated winter Maine shop.

What room in your home is next to get a face lift or stripped to the studs total overhaul?

Adding a cathedral ceiling to open up the living space of the waterfront property in Maine. What to put on the flooring last of all. Because with all the updating, the floor will take a beating during the construction phase. How far to go in remodeling can make it a “well, while we are at it” approach. That can get out of hand and go way over budget.

There is no hurry or gun to the head to please a bank underwriter. Not any purchase or sale loose ends today. But with a second grand child on the horizon, I want to get the Hotel 6 “we’ll leave the light on for you” completed. So it can be used as a feathered nest for extra lodging space during family Maine lake gatherings.

This little red Maine waterfront camp that needs TLC.

Or it’s just time to bring everything into the present day with love and attention. This is current hobby for today using our hands and creating a blog post to share something at the same time. Helpful suggestion and friendly advice. If you buy a lake property next to whatever you already own on the Maine waterfront. Remember to set up an LLC to keep the two from merging. Then problems splitting them up as approved shore land zoning lots. If the family left behind ever wants to whittle something away down the road and break apart the lake camps in Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

November 10, 2019
Old Cars, Trucks Parked Out On The Back Forty.

Old cars, trucks, farm tractors on the edge of a field or caught by a web of wood lot trees.

The family wagon or pick up truck parked up back on the edge of a pasture. That sits, waits and nothing happens. Except rust and neglect as Mother Nature takes over. Young saplings growing up around and through the vehicle permanently putting in park mode. Maybe rodents using it for a winter Maine home. Hopefully the windows put up to keep bigger wildlife out of the snowy hideaway shelter on wheels.

People in Maine are not hoarders just because they don’t remove old vehicles from their land.

The longer you have a automobile, farm tractor or pick up truck, the greater the attachment. The intention to someday fix up what ails the old vehicle. It’s in the back of your mind. Or to cannibalize it for parts for a new version of transportation put on the road to replace the old faithful. The rusting iron gets visits with a tool box for the sampling of parts. For lots of reasons, it is hard to let go of the vehicles we depend on that get replaced but never forgotten.

What Year Is This Forgotten Pontiac?

Like a family pet, the abandoned old car, pick up truck, farm tractor is a big part of the family.

Have blogged before about Sally, the 1998 red Jeep Grand Cherokee bought new and stored, waiting for repairs. She got an eye poked out by a Maine black bear meeting.

In the rear woodlot of a Maine farmstead, you also find antique iron farm machinery. Plows, harrows, discs, diggers, hay equipment, crop sprayers, One or two row horse drawn or early farm tractor attachments hidden from view. These farm implements are a possible lawn ornament when pull out and cleaned up with elbow grease. To help remember how hard our farming and lumbering relatives worked with what they had at the time.

The Old Farm Machinery… Hidden In The Edge Of Maine Farm Fields.The Woods Growing Up Around It.

The wagon wheels with metal rings and various states of decaying wooden spokes. The better examples of early Maine farm machinery ideal to relocate to local agricultural museums. For the show and tell exhibits of what it was like farming the fields, harvesting the timber out in the woods.

All used back before six and eight row this or that for farming. Or for timbering with automated wood harvesting operations using expensive hydraulic pumps, whirling saw blades and riding on huge tires or rubber tank like tracks. All “won’t she go I guess maybe chummy” revved up with high powered diesel engines. To pull them back and forth and round and round fields and woodlots for food and timber production.

Whole or portions of old relic cars, trucks, who knows what else hiding in the Maine woods. Parked in what used to be a field that neglected long enough becomes a woodlot.

Perfectly preserved and surrounded by bushes, trees and often near rock piles. With farming a new crop of rocks or Earth apples always swimming to the surface. Frost is the propellant to create the rocks that can mess up a planter or harvester. Sometimes the abandoned vehicle or piece of lumbering or farming equipment not considered such an eye sore. Serving instead to remind the next generation what an earlier family members used to til the soil for planting seed, cultivating and harvesting the bounty. More abandoned cars, trucks images. (more…)

November 4, 2019
Halloween Trick Or Treating In A Small Maine Town

Halloween, trick or treating, door to door canvassing for candy.
Trick Or Treat! Small Maine Town Fun October 31st.
The goblins low to the ground, most eye level with the heaping bowls of sweets and treats. The high caloric ammo stocked up and ready to distribute in handfuls. To the motley crew of pan handlers.
Holding wide open loot bags or reflective buckets for the candy bars, gum, licorice, sweet and sour the home owner is dishing out this Halloween. If you holler loud enough in unison for all to hear and with plenty of enthusiasm the chant “trick or treat”. You get a tasty treat!
In your area of Maine or whatever your GPS planet coordinates are, is October 31st still a big deal?
As a kid was it a tradition not to be missed and looked forward to with excitement? Gathering your young friends, sisters, brothers and cousins to tramp a new or familiar neighborhood. Did you partake in the climbing up on lighted porches decorated in spider webs, orange pumpkins, the sounds of eerie music, high wind, howling and clanging chains?
Often, whoever answered the front door decked out and making an effort to play along. Wearing a pointed black hat or warlock cape or whatever creative garb. To show the kiddies they too were under the same zombie or witchcraft spell where candy is the currency? But no clown outfits this year please. The once friendly Ronald McDonald or Bozo clown persona is missing thanks to the clown’s with anger issues and not so slap happy easy going these days on the silver screen.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.
I grew up about a mile and half from town out in the country. Having mom and dad drop me off with my older brothers on the corner of Highland Avenue and Washburn Streets was a Halloween ritual. Combing forces to battle our sweet tooth addictions, the six cousins who lived in the yellow apartment house would combine and off we go. Systematically with pillow cases combing the streets. On the prowl for neighborhoods with plenty of lights on and avoiding the ones where everything in the house was pitch black and dark.
Halloween Trick Or Treating Is Big In Small Maine Towns!

As a little kid, I was amazed at the generosity. Of total strangers to me for the most part who took the time. To decorate, to purchase the candy or better yet make the
home made sweets hot out of their kitchen oven. To show you the light is on for a reason. We’ve got candy, even better treats than the other residents on the street beat.
The home owner in my small Maine town enjoying the orange, black, purple and green holiday as much as the munchkins marauding the neighborhood.
The excitement of all age monsters, cowboys, princesses, ninjas, ghosts and other forms of the living dead with cuts and serious disfigurements adding to the hysteria on Old Hallows eve. The door to door hit and run like a town wide magazine campaign. Or the Swan’s guy with the deep dish pizzas and five gallon tubs of ice cream, other treats delivered on a weekly, not just once a year basis. The mail carrier has to make the same neighborhood run but on a daily basis.
Halloween, full moons, graveyards, the threat of dastardly deeds happening if the home owner does not deliver on something good to eat.
Kids disguised to protect their real identities. Knocking loudly to holler the “trick or treat”? dentists ten to one warn to “easy does it”
on the sugar intake. The one holiday to be extra thorough in brushing after carefully flossing as you sample the haul next day?
What is your favorite Halloween treat?
For me it is peanut clustered Paydays, peanut butter and chocolate Reese cups. Anything but Sahara dry popcorn balls and no thanks to the apples. Not for fear of razor blades in my small friendly rural Maine town.
The other treats that warm the usually chilly door to door are fresh squeezed hot cider and the rolled out hand cut fresh baked donuts.
The kind that just hopped out of the grease bath to drip dry on the kitchen rack. The home owners that offer those want you to come in to the light of the living room. To take off the mask, put down your loot. To reveal your true identity
and figure out are you so and so’s kid? Sometimes you learned they were somehow related to your mom and dad or Uncle Bob, Aunt Janice. Family reunion time happens.
During a series of open houses a few weekends back in Boston to help daughter number one find a home to buy, one neighbor we purposely struck up a conversation with made an observation.
The neighborhood in Jamaica Plains MA said you can tell a lot about a neighborhood by whether or not they participate in Halloween.
If more often than not, there are decorations, dummies in porch chairs and signs Halloween is observed here, then that shows you involvement. Fun people who take the time, make the investment to make sure kids remember October 31st. They stick around and have the lights on, the candy bowl by the front door fully charged to hand out no matter how many kids storm their place this Halloween.
Last year on Halloween there was snow on the ground.
The white stuff that usually holds off until at least Thanksgiving week that improves your changes of banging a deer showed up early. October 23rd, 2018 there was a blanket of white stuff delivered that caught most by surprise. That did their fall leaf raking and burning the following spring instead of back in the customary fall. I remember a couple Halloweens where winter snow was present but we still trick or treated.
The Lights Are On, That Means Halloween Candy!
Today, in areas of high urban crime, where folks don’t hobnob or really know who lives two doors down in neighborhoods, trick or treating is threatened. Less homes per block are taking part. Plus kids are trucked to events, to larger gatherings inside for fun and games and bobbling for candied apples. Maybe it is helicopter or lawnmower parents that same mileage and can wrap it up quicker.
Halloween is a time where motorists need to have sharp eyes and to drive slowly or not at all down dark streets.
Where sugar buzzed ghosts and goblin monsters can dart out in front of you in th mad dash to door number 2,3,4 and beyond. I am excited about Halloween and setting up shop on Sterritt Street this year. With the old times munching on pizzas and manning the front door candy bowl. While I dress up, round up the kids and
The white stuff that usually holds off until at least Thanksgiving week that improves your changes of banging a deer showed up early. October 23rd, 2018 there was a blanket of white stuff delivered that caught most by surprise. That did their fall leaf raking and burning the following spring instead of back in the customary fall. I remember a couple Halloweens where winter snow was present but we still trick or treated.
The Lights Are On, That Means Halloween Candy!
Today, in areas of high urban crime, where folks don’t hobnob or really know who lives two doors down in neighborhoods, trick or treating is threatened. Less homes per block are taking part. Plus kids are trucked to events, to larger gatherings inside for fun and games and bobbling for candied apples. Maybe it is helicopter or lawnmower parents that same mileage and can wrap it up quicker.
Halloween is a time where motorists need to have sharp eyes and to drive slowly or not at all down dark streets.
Where sugar buzzed ghosts and goblin monsters can dart out in front of you in the mad dash to door number 2,3,4 and beyond. I am excited about Halloween and setting up shop on Sterritt Street this year. With the old times munching on pizzas and manning the front door candy bowl. While I dress up, round up the kids and
other adults who share the same excitement of the trick or treating ritual. The expressions of new little trick or treaters especially is rich and rewarding. They look around and get caught up in the night’s excitement. They quickly catch on to the harvest of candy treats.
The best trick or treating candy was from home owners who had the little bags with the witch riding side saddle on the broom and the full moon in the background.
Inside there were lots of carefully assembled delicacies. One time while taking my own four kids out on Halloween, one resident had forgotten it was the big day the end of October. He took the kids down the hall to the kitchen pantry and each came out with a can of vegetables.
The More The Merrier Trick Or Treating In Small Maine Towns!
Heavy cans for a little kid to lug along the candy land. To continue getting inline and running across yards on the crazy train route to connect the lights that up ahead. And not what the kids expected but he did not want them going away with nothing to show for the trick or treating adventure.
He might have been into the firewater sauce a little too. Sleeping it off when the kids arrived despite the front porch light not on. But it was all good and the exchange made. Then quickly on to the next home to collect the stuff to
sort and trade with their friends. When they take off their Halloween masks and traces of left over face make up tomorrow.
The Maine homeowner or apartment tenant who invests in the candy, risks their life hoisting the bigger than life spider up onto the side of the building.
They dress up. They are primed and ready and invested in the Halloween trick or treating. Weather could impact the hand out of goodies. Less customers. The local church or downtown events could slice off some of the foot traffic door belling ringing too.
I googled “Halloween trick or treating in America still popular?” and this is a link that came up in the search.
And also this Halloween post on best cities to drag the kids to trick or treating. But is there an age limit for trick or treating? How big a kid is too old to do his best to capture a sugar high from total strangers? I love being in the background and keeping the herd of kids
out roaming the neighborhoods together. To make sure they don’t dart out in front of cars or get too far ahead of the little ones in tow. I am excited about this year’s Halloween and know it is because of the generosity of those that made my childhood October 31st eve memorable.
In small towns you pitch in and contribute and maybe Halloween that is safe in a small rural Maine town keeps the haunting spirit alive.
I know today noon there is a local Rotary Auction meeting to attend to prepare for the radio/television/Internet event held for over 50 years the week of Thanksgiving. Tonight at 6pm, the Northern Maine Soap Box Derby committee meets to further hammer out details for the 25th down hill race to be held June 20th, 2020.
Small towns in Maine.
Dressing Up, Playing A Character In Halloween Parties, It’s Not Just A Kid Event. Me In Maine Blogger Andy And Meg Ham It Up.
The locals volunteer and maybe that spirit spills into the desire to decorate, to purchase lots of candy and to spend a couple hours and get over 500 trick or treaters.
Not because if you don’t, for fear of the trick part of the three word demand hollered on your lighted front porch.
Egging a house, wet toilet paper or vandalism to your Pumpkin Man or mock graveyard out front just does not happen.
The best trick or treating neighborhoods in my small Maine town are where four or more in a row property owners join forces. To make a Halloween Beetle Juice theme park of sorts.
Those attract carloads or trick or treaters that get more than candy dropped in their sack. Caskets with
live bodies and snakes, spiders and other things that go bump in the night.
The Monster Mash playing lowly in the background.
Someone screams when scared, jumped, startled two houses back or three forward from where you are. Then laughter is heard around the neighborhood in the ghastly front yard show played over and over all night long. To add to the Halloween trick or treat candy collecting harvest of sugar.
The amusement hooked to pulley with wires that dance up and down to make a young trick or treater wonder how do they do that? To think maybe this yard is haunted…nahhhhhh. On second thought, they are just pulling your leg, another gag. You see one of the adults grin who is having just as much fun as the trick or treaters traipsing across the series of joined back yard eerily lit displays.
Pass me another kit-cat bar would you Zeke? Someone gave you Smarties… a treat from over home in Canada, a relative. And I got to ask, when you eat your Smarties (the maple leaf version of M&M’s chocolate candies) do you eat the red ones last?
Where you are a jack of all trades and a major DIY kinda person.
Kids learn those kind of skills from their parents, grandparents too which is a good thing. And you hear plenty of stories while working together on projects. Had one to share from a local handyman that has a sore hip and announcing that he may not be able to get to the camp project as planned.
Lined Up And Ready To Scream “Trick Or Treat”!
We got talking about black bears, tramping the woods back when he was a Maine guide. I guess it was because I knew he had previously told me the skill saw would be buzzing and work progressing when he was caught up after hunting season. He hopes to be able to do some trapping and says he is not much of a hunter for deer and bear now.
When he ran a sporting goods store on the Ludlow Road in Houlton Maine, Brown’s Trading Post he says a man came in who had hit a black bear.
Needed to use the phone. George asked is it dead, thinking we better put it out of its misery if it is. The man said no, it was dead before he hit it. Say what? Evidently, someone staying at John Fraser’s bear hunting enterprise for out of staters had got their prize black bear. But it fell off the pickup truck and that is what was road kill that was already dead. The police came, ticket written, the hunters found and charged with failure to secure their load.
So this year what is your Halloween costume?
Not everyone is after the Halloween trick or treating candy. It’s a time for parties. To dress up in a costume and play a part, to be a character. My girlfriend is a painted frame of art work. I am Bob Ross the painter from PBS show “The Joy Of Painting. Should be a fun night with lots of good food sampled early and later with trick or treating for a wide age of pumpkin pail pan handlers.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

October 30, 2019
Early Radio, Television Broadcast Stations In Maine

Early radio, television broadcast stations in Maine, the history lesson.

In the beginning Maine news spread by neatly folded bundles of papers. Everything was black and white with a crease to open wide and read read read. Top to bottom. Side to side. The news print reporting happening weekly, maybe daily. The news and information always delivered in small intermittent installments.

Radio broadcasting started with crystal sets and eventually changed all that.

I remember my Dad sharing tales about his childhood experimenting with radio sets and searching for air wave broadcasts.

Experimenting with early radio receivers overhead the milk house on the Aroostook County Maine farm.

Building radio sets, learning about the antennae array that worked best for shortwave radio frequency reception. I developed the same fascination with certain combinations of signal frequencies, power and antennae height. And how they all affect the broadcast radiation output and reception of AM, FM and TV signals in Maine.

The Milk House On The Family Farm In Maine. The Upstairs Space Used As A Crystal Set Ham Radio Location By My Dad Back In The 1920’s.

By the 1920’s, fifteen Maine radio stations went on the air.

By the end of the decade only three in the group remained live and broadcasting a signal. Auburn Maine radio station WMB was the first in the state. At the time, nationwide, only twenty four federally licensed radio stations broadcast over the not so well regulated pioneer airwaves.

Early radio broadcasts in Maine came before television.

Had to transmit the latest government reports, weather forecasts, farm crop prices across the state and nation. Local doctors providing tips on better health happened too. Making house calls over the Maine transmitter frequency airwaves. Local Maine bankers would share the importance of thrift. Area music community orchestras would provide live programming for early broadcasts.

No tape recorders, no CD burners or other hard drive devices were available for programming early Maine broadcasting.

78 RPM records could be cued up. Storage “save it for later” broadcast options just were not around to be later broadcast transmitted as prerecorded events. It was live, on a record and that’s all she wrote. Live and local without editing options meant here you go. Ready or not, like it or not. Take it or leave it. Not Hi Fi, not digital and crystal clear but static, pops, drop outs as the frequency signal drifted in and out depending on the weather.

Broadcasting was not so polished and anything goes transmitting the live radio broadcast programing in Maine happened.

Licensed to the Androscoggin Electrical Company in 1922, Maine’s first radio station WMB broadcast baseball scores.

Pretty much the correct time and local news happenings only went out over the airwaves. Live and local and limited. Early radio broadcasters in Maine not allowed to sell advertising or play records in the beginning. The radio transmitter broadcasts were nightly. The frequency signals dark and stations off air during the day. It was hit or miss catching a broadcast with so few and the lots of “dead air”. (more…)

October 16, 2019
They Live In The North Maine Woods. Yup, There’s A Sauna.

A lot of the folks who call Maine their home were not born here.

These transplants have birth certificates with hospital locations at birthing centers in city setting centers south of Vacationland’s Big Green Bridge. The state of Maine does not promote itself with heavily bankrolled slick publicity either. The home town proud rural nature of outdoor living, family first is kept a secret.

Safe, Uncrowded, Low Cost. Growing Up In Maine, That’s The Big Pull To Raising Families Here.

The gravitational tug to Maine was not caused by ad agencies glossy four color brochures but word of mouth. Most found there way because it did not get the commercial advertising and hype hoopla.

Hunters, fisherman that discovered the North Maine woods decide they need more than a long weekend of stretch of seven days a year of Maine. Others found their way here on a cruise ship off the coast. Or figure if the Bush family have a Presidential vacation home in Maine. If folks like Martha Stewart, Teddy Roosevelt, horror writer Stephen King, Ted Williams spent time here, they conclude they should too.

Many of these new to Maine re-locations happen at retirement. When picking the best wholesome location to raise a family. Getting more for less, to gain four season clean outdoor living for the little money investment.

Maine. The Fun Is Outdoors Year Round.

All recreational trails lead to Maine. Yesterday an 83 year old from Rhode Island man, raised on a farm in Cranston was a tour guide. To locate a new Maine listing back in the woods. In a township six by six miles square with less than 126 souls populating it full time. It is nice to solicit the help of a local who knows the lay of the land when dealing with a new real estate listing smack dab in his own backyard.

This man of Swedish descent helped me locate the land and cabin of a friend of his who has died. The family wants to sell the property. It is located quite a hike in off a maintained roadway. Say two miles of not the best path even for a Jeep. Up the hilly, twisting seasonal dirt road in a small rural Maine town of Haynesville. More a recreational trail than roadway is what protects against getting too much company.

Have you heard the song about the Haynesville woods, the place up in Aroostook County?

The one loaded with buried truckers up north on that lonely stretch of woods called US RT 2A? The song made famous by Dick Curliss of Fort Fairfield that had one good eye. One under a patch and parked from use to navigate.

The gracious guide that signed on to help me locate the new listing in Maine raised on a dairy farm.

Being brought up on a potato and grain farm myself, we had a common bond of the work ethic both were exposed to early on. This fellow wore plaid pajamas in Irish green color. They looked pretty comfy but were not limited to inside use.

His wife shared with me that in Clearwater Florida, their winter home as snow birds, he wore shorts. But up at the camp-like routine living in Maine, it was comfortable soft flannel plaid PJ’s put on daily. That was her husband’s wardrobe of choice.

The most interesting people you meet in Maine are not all born in this state.

It is refreshing to learn of the steps taken, the course of any person’s life when they are willing to share the story. This couple, in a second marriage, loved the same things. The wife a retired teacher, the husband making a career in promotional advertising items. To help folks expose their brand through a myriad of ways.

The couple owned a Cessna 182 and flew around New England. The husband took a trip to Alaska that was quite the adventure he willingly shared. Their home in the woods in Maine has power that they paid sixteen thousand to bring in the lines to get it from US RT 2A.

Like I said, the location is in a willy wags, not exactly over populated with people.

Lots of four legged furry neighbors though and the pile of apples collected, dumped out back attracted black bears, white tail deer. The husband is an avid hunter. They consume a lot of cider and like the apple juice pure and natural.

After locating the hidden listing, the land in the rain on a Saturday afternoon, I captured all the images. Scribbled down the room dimensions. Collected from the field all the local property information needed to get the details online. The couple wants my girlfriend and I to see where they lived and over an hour was spent touring, sharing, talking in their hand made log home. They invited us into their dwelling to sneak a peek. The vacation home in Maine polished rustic decor with all the creature conveniences.

There was a sauna house.

Got Your Towel? Crank The Music And Settle Into Hot Hot Dry Sauna Heat!

The sauna, pronounced like the female pig… “SOW-nah” was a source of pride and joy. Used to cleanse the body, a component of the husband’s Swedish background, the sauna housed in the a separate screen house.

With tunes, power, the sauna made of native cedar with a heater. Loaded with hot rocks to pour ladles of Maine spring water on to create the hissing steam.

The dry heat and sitting in the sauna session finished with rolling in the snow in the white of a Maine winter.

Or dashing yourself with cold water to rinse off after each bathing experience the other three seasons. To force the body’s toxins out through your pores. More than relaxation with tunes and the dry heat and social aspect. The clean up, personal hygiene happens with the scrubbing up and all the hot heat too.

Ice Cold, Low Temperatures Cause Migration To Saunas, Wood Stoves.

More on saunas. I have had many Finnish property owners who all installed a sauna at their homes. More on the history of saunas. Maine has lots of natives from Scandinavian descent. I have blogged about the love affair with a Norwegian wood stove made by Jotul.

There are lots of Swedes in New Sweden, Stockholm area of Maine that never lost their old country traditions. Down hill skiing, cross country skiing, the biathlon alpine experiences live on in Maine. More on how to build a sauna from scratch for inspiration. More on a sauna off grid operation,

It was the woods, the streams, rivers, lakes that attracted this pair to Maine.

The vacation-land location for retirement was lower cost and fit their budget too. What is your favorite part of Maine? What’s your attraction beside less people, no traffic, the four seasons natural beauty? Pure and simple. Maine is the way life should be.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

September 8, 2019