Category: Living in Maine

McMansion To McCottage | How Big A House Works Best In Maine?

How big a home is best for you depends on area housing stock economics and whether you really are ready for a Murphy bed or farm house sized kitchen.

There are pros and cons for tiny homes, larger housing floor plans and it is a personal choice. But what about the local area real estate options and pricing in a state as vast as Maine? Is it best for a home on wheels or a big smashing Victorian house in Maine that works best for your real estate needs?

Know House Thomaston Maine Is One Big Residence With Rich History, Plenty Of Bedrooms.

For starters, the average price of a home in Northern Maine weighing in at $71,000 and reality that the SAME home would fetch $210,000 in Southern Maine. That fact alone makes the folks in the market for a Maine house do a quick check of their finances. Before considering the plus and minus evaluation of what size home is best for me.

Debt ratios, how much of your income can go to housing and the associated maintenance to carry the sticks and bricks. Spending habits, not just your income shows where your priorities are when opening up the wallet or purse wide to pay for daily expenditures. Saving for kids to attend college impacts how high a house price range you filter the real estate search when just sneaking a peek at what is currently for sale in your market.

If 28% of your income or less should be dedicated to housing, there is one ceiling in place on what you plan to buy today for a house of any size.

If housing stock is larger in rural Maine, those homes cost less and are more plentiful. Yes, more to heat and a bigger square footage for maintenance, to clean, but cheaper than plopping down a starting price of $46,000 for a tiny home on a trailer that are out there.

Micro housing, the proponents brag up you will save on utilities, less to heat and cool. That smaller castles mean time freed up for other endeavors besides cleaning and maintenance keeping the house straight and sound. If you live a couple blocks from a gym, why would you need the corner den or space in the cellar rec room for a treadmill or stair stepper? In rural Maine, your “gym” is outdoor exercise cutting, stacking, splitting wood to heat your home. Or climbing on a tractor to plow the back field to get it ready for spring planting. Or maybe the all out aerobics of producing square or round bales of hay to feed your own livestock and the animals of others with whatever is tucked away in your barn. For a methodical draw from the deposits as the calendar pages cycle through from fall, winter, another spring in Maine.

One Beach Is Not Exactly Like The Next. This One In Maine In Kennebunkport At Dusk.

Larger homes in Maine, what space is used for when there is extra to go around? Home schooling desks, wall charts, science labs and the reading resource library. Or work from the home office space where the Internet connection allows telecommuting. In laws living in the converted farm house shed or Victorian home carriage house. Or using a series of water front or rustic wood camps seasonally before the move south. To places you won’t need a snow shovel or an windshield ice scraper.

The open outdoor and glassed in porches one more common space for more family members to consider hanging out or shelling peas, sipping coffee on. Renting out the extra space for Airbnb or to provide areas for exchange students or to run an inn, a Maine B&B.

The US Census uncovered that the average size of a house in this country is 2657 square feet.

How do you fit into that statistic? Maine is not a state flush with cash, or filled with residences that boast three bedrooms but eight bathrooms. That’s HGTV west coast Hollywood talking. Could you pare it all down and squeeze into a tinier you 500 square foot leaner, greener four walls? They say smaller, tiny homes mean less decorating, force you not to accumulate so much. Tips for moving what and when regardless we hammered out in an earlier real estate blog post on relocating to Maine. The local Amish settlements produce small buildings that many use as “tiny homes” that get modified by the owner. Lots of folks for vacation or homesteading combine more than one Amish storage shed to make them into living area. Here is another Maine tiny home link.

There was a time in the early 1980’s when the Farmer’s Home Administration (FmHA) made the decision to lighten the load. Of housing stock 1400 square foot or larger that came into foreclosure inventory. And that was to be financed for a dollar down and the 33 year loan with 396 payments. The subsidized housing program shifted to a ranch style 1008 square foot goal that was one floor, insulated to the hilt. And the folks buying them made to look hard at their housing budget to make sure they were taught economics 101 to hang onto the home not lose it to come back to Uncle Sam in foreclosure.

Small Maine Farm Sustainable Agriculture. Hard Work, A Highly Rewarding Lifestyle.

The 1400 square foot houses that were priced low, financed for 10% down for a ten year loan were so cheap to buy. That it allowed the new home owner of a foreclosed home to have money left over from the payment load to channel it into whatever maintenance the big and beautiful housing stock required to be ship shape.

Or to fix up, flip and move on up the real estate housing food chain. To try on something different for the house around them. To adapt to a new to them home with a different set of features, size and location that worked best at the time for whatever life cycle they swam in today. Your real estate needs change and not just because you use a walker to get around or the chicks have flown the coop. Divorce, death, disease and on a brighter note promotions, more stork deliveries can cause the itch that needs to be scratched to make the move to something new and different. To impact your quality of life. Being self-sufficient working on fencing, puttering on farm buildings from hen houses to tractor sheds and storage barns.

Home too large, a big house scaring you from purchase? Consider an income generating apartment in one section and if you ask lots of questions going in, you can get a quality renter for the rental portion of the down sized home. Also tax deduction write offs because a portion of maintenance, maybe heating, other items can be used to sweeten the renting out part of your Maine home.

Do you run the roads, do you entertain at home, do you enjoy sitting in a den in front of a roaring fire? In a kitchen rocker not far from a wood cook stove?

Are the kids on every sport’s team known to man and summer camps, year round tune up clinics are part of your daily experience? Is being home a joy or torture? Are you anxious, feeling like you are missing out on something that is not happening in your own backyard? Had it up to here with neighbors? Or long for a few good ones? Would you consider buying then tearing down the house next to you if it came up for sale? Or approaching the neighbor on the other side of the eye sore to purchase it together and have it hauled away with the remaining house lot split down the middle. For one less neighbor in the hood.

Christmas Reflections In Houlton Maine. Small Town Proud Makes The Holiday Colors Brighter, Spirits Higher. Ready, Want A House In A Small Maine Town Setting?

Where the house in Maine is big or small or somewhere in between. To add a water front element. To have a view, to add to the property acreage to own fields, pasture, your own wood lot to heat the house. Or the option to add on easily with a pay as you go, DIY using some bartering skills. Beyond the size, features in a Maine house you can afford to enhance your lifestyle is a big part of why you might want to move. To experience living in a yesteryear grand old larger home in small rural Maine is possible where the same elegance in an urban area is not so common and priced out of reach.

Formal dinners at home, not at Bonanza sliding a plastic cafeteria tray with triangular numbers riding on them or dining on the daily special at Governors or a Pat’s Pizza.

Using a butler’s pantry, the servant’s corner nooks and crannies, overseeing the canning and preserving operation in the summer kitchen. Sneaking up hidden rear stairway passages. Watching your cat bask in the stained glass natural lighting spilling on the floor where he or she naps. Wainscoting, raised panel ceilings, tin, marble, granite, exotic maintained or not patterned multi toned woods of all kinds. Using the upstairs sleeping porch on a hot summer night.

Converting the walk up attic space into a teenager’s hideaway or media room. Drawing from the root cellar provisions and wood just the size of the heating chamber it feeds through out the day and night. As Old Man Winter loses his gas. And Jack Frost packs up his weather tools for another year. And the early flowers poke their heads through the ground signaling spring is knocking. Bring out the porch furniture, refill the gas grill canister. Service the lawnmower. Fill those driveway potholes and re-hang the rain gutters.

Or on your knees in the spiritual flower beds and tasty vegetable gardens. Enjoying bird feeders, your pets of all sizes with space to hang out in and outside of home. Why you live where you do and was it inherited, where you grew up? Or a house that Jack built without a large mortgage hanging around your neck. Built slowly calling in favors and watching you tube videos on house construction. Tapping into skills honed back in shop class. But the table saw in the living room for years until the housing project turned the corner at least. And earlier work is time to replace because the kid’s grew up and out they went. It’s been a couple decades filtering out of the hour glass revolutions. What size house is best for you if you relocated to Maine or already live here but thinking of changing it up when the real estate market is favorable?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

January 1, 2018
Portland Stage, Finding Common Connections Within The Community.

Back in an earlier life as a Bangor Maine broadcast news director, I interviewed Eaton Tarbell, a patron of the performing arts.

New At Acting Old. The Potter In This Play Is A Lady Playing The Business Angles Expertly.

He designed lots of buildings around the state. Tarbell was a regular on the airwaves for colorful sound bites. On the show often to check in and update the listening audience with the latest happenings behind the curtain at Lakewood Theatre , Maine’s oldest summer theatre in America. Lakewood Theatre raises the curtain on first rate performances of comedies, dramas, musicals, and children’s shows. The productions at Lakewood run on stage from late-May through mid-September. This year marked the 117th season for Lakewood. Where is Lakewood Theatre? Find the productions, a restaurant to at 76 Theatre Road, Madison, ME 04950 • (207) 474-7176.

Maine, A Fun Place Inside And Out. Drive The Back Roads Outside And Discover Much About Maine, Yourself. Hit A Play Production Inside.

This past weekend, I was fortunate to take in a live show at the Portland Stage.

The live radio broadcast simulated for the holiday play production Of “It’s A Wonderful Life”. In the handout Anita Stewart, the Portland Stage Executive and Artistic Director spells it out simply. The mission to discover the character who you think you know from your introduction during the first scene. But as the play progresses the unexpected side of the character appears. The unexpected happens. It points the process we all do in quick scans, sudden judgements as we filter all we think we need to know to sum it up nice and neatly.

The connective play thread this season at the Portland Stage according to Stewart is to open up the possibility that there is a different way of approaching one another. The play characters help us understand the World is full of complex people if we just open up to take the time to go beyond that initial layer when we size them up maybe just a little too pat. And if you see yourself in the characters, maybe it will help accepting others in the community. Small towns, the handful of cities in Maine and our families, in our lives that are comprised of folks just like you and me. And many others that are not carbon copies. So we learn to embrace those differences that help us grow and learn that benefits us all.

Learning Over The Play Scenes, That It Is A Wonderful Life George Bailey. An Angel Is Finally Going To Get His Wings.

If you can rip yourself away from the holiday carol singing, the mad dash to present shopping ’til you drop.

Take the time to squeeze in a play performance at the Portland Stage for “It’s A Wonderful Life; A Live Radio Play.” An adaptation by Joe Landry to help you celebrate the Holiday Season with a beloved classic. The show bill teaser promises “This heartwarming story of renewal is retold as a 1940’s radio broadcast. Complete with sound effects performed live on stage. With the help of an ensemble and angle called Clarence who has been waiting around 200 years to get a set of wings. George Bailey discovers the million ways we are tied to those around us.”

The play runs from November 24 through December 24, 2017. There’s even a Christmas carol or two that the audience gets invited to sing. To warm up the audience because they are part of the radio theatre broadcast. You feel part of the production because the audience is relied on to put their hands together when the applause light shines.

Looking Into Their Lives Played Live Before You At The Portland Stage Play House In Maine’s Largest City.

When the hand held signs instruct to “hiss” or “ahhh” or a variety of other commands right on cue. To help the at home audience fill in what they can not witness first hand watching the stage production. That radio land audience that only has their ears to guide the vivid imagination parked behind their unused eyes.

Amidst AM static with the reception degree of crackling tied to the weather, the type and height of antennae. Or the distance away from the transmitted filled with tubes and causing cancer to the majority of first class engineers keeping the signal pumping, the radio station on air.

The audience of thousands tuned into the broadcast signal beamed into each and every living rooms. Where families crowd around the wooden early radio cabinet using the all there was medium for family entertainment. The same device connecting them to the outside World. Used to collect most of their important news from stock market crashes to Pearl Harbor Sunday morning bombings. To follow the radio serial shows, the baseball games and to catch musical performances. Along with the nightly news, crop reports, local weather forecasts and political race results.

The Theatre Production “It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play”. The Portland Stage Curtain Raises.

The play production intermission means tasty cookies, fresh moist cakes and other delicacies with a variety of refreshments all calling you in unison from your theatre rows and rows of seats. As the house lights come on you rise to saunter to the lobby. To stretch your legs between play production scenes for a little snack.

The chatter is loud after being silent so long. Knowing whispering is really talking. While all attention is eyes forward to follow the unfolding story line. Watching the play line by recited line develop the characters carefully from out in the audience.

Talking between scenes now about the play characters, comparing notes on how the performance is hitting each of those sitting around you. Studying the large black and whites on the wall. Peeking at upcoming play productions and cursing yourselves for past ones missed and still talked about because they were that

Making A Point, To Help The Plot, Develop The Play. Taking Turns Reciting Lines. It’s Show Time For The Portland Stage’s “It’s A Wonderful Life”.

good. Milling around and exposed to new people you get to know that love the same performing arts. Performed under hot spot lights,bathing your favorite characters in colorful pools, inside the shadows of the gels. The audience that follows the actors, the series of season play productions through out the year once the bug bites you. To challenge, inspire, to reflect. That is what the Portland Stage acting troupe strives to do and puts the mission in writing so they never forget either.

Have you been in community theatre as a character, playing in a cast? Do you make it a habit to attend plays, to follow the productions of a acting group? Break a leg. Maine has lots of folks dedicated to small town community theatre. This blogging channel on Maine has featured community theatre before and will again. The play production live audience makes the stage characters soar, stay flat or flop badly. That audience is the reflections, is the indicator of just how are we doing behind the footlights. Maine, so many sides to this jewel. Her facets are many and life is so short.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

December 10, 2017
Slide Something Maine Made Under The Christmas Tree.

The hoopla of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and what to get for those loved ones on the Christmas list.

Let face it. Kids are easy to shop for with long lists to select from provided early on in the season. But those that already weathered the accumulation stage of their life have everything they need. Don’t want for much and there is the conundrum for the task of what to buy to slide under their bedazzled tree. What do they need, what will they really appreciate for a Christmas gift. No, not another fruit cake. Please.

So local made gifts from artisans, craftsmen that are unique. Nothing you are going to find on sale looming at an end cap at Wally World. Or piled, racked and stacked high in rows at a local Marden’s outlet. What to buy to spread the cheer and goodwill to mankind? Besides a year’s subscription to a Maine magazine or Uncle Henry’s buy, sell, swap guide.

Tradition, Wearing Wool Snow Caps Flipping Burgers And Pancakes. Maine Has Distinctive Eateries. Diner Gift Certificates Go Over Well For Christmas Presents.

Hmmmm. If you are not the handy, crafty type to create lots of home made gifts that warm their heart.

Here are a few hundred suggestions for Maine made special gifts. And a special spotlight for daughter in law who is a pretty talented artist. Creating a lot of original one of a kind gift ideas that are tailor made for Maine. Check out Cynthia Taylor Studio on Etsy. (Sorry for the shameless plug.) Cynthia Taylor is the art teacher at Houlton High School. Yes I am proud of her work illustrating she loves Maine.

Some of the best gifts are the creation of a child who worked hard on those plaster of paris hand prints, the water colors that are a snap shot of their lower to the ground life perspective. Kids have it easy to win the hearts of family members who tear up knowing the effort put into the gift. But again, are you that talented to create something that does not win the response “you shouldn’t have… really.” And you never apprenticed at Santa’s workshop so producing lots of gifts as time runs out heading into Christmas day. Not going to happen.

Something the person can use, that they really wanted this year and that won’t be a duplicate under their tree. Those gift ideas are generated by spending time with the person and making a mental note on something you see they need or that comes up in conversation as something they could really use. That is in your budget for the ho ho ho.

Warm clothes, a set of jumper cables or cord of firewood are pretty practical but most appreciated when you need them the most.

In Maine, there are long lines are great cooks. So food never goes out of style over the holidays. Holiday plates loaded with sugar sweet goodies, colorful jars with home made relishes. And all created with love. Helpfully created with a smile. Those never go out of style. Giving an experience, like a rental on a Maine lake, a weekend in a coastal B & B to explore another area of Maine that is not so familiar to your loved one or friend. Artwork from a setting that you know the person haunts in Maine.

Ski Pass, Lift Ticket, White Water Rafting Trip. Anything Maine Outdoors Is A Welcomed Christmas Present.

Christmas gift ideas, are you stumped?

Anything that captures the flavor of Maine that does not feel commercialized works best.

That gift opened up to ooh and ahh that is real, honest, genuine Maine. When no one is looking, help yourself to an SD card of someone that is pretty skilled at photography of Maine. Produce the 8×10 or larger, matted image to hang on their wall. All of us want to create those but time has a way of delaying the process.

Or get a snap shot of a landscape that you know reminds the gift receiver on your list of a special spot in Maine.

Steve Beckwith is pretty artful with the camera capture of Maine images. Or how about old barns in Maine that are right up there with lighthouses for me personally. I bet there are others that like the rural barns in any condition or Maine lighthouses out there in the blog post audience.

Maine has over 100 microbreweries I learned yesterday. The last count on Maine local micro breweries I knew of was forty one and growing. Maine has four time the micro farmers than any other state I read online recently too. Maine seafood is always a special gift that the givee will usually but not always share with you the presenter. Tried and tested old family recipes never go out of style around the holidays. Maybe a gym membership to work them off could be a nice tag-along gift idea. How about a cup of Maine coffee with a twist?

Maine Four Season Recreation. See Maine On An ATV ITS Trail Ride, On A Snow Sled, Hoofing And Hiking It.

Giving to a good none profit that you know someone supports can make their heart glow because you care about the same cause. Small town local always adds to the joy of giving and receiving in Maine.

Buy music venue tickets, seats for a local produced play production in Maine.

There is more to consider for a gift than just big box stores provide. Hope these Maine Christmas gift suggestions help.

A bird house made out of Maine license plates, or old barn boards. There is no shortage of crafty options to consider. A stained glass moose. For gifts that reek of Maine, to remind those on the receiving end of the place they love to visit on vacations. To bedeck their lake cottage or woods camp that is pure Maine. There is only one place like it. Maine, the way life should be.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

November 28, 2017
Prem Pak, The Maine Trucking Company Hauling Potatoes, Paper Products

In 1963 My Dad And Mom Bought Their 1st White Tractor Trailer Truck

Then Kept Adding To The Fleet That Hauled Their Own Home Grown Potatoes And Brokering Other Farmer’s Spuds To Truck Them To Boston, Hartford, New York City. Then Returning To Wakefield Or Medford MA For A Back Haul Of Paper Products… French Fry Cartons For Potato Service In Presque Isle, The Packaging Used Up in Madawaska For Jade East Cologne. Here Are Some Of The Fleet, A Couple Drivers Spotlighted That Just Turned Up Hidden Away At The Farm. Estle McPherson And Dean Lynds I Think Are The Two Of Many Prem Pak Had Up In The Cab And Behind The Wheel. All Powered By Cummins Diesel Engines. Most Trailer Great Dane Models Bought New. To Haul The Trailer Truck Loads.

Proud Of A Trailer Truck, Prem Pak Transportation Driver Poses Before Climbing Up In The Cab Over.

Elmer Snell And Al Packard And Gerald Prosser Lifted The Cab Or Opened The Hood Of “Ole Elmer, Dopey” That Kept Everything Running Like A Top! Who Did The Oil Changing, The Wrench Turning Mechanics For The Fleet. Doug McNutt, Albert Fitz, Jeff Bossie, Jack Graham, Roger Oliver, Carl Cottle, Sandy Graham, Reuben Albert. Joey Nadeau, Charlie McAtee, Wayne Drake, Sonny And Bobbie Howe Are Just A Few Of The Drivers That Come To Mind. Fee Free To Add More.

Jack Graham With His Super Sized Blue Bottle Of Malox Under His Arm Drove The White International Transtar With The 903 Power Plant. My Favorite Driver Was Elwood Kelley Who Drove The 335 Powered Peterbilt And Took Me On Many Trips Riding Shot Gun To The City As A Little Kid Who Helped Unload In The Produce Markets On D Street, Hunt’s Point, Etc. Trading A Left Over Bag Of Russets Or Whatever Variety Of Spuds For Fresh Florida Oranges, Grapefruit Or Melons. Then Eating Whole Fried Clams At The Belle Air Diner On RT 128 Leaving Boston. Kelly Loved Kids And Was An Expert Driver. The Big Farm Barn Worked Excellent For A Truck Terminal For The Ten Trucks, More Trailers.

Alison Britton The Sign Painter Before Larry McCarthy Took Over Lettering New Trucks Or One’s Fixed After A Wreck Hitting Deer, Trees, Etc. Prem Pak Had ICC Transportation Rights Purchased When McCauley’s Express In MA Was Bought Out Before Deregulation Of Transportation Happened. http://staging.meinmaine.com/…/dopey-was-a-single-screw-with-t…/

The Old Veteran Drivers Did Not Have Automatic Transmissions Or Electric Fifth Wheel Lock Switches. No Wireless Cells, No Texting “I Just Got Pulled Over By Smokey Bear Whipping Out His Portable Weigh Scales.” As He Climbed The Ladder, Asking For The Log Book. No No… Truckers Used To Drop The Coins With The Correct Change Standing Out in The Cold Using Pay Phone Land Lines. Cupping One Ear While Pressing The Dial Number Phone Tightly To The Other Ear. Trying To Hear Without Outside Wind Blowing, Other Trucks And Cars Zipping By On Lines Where You Got In The Habit Of Shouting When Making Long Distance, Person To Person Calls.

Part Of The Fleet Of Trucks Hauling Maine Potatoes To The Markets. The Others On The Road.

Had No XM But Lots Of Bootleg 8 Tracks, CB Radios With Antennae Whips On Both West Coast Mirrors With A Line Hooked To A Linear 75 Or More Watt Amp To Boost The “Breaker Breaker 19 Got Your Ears On?” Channel Signal For The Best Chatter Reception.

Chain Drive Wallets Tethered To Your Belt Loops With The Leather Held Together By The Big Silver Buckle. Heavy Boots And A Heavy Club To Hit All 18 Tires To Make Sure They Did Not Go Square Many Mile Markers Down The Road. A Flat On The Inside And The Wrong Size Spares In The Trailer Rack … Oh Oh. Better Call John R To Ask What Do You Want Me To Do Now. Overweight In CT Where They Throw You In Jail. Yikes. Overdrive Magazines, Others Quite Exotic Under Tucked Under The Sleeper Bunk Mattress.

Part Of A Family Owned Trucking Company, Prem Pak Hauled Potatoes Down Country, Paper Products For A Back Haul Load.

Fans Keeping The Fog Off The Inside Of The Windshield. Heaters Not So Hot Blowing Ice Cold Air. So Wearing Long Underwear And Dressing Warm A Must. Cussing At Air Brakes That Froze Up. Wipers That Won’t When You Need Them Most. During A Snow White Out As You Creep Along And Are Gonna Miss Another Birthday, A Holiday When Told To Turn Around, To Fetch Another Back Haul With Only Five Stops. Your Truck The Home Away From Home.

And Hey, I’m Broke Down With A Full Load On The Side Of The Road South Of Dallas. You Needed Tow Trucks Lowering The Big Hook With Jimmy Ritchie’s Help At Houlton Truck Garage. Using A Dead Man Block And Tackle To Pull You Back Onto Your Feet Or Out Of The Ditch Hole. Not To Just Open Up A Lap Top To Keep Them Running On All Cylinders And Pointed The Right Direction Down The Highway.

Trucks Hauling Freight. They Unlike The Railroad Could Give Overnight Service For Just In Time Inventory Control. I Hear Truckers Get Blamed For All The Accidents But Know First Hand They Go Off The Road, Avoid At All Costs Hitting The Car With The Texting Or Hammered Driver Behind The Wheel Causing The Costly Wrecks And Canceled Carrier Insurance.

You Can Not Stop 73,280 or 100,000 Pounds On A Dime When Driving An 18 Wheeler On Black Ice Good Buddy.

That’s A Big 10-4, We’re Gone Bye Bye…. Cue Dave Dudley, There Were Quite A Few Entertainers Mining That Behind The Wheel Pulling The Air Horn Musical Theme. He Was One Of The Country And Western Truck Driving Hit Makers. Tap The Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-kUyV76X-g For Some Tuneage That Ties Into This Blog Post Theme. Maine Trucking, As A Little Kid It Was Need To Travel In The Rigs And See The Bright Lights, Big City. Transportation Is The Second Largest Industry In Our Country. Don’t Believe It? Shut Off A City With Truck Deliveries For A Few Days And Hear The Whine, Feel The Pain.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

November 19, 2017
The Menu For Thanksgiving Dinner When You Dine In Maine

The holidays are not the time to diet

Loosen the belt, put away the Zumba fitness CD. It was not just the Pilgrims who sampled quite the feast put on by the native first settlers. Maine food dishes prepared with local ingredients taste so much better too after being outside in the fresh crisp air too. Whether working on a farm, tramping the woods while hunting looking for game or splitting, stacking firewood.

Mountain Ash Berries Wrapped In Ice On A Maine Lake Today.

So Thanksgiving dinner, what to serve up for the gathering around your table? Traditions for Thanksgiving mean much of what you create in the kitchen or ask others to contribute is from memories of what you remember growing up. Everyone likes green bean casserole with the onions on top and the yummy sauce right? But what is the best recipe for green bean casserole? Do you want it crunchy, cheesy, jazzy?

On our farm table growing up Maine potatoes were a given. When you grow them, you are exposed to many ways to enjoy spuds. Whipped potatoes seemed to be the choice by my mom. The pearled onions, the squash, sweet potato all steaming in bowls escorted from the pantry to the formal dining room table used on special occasions. Cinnamon rolls like any breads take a special touch I have been told. And growing up, whenever my Mom asked what should she bring to a family or social dinner, it was hand’s down always her cinnamon rolls. They were to die for and akin to the nectar of the Gods.

Layered jello salads, watergate salads. Not only the sweet potatoes had marshmallow swimming in them. Never was a fan of the jello with the carrots and who knows what else mixed and chilled inside. But some likes them because they are a constant.The plate is only so large and what to fill it with in the eenie meenie miney moe of Thanksgiving food offerings.

Peas and yellow beans with cream could show up as a vegetable choice for some. Peas were a standard entry that you could bank on. Ambrosia salad with the cherries, mandarin oranges, orchard apples. pineapple, peaches, everything plucked from a fruit tree. The dinnerware not used but a handful of times a year added to the celebration remembrance. So did the decorations, the floral arrangements that were all natural, from the local seasonal surrroundings.

Turkey with the stuffing, gravy to lather the taters the standard, spiral ham could debut at Christmas. Deer meat venison. It’s what’s for Thanksgiving dinner for some.

But Delmonico steaks grilled on the charcoal outside the farmhouse porch entry could make their way to our Maine family feast. The meat not parked for days and price stickered. Not the kind clear wrapped and hoisted out of the cooler but something different. Hidden like a present in white paper, tied with string. A pencil marking the price, what was hiding inside. After a special request was made ringing the bell. to relay the order to the hunched over butcher with the red stained white frock. Who hand delivered it to you as you continued to fill the wire basket grocery cart with the one squeaky obstinate wheel.

Lots Of Public Suppers, Ones At Thanksgiving Happen In Small Maine Towns. Across The Baked Beans, Coleslaw, Brown Bread And Potato Salad Table Conversations.

Mince meat pie, pecan, coconut cream, lemon meringue or cherry were not the norm but were on the holiday menu besides your year round standards of strawberry, raspberry, apple, pumpkin or blueberry pies. Or hot about another mocca ball, a little fudge or mixed nuts for grazing before or after the feast? Squares come in so many flavors and the cookies were not the kind you buy wrapped in cellophane with elves painted on the store bought packages.

Seafood from Maine got invited to Christmas celebrations and Thanksgiving more the bounty harvested from the local farm fields. Oyster stew or crab cakes served up Christmas Eve. No reason why a Maine lobster or steamer clams or salmon could be provided table space to celebrate the guy in white fur and red velvet and roof top tap dancing reindeer’s visit right? Ho ho happy holidays.

Thanksgiving dining to give thanks, to count your blessings even it is pizza, bologna and cheese sandwiches. Being thankful to have any food, for the fellowship and a time of reflection on the past year.

Thanksgiving meant who sits where, who carves the bird. The guest list created new. To include first time diners to the table, to include the regulars still living and the lost ones in your bow your head, holding hands blessing prayers.

It’s your holiday to celebrate the best way possible. Pass the cranberry sauce, the bread and butter pickles, the many relishes please. There is no shortage of the extras like lady ashburnham or beet pickles as your eyes scanned the family table. That is like a culinary tetris game to find open table space for one more dish or platter. The buffet loaded up with the overflow, the cold drinks, coffee urns and what could not be parked on the dining room table. That would only straight jacket diners and only serve to interfere with available elbow room.

Home Made Maine Pies, What’s Your Favorite Kind?

The Thanksgiving dinner spread seemed to be more harvest gold theme because we had just put the turnip, squashes, carrots, pumpkins in the root cellar. Fiddle heads to douse with vinegar could show up at Thanksgiving or Christmas or both. Picked from along brook and river side banks back in early spring and frozen for the special occasion family dining.

What’s for dinner this Thanksgiving at your home? Have you ever worked a free Thanksgiving dinner for the public members that have no family? Whether Veterans who served, shut ins house house bound and afraid of ice when using walkers. Or folks just missing any living or close by family members, Thanksgiving should not be spent alone. I think about the truck drivers, soldiers overseas who have to adopt new family to share the time of gratitude, the holiday called Thanksgiving.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

November 14, 2017
Wild Blueberries In Maine, Nothing Else Compares.

Growing up on a Maine potato farm, my three older brothers and I did not eat a lot of rice. Not so many helpings of fresh Maine blueberries either.

Local fruit like raspberries, strawberries, apples, pears were the mainstay for something sweet. To end, to round out the family table offerings at meal time. A fresh, homemade healthy sized slab of strawberry / rhubarb pie blended nicely. The two fruits were very compatible. Heated up, with a couple super sized vanilla scoops of ice cream parked high on top. Lazily melting to drizzle slowly down the sides. You get the picture, can almost smell it through the monitor speakers right?

Need A Nutritious Maine Blueberry Snack? It’s Off The Charts For Health Benefits. Not Just Marketing Hype.

Blueberries, the high bush cultivated kind are grown around Northern Maine.

You see volunteer, stray wild blueberry plants hiking up Mt Katahdin. When planting the walking stick over other hills and dale hikes. But the wild blueberry crop is something found almost exclusively in Downeast Maine. Unless working the blueberry fields under a hot sun, and sampling the crop as you rake the lanes marked with strings, this dark blue fruit is not so familiar.

So highlight time on this Maine blog post to showcase Maine wild blueberries. Where to begin? For starters, every vegetable or fruit is a super pick of the pack, best of the bunch, cream of the crop one right? Today’s marketing puts whatever is being pitched over the top. Claiming a bowl full of these fix everything. To extend your life by at least a decade. To make the quality of your short time on planet Earth jacked up a few notches. All because of weaving a little of this, a lot of that into your diet. Of whatever you put in the pie hole three times or more a day.

The Maine Blueberry Crew Field Rakers Are a Motley Bunch.

But what about these wild blueberries in Maine?

What is the down and dirty true story about Maine wild blueberries? History, let’s start with the background of the wild blueberry. The first settlers, our Native Americans used fire to start the ritual. To rid Maine fields Downeast of insects and weeds. The burning of the blueberry barrens made the fruit come back hardy and stronger.

Like the shrub or decorative bush out front your home. Some the harder you cut back and prune the more determined they respond. To the Edward Scissorhand’s treatment in the snip and clip cutting.

Like To Own, Run A Maine Blueberry Farm? Just Listed One In Northfield Maine Near Machias.

Better quality, thicker growth, higher yields, more sugar content. All that helped establish Maine as the largest producer of wild blueberries in the world. The succulent fruit is harvested from over 60,000 acres of Maine land. Wild blueberries in Maine were some of the first vegetation on the scene after glaciers did their bump and grind scrape of the landscape. Being purple blue adds to the health benefits of blueberries.

More on this wild blueberry history Bangor Daily New article.

The Maine wild blueberry has been around the breakfast / lunch – dinner / supper circuit for a thousand years or more. Ever raked blueberries, been part of the hand picking and gleaning operation under the hot Maine harvest sun? Like potato picking, you never forget the lessons learned that stick with you for life.

Like most things, it takes time to go over the top. You get the best results from the hard labor. No pain, no gain. I have read it takes 50 years to establish a good wild blueberry field, that there are only about 6.5 million versions or varieties of wild Maine blueberries. And I thought there were a slug of Maine potato varieties to keep up with and match the changing habits and taste buds of spud consumers. I grew up with those discussions around the supper table because my Dad was president of the Maine potato council and testified in Washington DC hearings on the farmer’s behalf. I remember the campaigns to improve the quality of Maine potatoes. Bruisers are losers was one bumper sticker used to increase awareness of being kind in handling the Maine potato. Or is it potatoe?

So back to Maine blueberries, the wild ones or tame varieties that are domesticated and house broken.

The flavor that explodes from a fork full of blueberry pie with buttery crust, sprinkled sugar crystals. Or from simply popping a few from your hand out in the field. It is a complex mixture of flavors. All you know if you like it, you love it, you want some more of it. Sorry. Now you have that song in your head. My bad.

The Views, The Washington County Setting For The Age Old Maine Blueberry Farming Tradition.

Only one percent of the Maine blueberry crop is sold fresh and the other ninety-nine percent is frozen. Has the chance this past weekend to list a Maine blueberry farm for sale. And even though my conventional farming background helps the learning curve, and my girlfriend along who owns an organic Maine farm, we both learned much.

This blueberry farm in Maine has 71 acres of the fruit and established markets. Set in Northfield Maine population under 150 like many rural Vacationland towns. Maine has 492 towns and so many are shrinking and going the unorganized territory route. Northfield Maine is bucking the trend and holding it’s own, growing slightly. Fulton, Bogg Lakes in the small Washington County Maine town don’t hurt keeping the population steady either.

The nutrition of the wild Maine blueberry, growing up on not the best soil conditions, with lots of rocks.

We’re talking big rocks of all kinds and sizes. A rugged, hilly terrain that an Aroostook County potato or grain farmer could not plant and cultivate or harvest without machinery damage. A far cry from the level to rolling, just rich rusting orange soil with a new crop of way way smaller rocks showing up to escort to piles along the boundary lines. Maybe the rough surroundings for the blueberry plant help make it stronger, a fighter. It is reported Maine wild blueberries have the highest antioxidant capacity per serving, compared with more than 20 other fruits.

Maine Blueberries, Can You Just Taste Them From This Eye Candy Image Designed To Tempt And Tease?

Maine blueberries, they say good things come in small packages.

When is the last time you had a blueberry flavored ice cream cone, a milkshake smoothie or planted in your morning muffin, in the pancake breakfast mix? Some sprinkled on top of your Wheaties. Maybe is is time for a healthy dose of this super fruit. Maine blueberries are a crop not planted and that only grows, spreads naturally.

Mother Nature does the heavy lifting, controls the blueberry farm crop. Man not so much. Maine blueberries are a two year cycle which helps the crop rotation and keeps the plant happy, healthy. Double the antioxidants and why not raise your hand and shout out “Maine wild blueberries please and thank you!’

One of the latest health and wellness trends is collagen peptides. Blueberries score sky high. Also, did you know thousands of beehives are brought in by Maine blueberry growers to pollinate the blueberry fields? More on wild Maine blueberries.

Maine blueberries, where do they show up in your list of fruits and healthy food preferences?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

September 26, 2017