When you live in Maine, there is so much at your finger tips to enjoy in a place like not many others.
What You See. Walking The Cobble Streets, The Winding Alleys Up Hills In Quebec City Canada.
The coast line, the vast woods, the rolling farm fields and all the lakes, wildlife and smaller, but friendlier population of Maine boasts much.
But the option to hop across the border and sample some of Canada is always so easy. Quebec was dubbed New France by the French king and a visit to the old historic sections discovered by Samuel De Champlain is rich in the history that evolved since 1608 when a few toughed it out and the population of Frenchmen and their transported culture ignited.
Made a Memorial Day trip to Quebec City this year and surprised by the different feel of the 7th largest of the Canadian cities.
Partly because of growth and change since the last visit and because most of the prior trips across the Maine border were in February’s celebration of winter carnival. As a kid staying with my three older brothers and parents at the Hotel Frontenac which is one impressive hotel structure. More on Winter Carnival in Quebec City Canada.
The Sights, Sound, Food When Exploring Quebec City Canada Are Many. Discounted Loonie Helps The US Dollar’s Buying Power Too When Traveling To Canada These Days.
The Hotel Frontenac is dubbed one of the most photographed hotels in the World.
Just taking an image of the one and on and up up up sections of it pull you in to her charm. The Canadian Pacific railroad designed it to be a luxury hotel to accommodate the wealthy who make Quebec City a tourism stop. The Chateau Frontenac opened it’s ever expanding lobby doors in 1893.
It takes 318 miles or five hours, twenty minutes to travel from Houlton Maine parked on the US border to travel to Quebec City. That is shorter than the 6.5 hours to Boston MA and with the 25% US dollar advantage over the Canadian loonie, the reasons to make that trip to Quebec or other provinces waving the red maple leaf overhead extra attractive to the wallet.
Taking the Trans Canada from Houlton Maine up through New Brunswick and then cutting a hard left to enter into Quebec is faster sailing than up through Aroostook County.
We zipped up and back that route and it reminded me of all the trips across the border for hockey games because the two boys chased the black puck on the sheet of frozen water.
The large church cathedrals in the Quebec province are impressive and their fine details a sight to behold. The elaborate frescoes, the stained glass, stone and wood work. The the layout of Old Quebec and the building construction styles all add to the richness of a walk up the narrow side hill network of streets.
Hotel Frontenac In Quebec City Is Impressive, So Large And Varied In Design High On The Hill Overlooking The St Lawrence Seaway.
The history of defending the hill top fortress Fort Saint Jean from attack, the walking tours of today work up an appetite for the French cuisine.
Touring the fertile fields in the Ile D’orleans farm section, an island in the St Lawrence seaway just outside Quebec City.
And returning across the bridge, veer right to get a little exercise. Bring a rain jacket and hike up the network of stairs around Montmorency Falls. Where the brave strap on, attach their bodies to zip across the water falls by a fast cable ride that has a picnic area, playground on top to make it family friendly. The elevation offers the views of the area 7.5 miles from Quebec City.
Tulips In Quebec City Are Colorful! Lots Of Open Parks To Sit And Reflect.
Sample All Vacationland has to offer. Come to Maine, whenever you can. But make it a two nation vacation with our Canadian neighbors eh? The French Acadian culture, the history of the Atlantic Provinces of Canada are waiting to meet and greet.
And visitors to Canada are invited to cross the US International border to see what Maine has to offer. Maine is one big state and borders lots of Canada because we are so far north some say we should be “over home”.
Make a date to check out and collect Canadian tourist spots as you do the same in your sampling of Maine. I joke that Mainer’s are at least a third Canadian because of the cross border family connections.
My Dad’s Mom was 100% Canadian being born and brought up in Burtt’s Corner in New Brunswick Canada. Her maiden name was Burtt. As a traveler, bring you pass port but know you can easily hop back and worth to weave the best of both countries. Maine, Canada, where each side of the border has family ties and a deep connection from our long, fond historic roots.
When spring gets underway in Maine in good shape, the activity around door yards picks up as folks tackle outdoor projects.
The house maintenance and landscaping levers to repair, clean and tidy up from the ravages of winter in Maine get thrown forward hard. And while Mom, Dad or someone’s grandparents, your neighbor are busy bees pulling suggestions left and right out of the to do job jar, the smallest kids are focused on play. Jumping on trampolines, skipping rope, stacking firewood, playing baseball in whoever has the largest back yard.
Maine. The Jewels Are Out In The Open, Glistening, Sparkling In The Daylight Reflection. Not Trapped, Under A Light In A Locked Up Tight Display Case. A Cutler Maine Island.
Kid trikes and bikes, the smallest kind with teeny weeny wheels always hit me.
I guess because as a kid a bike was so much fun. It was also a kid in Maine’s ticket to freedom. Especially if you lived in the country and achieved the age needed for the parents to decide it’s time. That their kid could venture into town using their bike. Om their own and trusted to be careful, make good decisions. Whether a banana, English racer, mountain bike or something inbetween a new version of a very old method of transportation.
What a feeling to head to town, using simple bike pedal power to trade in the scenery from a rural setting for one that unfolds into the downtown of a Maine community. Trusted to bike into town alone or in a pack of others your age. To ply the streets, hit the recreation centers or maybe to perform the task that generated the jingle in your pocket.
Mowing lawns in town was something I did to create the cash flow. Money to handle with better spending impulse control because it was my own. Earned not handed to me. And whatever I did buy with the money generated from the grass clippings was treated with respect. Because I had sacrificed something to earn it and was not going to part with it like the potato picking lesson. Unless it was fairly priced and something I needed. Mowing lawns a weekly commitment and working around the rain or social events was on my shoulders to keep the grass nice and neat.
Today a home with a pair of small bikes from an abandoned renter and a dumpster being filled to the grim rim made me think about who they were purchased for and why the parents did not take them along when they moved.
Get Lost, Be Found. Find Your Island, Special Space In Maine.
I knew how much I enjoyed my bike growing up and can tell you about each and every model along the way. And as an adult, I still bike because Maine is one sweet place to safely do it. They report counting up 3166 islands in Maine. Whoa, that is a lot more than I thought there were but think of the lakes, rivers with islands that must be added to the long list of coastal ones.
On an island in Maine, the traffic is nil or a slow trickle if you do run into it at all. And one of the best places to bike without fear of too many vehicles to weave and bob around is on a Maine island. To avoid becoming the hood ornament on a car driven by someone with limited older peepers traveling at a healthy clip that might be struggling with the angle of the sun streaming through the vehicle’s windshield. And all of a sudden, whoops, did not see you as the bike gets bumped. Or to avoid being hit you and your bike head into the pucker brush if chased off the shoulder of the shared roadway in Maine.
Windy, No Tourist To Shoot Images, Video Around. That Is Why Winter Lighthouse Visits Leave A Lasting Impression.
Maine islands to bike around, either with your own two wheel bike from home or hitting a rental place.
In so many European cities you see row after row of bikes. To make the deposit for it to get released from the metal grip. Of it’s rightful owner so you can lift a leg up and over the cross bar, to hop up on to the seat and push away. To begin the journey in Maine seen pedaling a bike slowly and rotating your noggin to take in the surroundings. The feel of a summer breeze, the smell of the salt air and you are a kid again on a bike. Single or multi speed, it matters not. You haven’t forgotten how to ride and balance a bike. Standing up and pumping to labor up a small or big hill.
Remembering the joy of riding your bike. And seeing the rest of the family following the outer perimeter of the Maine island. Plus cris-crossing the interior streets as the secondary gain from the biking gives you a sense of what life is like on the Maine island. Studying the housing stock, seeing the school or library and shops along the dock of the ferry landing.
You get to imagine life, ferry schedules, what needs to be brought to the island for supplies of all kinds, the seasons, history and what if you lived on the island in Maine surrounded by water.
Where the summer population of say Long Island beyond Peakes Island off Portland Maine is roughly 230 inhabitants. The census that shrinks to around 70 in winter. Talked with a lady this week who wanted to sell her camp in Patten Maine that she and her husband own who live full time on Long Island Maine. She normally would have been painting lobster buoy markers the day she called. But the rain as promised in the Maine weather forecast drove her to look for inside work.
Reaching out to say they just don’t get up to use the place in the woods in Penobscot County near Baxter Park’s north entrance. So let’s list it, sell it. Let someone else get some use out of it and to be elected to keep the roof shoveled winters and other assorted handyman chores passed their way. Not using the Maine woods retreat because something keeps them now from enjoying the Northern Maine camp like they once did.
I asked about Long Island and to learn about a place in Maine I had never been. Yet.
Maine Is Space. On Land, Out The Water! Personal Safety Is Big Here. Crime Is Not.
Had used good old Brad’s Bike Rental in the past with kids, or loaded my own bike from home. That was chain drive bearing click click clicking sounding as it rolls onto the Casco Bay Ferry. For the ride across waves of water to Peakes Island before too. To circle it, check out the bunker left over from World War Two keeping an eye out for German U boats.
Brad’s fleet of bike on Peakes Island is quite a motley collection and self serve on Sunday. First come, first serve and you never what you are going to be riding but that is part of the adventure. The honor system for payment for the bike rental helps maintain your faith in your fellow man to do the right thing.
But what else did I learn from a local about Long Island? About the Internet being super fast and the basement of the library or school not sure which being converted to add cubicle, incubator space to entice telecommuters to the small island. The camp owner’s husband a lobsterman for eight months of the year, an electrician the rest of the dozen.
Long Island, not the one in New York that folks pronounced correctly in a funny, exaggerated way but this one in Maine.
Only an independent island since 1993 and seceding from Portland Maine. Andrew’s Beach is a hidden gem and don’t expect a lot of signage showing the way to the three acre state park or to announce when you actually arrive at the destination. The pair of very small, beginner bikes I spied with my little eye this week got me to thinking it is time to bike. But where in Maine Waldo? More on exploring Maine by bike.
Cranberry Isles Maine is another push pin on the Vacationland map to sample someday too. It is a half hour off Mount Desert Island, Maine. Don’t forget to take the Carriages of Acadia horse drawn ride in your MDI visit. With historic information shared as you clip clop around Maine’s national park network of trails. What’s up your sleeve for a visit venue in Maine to shake it up and to avoid the same tourist trap you could easily fall into again?
Largemouth bass, northern pike, rainbow smelt, black crappie … no, someone did not just hand you a Maine restaurant menu for your fish dinner choices.
Illegal game fish introduced into Maine’s waterways is serious stuff. I was taking my youngest son’s black cocker spaniel Nicky for a walk early this morning and down by the Meduxnekeag River boat landing I saw the warning sign.
Take The Picture. I Want. No Need To Go For A Walk Okay?
Like a wanted poster stapled up out west in the days of sleeping under the stars, eating canned beans, slurping coffee listening to coyotes. Propped up against your Western saddle next to your bed roll digging out the harmonica or knife to whittle. The river side sign shares news about up to $10,000 fines, $2000 reward checks being written to convictions of any one introducing illegal Maine game fish into our state’s precious waterways.
Here’s what the Inland, Fisheries people point out is the public enemy hit list for some of the fish that wreck the natural habitat on Maine’s waterfront.
Largemouth bass – If a waterbody already contains smallmouth bass, largemouth bass commonly outcompete smallmouths reducing their overall abundance. If a trout stocking program is active in a waterbody that largemouth bass become established in, the bass prey upon the stocked trout. This decreases angler catch rates for trout and may prompt MDIFW biologists to stop stocking trout altogether if predation rates on stocked trout become unacceptably high. Introduced largemouth bass have also decimated Maine baitfish populations in many waters, eliminating excellent opportunities to harvest baitfish, both recreationally and commercially.
Northern pike – Pike introductions create a significant change to the fish population structure within a waterbody. They will prey upon any available forage species (smelt, shiners, fallfish, and perch) as well as game fish (bass, pickerel, and both wild and stocked trout and salmon species). This reduces the overall abundance of both forage and game fish, which has drastic impacts to anglers over time. Protect our Maine waterways or lose them is the sobering choice to make.
Muskellunge – Muskies negatively impact wild brook trout populations in Maine. Due to their preference for cool-water habitat muskie actively prey upon native minnow species and brook trout. They also at the same time crowd out brook trout and slow down water habitat balance cycle. This reduces the overall abundance of brook trout in ponds and rivers where muskie are present. This impacts greatly the angler catch rates of trout over time. The reduction hurts our tourism economy, the local enjoyment of wetting the lines and casting for fish a long time Maine tradition.
A Maine Lake For A Neighbor. Yeah, Do That. Protect That If You Are So Lucky.
Black crappie – Black crappie compete for forage with existing fish species when introduced to a waterbody. Due to their fast growth rates and high productivity, crappie can quickly become abundant. A unique life history trait exhibited by crappie is large-scale downstream movement of young-of-year fish. This allows for quick colonization of downstream waters.
Smallmouth bass – When smallmouth bass are introduced into waters with wild brook trout populations they prey upon the brook trout and compete with trout for food and available habitat. As the bass population becomes more abundant they will reduce or extirpate brook trout and spread into accessible waters upstream or downstream.
Landlocked alewife – Landlocked alewives compete with smelt populations, often reducing the abundance of smelt in a waterbody. This change produces a profound negative impact to landlocked salmon because smelt are the primary forage for salmon. Reduced smelt abundance decreases salmon growth and abundance, along with angler satisfaction.
Rainbow smelt – Smelt are common in many waters and are native to Maine. Though often used for bait, their introduction into wild brook trout ponds and small-sized Arctic charr waters cause significant negative impacts to trout and charr because adult smelt prey on the young of both species.
Leaving the natural resource to your kids in better shape than you found it is good stewardship. It is respect and consideration for the fish that need protection from anglers. And further education to show how the problem impacts the natural habitat.
But protection of the Maine waterways means we all have a role and should be concerned whether an angler or not. If fish could talk, the natives would gurgle lots. About watersheds and timber cutting operations miles away messing up the inlets to their homes. Lake loons, turtle, otters and all the other waterway animals would add to the chorus of what threatens their healthy way of life.
Stretch Your Neck Out, Consider Getting Your Own Maine Waterfront Property. But Protecting It Means Working Together To Combat Illegal Fish Introductions, Milfoil Education & MORE!
When a non-native or invasive species is illegally introduced into a Maine waterbody the following serious impacts can occur:
Prey upon existing fish species in that Maine waterbody.
Compete with existing Maine fish species for food and habitat.
Spread to other Maine waterbodies (upstream and downstream) that are connected to the original water. This expands the range of the new species and continues impacting other existing fish populations.
Increase the potential for fish diseases to be spread and for the introduction of new diseases from outside of Maine.
Existing Maine regulations on the importation of live fish and health screening requirements for authorized transfers have prevented the spread of most fish diseases into Maine from neighboring states.
Once an introduced fish species becomes established in a waterbody the fish community is changed forever. Education awareness is the key to give everyone a head’s up on what is threatening Maine’s waterfront.
We have blogged on milfoil before too which is not a pretty development in our Maine lakes and ponds.
Brought in by unclean props, float planes, etc, milfoil education has been on going and public funds are available to hire people to help the volunteer lake association members. To hand out brochures, connect with anglers and boaters. To monitor boat landings around Maine and increase awareness on how serious milfoil vegetative infestation really is to our heritage of clean fresh waterways. Before it takes over the waterfront and the remedies get tougher to correct and reverse the negative impact to the species of fish and other wildlife that call our lakes, ponds, rivers and streams home in Maine.
The attitude of the locals, sure Maine comedians try to exaggerate the Downeast slant that at times takes a different angle on day to day life in Vacationland.
Like the Purple Clam video blogged about earlier if you drop in for the hit or miss on the post stream. Hit the Downeast hyper link above. The friggin’ clam is determined not to be trapped in the wire basket with the handle. He frustrates and wears out the digger down a finger on one hand. Who has a score to settle on the mud flats near the blueberry barrens of Maine.
Free Of Layers Of Players, Maine Simple Living Means Reduce, Reuse, Conserve.
But how someone appears to sweet or sour sound in conversation and what they really feel deep down inside don’t always match up in the ballistics test review.
We all know being around someone that is toxic can suck the air out of the room. That bitching, complaining can be contagious and a nasty habit. Discouragement and slow to change thinking to adapt to new economic situations can mire a person who just gets weighed down too heavily.
Overloaded worrisome thinking means head to the hills of Maine. For some control, alternate, delete. The nature trail of fresh air and clean running water that regains a healthy perspective. Does a body and mind good. A positive outlook always gets a person through the day best.
So the spell when a rural small Maine town gets challenged to revamp how it rocks and rolls.
Paper or lumbering mill communities have the biggest economic hangover. Farming with hops and the scramble to get in on the ground floor of pot creates a buzz. The increase of younger micro farm producers has caused a stir in both the organic and conventional agriculture sides of Maine field operations.
Slow to change means dying on the vine, bleeding out and look Mom, no more small dot on the Maine Gazatteer atlas map.
Banding together for consolidation and reduction of duplication of services started years ago. Late night meetings into the wee hours to discuss the limited choices. Plenty of time to get used to the idea of inevitable change and the right direction in the tough choices has already happened. To avoid deorganization and surrender of identity to one of the sixteen counties that absorb the townships, plantations that become township this, range that auto piloted one level up the government food chain pay grade.
The Peace And Quiet In Maine. Unplug, Recharge, Get Your Head Screwed On Straight.
Unfortunately the quickest way to turn the wagons around on the way into a box canyon is to be bankrupt on resources. So no more delay or talking solutions to death without implementing necessary steps ceases. Unfortunately “We’re out of money” is the quickest way to cause change instead of hoping each department or program administrator pulls themselves out of the local mud collectively.
Doing the right thing for the greater good means letting go, not looking over the shoulder waiting for Augusta Maine legislators and the Governor to come to the rescue.
These are the good old days twenty years from now looking back. The talk about “they need to this, that” discussion and pointing at leaders six feet under pushing up daisies wastes precious time. You and I are “they”. For the lead, follow or get out of the way.
Tradition, Wearing Wool Snow Caps Flipping Burgers And Pancakes. Maine Has Distinctive Eateries.
So when you vacation in Maine, as you head deeper into Vacationland away from the tourist traps, you see rugged individuals.
Polished smooth by hard time and perseverance. Experiences not taught in a classroom. These salt of the Earth individuals that work, live, play in small Maine landscapes. They are dependable, constant and never waiver. Not fickle fair weather friends but friends for life.
That have a few more facial lines than most and not from laughter but concern. And plenty of outdoor weather exposure in all kinds of elements. The desire for more jobs so our young don’t have to be the number one export is on the minds of all. And the need to stay positive and brainstorm to creatively hammer out the best solutions to keep small Maine towns more than just afloat. But to prosper and grow takes patience and sharp tongues that are silenced with duct tape over the pie holes. Best case scenarios solutions to real problems and not personal attacks is the only approach small Maine town populations can adopt.
Get excited, not discouraged. Be part of the solution, not the problem that need a common plan that the majority of locals can believe in to tackle the issues.
Spring in Maine, a time of yard work to repair the truck plowing lawn scars, to remove rocks air lifted in from the snow blower.
Sides of houses pressure washed to release the sand and salt residue that clings to the exterior. And garage doors thrown open high and the interiors swamped out and organized. Just like the cars and trucks we hunker down in when the white blanket covers the landscape in Maine.
Spring is a time when not just your Maine house cats, dogs, whatever pet that samples the two dishes through out the day acts a little funny. Like they are on too catnip.
Cabin fever from the being stuck inside a little more than you would like over winter intensifies as the snow banks surrender and the temperature rises in the tube sampling the air outside your kitchen window.
Free at last. Especially if you are in the elderly demographic of Mainers and worried sick for too long. About that hidden layer of glare ice that might be lurking under the new fallen snow. That snow adds lubrication to the polished ice formation like a moat causing house arrest. That makes conditions ideal for a broken hip or dislocated shoulder if the house dweller inside gets any ideas of a quick escape to Wally World, Piggly Wiggly or Mardens. No one wants the siren ride to the ER and the OR pin applied to the hip right?
Searching For A Snack. Shy Maine Black Bears Shake Off Hibernation And Become More Social.
Throwing open windows and house doors to exchange the air inside for the fresh stuff the other side of the insulated barriers.
Study intently of the online and newsprint canoe and kayak racing circuit schedule news. For trophies to add to the collection gathering dust in the bookcase or on the fireplace mantel. Or the row row or paddle your boat for just the sheer pleasure of floating, coasting with the current at your own pace. Down a winter run off engorged river or stream in Maine with fellow friends, family and neighbors that is a spring tradition for many in Maine. You see the green and red water craft leaning against garages, getting ready for the heave ho hoist to the rack on the back of pickups around Maine. As the angled yellow or red or stainless steel angled plow and frame come off the other end.
The vegetable seed catalogs have long ago been delivered and peat pots on old newspapers cover card tables and porch room window sills.
Both areas littered with jump started, sprouting vegetables to transplant because of they are the best areas to capture the all important sunshine.
That is invited into Maine homes lucky enough to have an eastern, better yet southerly exposure location. The pools of warm sunshine same areas cats like to lounge as they follow the yellow and red ball radiation of heat and light from room to room in houses around Maine.
Maine Moose Jogging By A Maple Syrup Tapped Grove. Spring Air Stirs The Wildlife And The Local Natives.
Plans for a bigger garden this year with new editions that were not on the menu for family dining when harvested after the regiment of planting, weeding, watering, feeding in the labor of love. To serve your family, yourself and all the folks you share the excess bounty from the good old Earth that creates the all natural foodstuffs. In the piece of dirt that can be measured in feet, yards or acres depending on the size of the metes and bounds legal description in the deed to the house you call home in Maine.
Funneling the income tax return to needed repairs or to erase debt for the free and clear. That is part of spring’s ritual involving whether you owe or get a refund. Filling in driveway pot holes, pushing dirt back in to smooth out the runway stop and go. Spring means lots of exercising that involves ladders, holes, window washing and tightening, straightening what is loose.
New Year’s a regular time of resolutions for a better disciplined life as the ball drops and you kiss the one you love and rip off the month of December from the kitchen calendar.
But spring is a time of action to get results from the pledge IOU’s written under the influence of bubbly grape juice or barley pop or whatever firewater tickles the taste buds to fresh you in life celebrations and mile stones. Gratitude is riches and that blessing increases inside especially in spring. A time of renewed hope, faith and relief that robins and song birds return from the south along with lake loons who serenade us nightly as we circle our chairs around open fire pits for some outdoor gap fests and heart to heart therapy sessions.
Opening up the lake, woods, river camps in Maine.
Chasing out the mice who hung out while you were gone. Making a mental list transferred to the scribble on the job jar items that may be a little too ambitious for your back and wallet. But nonetheless created in gusto with prioritizing like the triage exercise in an emergency room. To determine whether the machine shed roof on a set of Maine farm property buildings trumps the replacement of the two windows or sliding doors that have lost their seal and fog over. Interfering with the view of the bird feeder that attracts winged delights of all kinds and a fair share of the cats and squirrels, chipmunks from around the neighborhood to shoo away with the daisy red rider broadcasting copper pellets.
Next Year’s Wood Pile In Tree Life Form. Ready To Knit On, To Slowly Cut And Split Into Just The Right Stove Lengths. Mainers Stay A Season Ahead With Their Wood Stash.
Screwing back on or replacing hanging by one screw mud flaps. Getting a new windshield pinged by a sand truck rock on the way to the local sport’s team and their quest for a gold basketball or coveted hockey trophy. The new sheet of glass so the new vehicle inspection sticker can be applied to avoid the blue lights from Smokey Bear asking for license and your registration please.
Tending the wood home fires stops. Feeding the stoves and furnaces winds down. Next year’s tree length is delivered to prepared early for the next round of winter weather. Staying ahead of the heating curve.
Trips around Maine because you are lucky enough to live here and sample easily the delights of the many regions of Vacationland. Those are mulled over in the shower, humming while shaving with the guy you meet and greet each day in the bathroom mirror. Or while performing the thorough, deep spring cleaning where interior walls get scrubbed, curtains washed or dry cleaned and wardrobes exchanged. To slip into something more comfortable to match the weather in Maine now playing outside your home or camp or cottage.
Treks with picnic baskets to Baxter Park, down to the rugged rock bound coast line in Maine.
Hiking up the hills, biking around the islands that deliver whatever you peddle by ferry boats running on tight schedules when the Maine weather allows them to without peril. Collecting another light house in Maine for the collection.
The Sweet Stuff, Rock Maple Sap That Boils Down 40 To 1 For The Golden Mixture To Ooze And Drizzle On Your Griddle Stacks Of Maine Blueberry Pancakes.
Trips to visit, pay respects to family plots on the spots in a cemetery where departed loved ones are buried. The plastic flowers replaced with rear ones in some cases. Trimming bushes, shaping landscaping trees to keep them low to the ground and respectful. Silent and audible conversations had with the ones you miss but know are in a better place with no suffering and saving you a seat.
Maine home shows around the state give you ideas for renovations to your castle this spring and beyond.
New toys for the water front or all the trails that dot and dash the Gazetteer map to explore get attention too if sales too hard to pass up are marketed correctly. The seed is already planted in Mainers who study the Uncle Henry’s and Craiglist for a true bargain. Snow sled trail markers and directional signs are collected, uprooted in muddy fields. To make way for the farmers to drop the chisel plow to get ready for another spring planting when the soil warms up and drys out.
Awareness sharpens in spring because of the lull caused by spending more time than you would like indoors over a Maine winter. The exercise regiment increases and the pounds added on during the holidays melt away like the snow flakes free loading in receding bank on properties around Maine. Green grass awaits, golf courses too and hardware trips to perform a few of the requests at a time on the honey do list.
Spring time in Maine, folks of all ages smile more, dream louder.
Kids sense it first as bikes are hauled out of storage way too early. And forgetting to wear a coat as they race for the trampoline under chilly conditions remind you what it is like to be young and not carry the weight of mortgage payments, poor medical reports and juggling the check book.
If you only spend time in Maine around July 4th, add some new dance steps to your vacation fox trot or jitter bug up the pike numbered “95” into the Pine Tree state. Maine, she does a body good and once those heart strings are found, she never lets go and you don’t mind one bit.
Maine’s magic is all about living simpler without wall to wall people invading your personal space.
And you know how clutter piling up around your home can cause stress? Or the feeling of being perpetually late, pushed hard to be here, there, everywhere can overwhelm? Because you are just being pulled in too many directions. When you take a deep breath, step back and study what’s is causing the what is missing, the causes are plain as day. How you fill your day is still a personal decision right ? And you do have some say in the life you lead or do you?
Families, Outdoor Fun, Maine Fresh Air. Winter Greets Spring. Priceless.
What leaves you out of sorts, feeling deep down dissatisfied is often just too many people pushing and shoving and making demands on you.
Maine is under populated, with vast unspoiled space which helps tremendously to set the stage for the healthier living foundation to build on. Not many people to deal with means much is missing and just does not show up on your radar.
The high cost of city living, all the traffic, noise, expense and worry about personal safety weigh a person down big time. Like heavy cement shoes were slipped on permanently in just your size. Or your pair of arms are pressed tightly against your chest as if a permanent strait jacket was laced up and buckled tightly to cut off your air supply. And who put on these leg irons? Ah, you did.
What can rob a beautiful day of promise shortly after you rise and are suppose to shine?
What brings in the dark clouds that hides the blue sky and makes you a prisoner is not someone else’s fault. The over stuffed bloat and everything just not in its right place around you day in and out takes its toll. Empties a person. Shouldn’t you be able to fill your schedule day and night with some hand picked items and live your own life with some self input in the personal choices?
Maine Is Real, Peaceful, Not Crowded. One Of The Lowest Crime States.
That feeling of not being as ship shape as you want and powerless to change your life’s direction. Virtually out of control weary added to a continuous over booked lifestyle where the clock is your drill sergeant can leave a person drained. Bone weary.
Wondering what’s wrong. It’s what is missing. A person can self medicate to temporarily address the symptoms. But they don’t go away on their own. And clutter is not just what fills your household living space. It spills over beyond the physical square footage you call home and where you stuff whatever you hoard and consider treasure.
A day at a time makes the how do you fix the direction your life has taken easier to accomplish. Causes patience, the sincere effort needed to force the self examination. You can not fix what you don’t address by avoiding making the time for study. The neat thing about blog posts from real people out in the World around us is sharing.
How do the rest of the Earth inhabitants live, and how do you apply new ways of thinking, doing to your own life is easier than ever with the Internet.
Granted, you can spend a lot of time surfing, drilling down into a topic and looking for the rich veins of information that are hidden nuggets to search online.
The Imaginations Working Full Time Outdoors, Lungs Full Of Fresh Maine Air.
The root cause of what is ailing you can make a person feel pretty powerless as the hide and go seek exercise unfolds. If you make the time. Isn’t it time? Come to Maine, open up your mind and heart and run away from all those people that distract.
Simple living in Maine, everything that’s important becomes crystal clear.
Everything that was blurred comes into crystal clear perspective. Ready to find out about Maine, the way life should be? Or don’t. Stay stuck, treading water and just trying to avoid people when they are wall to wall around you that only limits your life. Makes it easily to just pile on more layers of what is not rewarding and lasting but simply a time and money hog. Are you just killing time?
Have you thought about living in Maine?
Trading in the gerbil on the tread wheel existence squeak squeak squeak. What it would be like to live simply in Maine?
Spring is in the air in Maine as winter wanes, Mr Sun gets stronger overhead our small communities.
Spring fever, cabin fever intensifies as warmer days, cooler but not cold nights become the norm. As the season change begins transition. Maple syrup sap is starting to run. The snow is melting and spring skiing, snow sledding is superb. Ice shacks are heading off the frozen sheets of water to prepare for smelts running, other forms of trolling for your fish dinner.
Local Mainers are digging out from winter. Reading seed catalogs. Enjoying natural speed bumps and driving obstacles. While a fresh crop of pot holes are in full bloom as frost heaves release the frozen hold on the ground around us.
Sample Maine on a vacation and consider what if you lived here full time?
If you were involved in your small Maine community and needed, contributing to others who do the same to benefit you in the process. Maine, come for a day, end up staying a lifetime.
