The life in a small town Maine community is more connected, down to Earth, real.
What is important is the other people in the local area. Every individual who hangs his or her hat in the small Maine town has lots of tasks living where there are less people to fill the community needs. You see it especially during a 4th of July celebration. Because everyone rallies to put on an event to be proud of that is home grown and local.
Small Maine Towns Are Closer To The Wildlife, The Recreation Trails. Less People, More Space, Clear Air, Fresh Water Make It Unspoiled Special!
Small Maine towns are safe, there is so much to get involved in that you best pace yourself. The small Maine town local citizens are aware of how lucky they are every trip to a city. Sure it’s fun to hit a Boston Red Sox game. But to return to small town living without the traffic, the round the clock sounds of emergency responders is a wonderful relief.
Small Maine towns are affordable, have a unique collection of individuals who really care about the local area.
They are invested and work the events beyond just the 4th of July. Everyone traveling to Maine knows low cost vacations are possible. You are able to relax when worry about crime or too many people causing all the slow or not moving traffic are removed from your field of vision. You can ease up and feel the tension removed when you make it to one of the hundreds and hundreds of small Maine towns to rest and relax.
Not Losing Old Ways Of Doing Things. Maine Is The Blend Of Old And New. The Pace Slow Enough For Pleasure Horses For Example. Or Working Ones Too.
Closer to Mother Nature. living on a Maine lake, spending time at a wood’s camp. Getting to know Jack Frost, Old Man Winter. Many get the bug to stay in Maine longer than just one week a year the more exposures to Vacationland they log on their life journey to discover and explore new regions.
The thought of moving, relocatng to Maine becomes a strong one when the contrast from city living is stacked up against small town living. So much is missing when all the people of a large population are removed. The lack of lots of money to fund events means the local citizenry has to belly up to the bar and get creative to pull off the year after year calendar of events small Maine towns are famous for creating and sustaining.
In small Maine towns, you get to know the other people in them because of working together for the common good.
From all the volunteering on the non profit projects that need attention in small Maine communities you get to know each other pretty closely. Because working together on the many events binds the population tighter. Benefit suppers to help
Traffic Is Not Usually This Heavy Or Aggressive Dog Eat Dog in Small Maine Towns.
show you collectively care when a family is struggling makes it all about others. And your turn to reward others when you get back on your feet is a strong emotion because you are blown away at the level of caring that is given to those between a rock and a hard place.
Everyone kind of knows each other too as time marches on because of the volunteering to serve the community needs.
So when you see a pick up parked beside the road, you stop to make sure everyone is all right. That nothing is needed by the person you are used to seeing behind the wheel. You stop and go back. If the owner is elderly, you make special concessions when you meet them on the road. They might not be the best driver on the highway but not because they are texting or drinking. But old age can dull the reflexes a tad. Can make the vision or depth perception of the peepers a little less sharp. We look out for each other in small Maine towns.
So when you consider how do small Maine town’s people entertain themselves, don’t feel sorry for us because there are not huge sprawling malls to walk around to kill time or perform some retail therapy. They might be part of a 100 person community band. It is not always coming to the rescue of a local family in their time of extreme need. Often the attention is splashed on, poured into kid events. Realize the behind the scenes are the local events they work on and how rewarding being on the front lines and in the trenches of community activities really is. Maine is the way life should be and the fresh air, brighter stars, clean water and less people all help serve up a completely different life experience.
State of Maine agricultural fairs, there are twenty five last count that start the end of June and run until October.
The number of local community members working year round on Maine fairs is staggering. Pitch in, find areas you can add something to is a common pursuit of many small town local Maine community members. Here is more on Maine state fairs. And for dates and times of fairs around Maine, visit this schedule link.
Maine Four Season Recreation. See Maine On An ATV ITS Trail Ride, On A Snow Sled, Hoofing And Hiking It.
Why are Maine state agricultural fairs so much fun?
Because they are family orient, there is something for everyone. From 4H exhibits from photography to cooking and the ability to walk through the stables to visit with goats, chickens, cows, and to attend horse shows, truck and tractor pulls, the list of why fairs in Maine are attractive is a long one. I relish a foot long Italian sausage with the fried green and red peppers, the grilled onions in a fresh bread roll. Walking through the Midway if the state fair is lucky enough to have rides and game exhibits, you feel like a kid again. And you realize how important, how special this fair is when you consider the rides through a pair of eight, ten, twelve year old eyes. The Ferris wheel to look over all that
Midnight Madness In Houlton Maine, Aroostook County Seat Or Shiretown.
gets set up quickly by the carnies and the locals who join forces for a state fair.
Once fireworks were legalized in Maine, it seems the ground and sky shows took on a new level of excitement.
More competition, more options all out in the open for the consumer and communities alike. The fireworks cost came down as the legality improved to remove the black market sales and to regulate the sky shows and ground displays for safety sake. What it is about a state fair that makes you come back year after year? Proud to be an American and 4th of July displays hit a patriotic nerve? Or hands on displays of simple living or reminders of why you live in Maine rubbing shoulders with your fellow man part of it?
Food, fun, fair rides, games, horse shows, farm animal and tractor exhibits all add to living in Maine.
Animals, People Of Maine Get Along Just Fine. Because It’s Not Crowded. We Need Each Other.
The Maine state fairs often have a theme and beside local and national music acts, the state of Maine gets in on the action. Take for example the Common Ground Fair… there are hands on demonstrations for living off the land. Better living with farm to the table food that you know was never gassed or sprayed with who knows what to push production. New ways to live better, healthier, to squeeze more joy, to increase awareness of improved living options.
The Common Ground Fair is in September in Maine. You are what you eat, your lifestyle is up to you. Your kids are watching and learning from the example you set for them to 5, 6, 7, 8. Plus you always get a neat t-shirt, something in the take away from a state of Maine fair experience stays with you.
Or you work a component of it to make the experience extra special for others. Holding down a tent location or working behind the scenes in a state of Maine agricultural fair exhibit. It is all about others and sharing what you and I have learned. Comparing notes, helping improve others life by sharing, caring and making an effort for your fellow man. That’s what it’s all about. Hey. (Said, sand, recited to the tune of Hokey Pokie.)
Would You Take Driver’s Education From This Demolition Derby Driver?
Antique car shows, everything from souped up lawnmowers to race to demolition derby crash up car competitions. Maine state fairs offer more than beano or bingo, fair food vendors and carnival rides. Buying a raffle ticket on a worthwhile local cause. Little Miss or Mr Fire Cracker competitions. Local talent, there is lots in a Maine small community.
If a small Maine town is still able to be a state fair venue, it is a sign of strong local volunteers that work tirelessly year after year to sustain and improve the event.
Liability insurance if a big expense. We live in a time where some people sue for a living, for revenge and there are fewer and fewer honest mistakes or good Samaritan acts.
The local Maine weather can wreak havoc with the best laid plans on the fair brochure line up. Lots of planning, plenty of seed money goes into the line items for a state of Maine fair venue schedule.
State fairs of Maine, is it the dough boys with white confectionery sugar or cinnamon dusting?
The Carnival Food, Fun, Games, Rides. Did You Get Your Fill This 4th Of July In Maine?
Is the horse show, the animal exhibits, the fireworks, the carnival midway rides and games that make you return to see what you are missing? Our local Rotary Club used to man the gates into the state fair. You did your shift, met lots of local folks coming through the gates and it was like old home week with your relatives that were in the mix of people heading in to the state fair. Here is a video of one local Maine state fairs, usually the first on the list. The eager beaver in Maine in my home town of Houlton, the oldest town in Aroostook County.
I am spoiled because I live in Maine. I am a local, a native and have access to all the wonder that happens year round, season after season up here in the northern most New England state wedged up against Atlantic Canada and Quebec. This summer and early fall I pledge to visit some of the state fairs in Maine I have missed and to report back to the readership. To post a blog post or video clip and some imagery to showcase what you are missing faithful Me In Maine blog post readers. To display what happens at each of the unique state fairs, the agricultural presentations that dot the state of Maine. That put each vibrant community and area of one of the sixteen counties of Maine on the map. Maine is the way life should be.
Maine homes are more often than not surrounded by big lawns
If you have company from across the pond, this fact is one of the first observations someone from say London or Paris noticed. Back where they hail from, something that big for a wrapper of land surrounding a home is tilled up and farmed. Something besides blades of grass kept crew cut short is what the generous helpings of land are used for… it is tilled or something with four legs grazes on the grass, clover, whatever else good looks good to eat if you are a farm animal.
Maine Lawns Are Bigger Than Most. Cats Enjoy The Vegetation Around The Lawns To Hide Out.
What is the reason for such large lawns? Maybe it is because not so long ago, everyone lived on small family farms in Maine. We all farmed and mowing large lawns now gives us a feeling of haying once a week spring, summer, fall. Now that many of us chase the dollar working for someone else 9-5.
The rolling lawn in front, to the sides and out back of a New England farm house is pretty when it is kept free of burdocks, red brackle and small poplars that take hold quickly. Even fiddle heads show up around houses and the more moist areas around a property in Maine. If you don’t keep the land mowed weekly or at least bush hogged once a year or the land hayed.
Some of my best thinking is done riding the John Deere or Cub Cadet International garden tractor with the large mowing deck.
You can see what you did when you tuck the mower away in the barn or garage and there is a sense of accomplishment, of property pride. You notice birds in the trees, you check of the home and the countryside as you gawk around mowing. Because it is not a hard, mind bending exercise.
If No Lawn Grass, Something Other Than Brush, Burdochs Needs To Be Growing In Open Space In Maine. Like Lupines. A Pretty Weed.
Fresh mowed lawns. It is relaxing to mow, to see the rows in the sequence and all of us in Maine were taught by expert lawnmowers. It was not racing around in circles but trimmed around the trees with a hand mower or weed wacker combined with the power mower exercise. It was done right or time to do it over.
Big lawns, how large should you mow? Some folks check the watch, mow for an hour, give or take depending on how big a time pledge they want to put to keeping the grass trimmed. And when they get to that pre-determined time, that’s it. Shut off the mower, pull up the deck and be line back to the storage area until next week. Or earlier if sunshine, plenty of rain means you need to repeat the lawn mowing more than once some weeks.
Lawn mowing is contagious. You like to get the property mowed before the weekend, prior to long holiday spans. It is something your parents instilled in you as a young grass chopper in Maine.
Mowing by hand is great exercise.
Victorians In Maine Have Big Lawns Wrapped Around Them. Landscaped Grounds Add Sparkle To The Big Homes.
Up and down hill slopes. Back and forth, alternating the angles to make it new and different for the travel pattern. Instead of a treadmill at the gym, just pull the cord of a hand pushed, not self propelled model and see the wright drip off slow by sure. Working around the weather makes mowing hard when three days of rain elevated the blades longer than you would like. The clubs of dead grass clippings clog a mower, make it work Cherry, harder and look like yard hair balls.
Mainers love to mow lawns.
I have had properties for sale where sellers are out late at night applying weed and feed and in one big private competition to make sure their landscape is picture perfect. They act like it just happens on its own but deep down inside are pretty competitive with neighbors around the hood where they hang their hat.
You can use gang reel mowers behind a tractor or four wheeler to mowing large level to rolling stretches of green grass. If not grass, apple orchards are planted, wild flowers are encouraged with meadow in a can seeds broadcasts. Planting something for flowers or vegetables is always a personal choice for what grows around a home in Maine. Ornamental and fruit trees help showcase a property. We are brought up in Maine that is 91% forestested to plant trees, not cut and harvest them only. Being a good steward of Maine trees means thin them out, don’t clear cut or leave nothing to grow when the over story is removed. Hardwood ridges, so many trees to study and enjoy hiking in Maine.
Cherry, apple trees, raspberry bushes. Landscaping your lot in Maine is a delicate but rewarding process to plan out what goes and grows here or there. The attraction of birds, the sound of wind in the pine or fir needles vibrating with a low hum. Trees know the meaning of patience, time. Maples grow fast but can decay later on. I have a bunch of maples along a circular driveway that are ailing.
Cedar hedges look scrawny when you pull them out of the swamp and place the roots in burlap bags for transport and to be kept moist. But other than trimming, they are way way better than erecting large expensive fences that heave with the frost and need paint or stain or other maintenance. White birch trees are pretty and frail. Yellow birches are better for fire wood believe it or not. Beech, ash, not so many oak trees though all round out the choices you or Mother Nature will supply on open Maine land. Don’t forget the patch of rhubarb, high bush blueberries, elderberries, black berries, and herb garden to add to your flower beds, vegetable gardens on our patch of Maine dirt to enjoy.
Today one American farmer feeds 165 people. Our country has a cheap food policy and the grower, whoever raises your food gets about 16 cents from every dollar spent on whatever a farm produces. Roughly 2% of our national population are farmers, ranchers. Like many things, bigger happened to squeeze out the family farm way of life.
Maine Is Real, Peaceful, Not Crowded. One Of The Lowest Crime States.
Consolidation, volume production because the food prices do not keep pace with inflation, and the higher cost of farming made the lifestyle not so economically attractive. Most would agree the work ethic learned on a farm is a valuable lesson. But few are so positive that breaking even is considered a good year and just being excited to get to farm again come spring just won’t cut it.
So if eight out of ten people live in the city, if small rural populations are shrinking, what causes the longing for living off grid, for starting a small farm?
Ask yourself if you live in an urban center what you don’t like about your lifestyle. Too much commuting or time wasted trying to get from “A” to “B”. Fear of personal safety because the nightly news has some pretty gruesome stuff flashed before the audience tuning in to learn “that’s the way it is” for another day. Noise, high cost of housing, fast paced living that robs personal satisfaction and just lacking the freedom to be your own boss.
But being a farmer, living off the land is no picnic.
Work around the clock, hard labor and set backs due to the weather, poor markets or your own personal health. Physical labor helps you get in shape, sleep better nights when you shut off the lamp on the nightstand. But worry about staying on that family farm can cause nightmares. Farming can be a lot like gambling when you blow on the dice and hope for snake eyes or whatever is needed to come out on top to win the wager. More on living off grid.
Day Is Done, Cue The Stars, Crickets, Mister Moon.
Living off grid… is power that expensive or is the idea of not being plugged into a utility for juice part of the independence? Is burning a renewable natural resource like wood from your own land, cut and gathered and split, stacked to heat your home part of the attraction? To get away on dependency on foreign oil or natural gas? We’ve blogged about heating your Maine home with wood before and know the merits of being a son of a birch. Could you build your own cabin to live off the land?
Is living off grid a bit of a knee jerk over reaction to the pressure cooker of city living?
Is the romance of working the land, building your own home, the out buildings to go around the farmstead like a drug? Something to dream about to help fulfill the empty spot in a life that is lived but not rich or rewarding or natural. Being resourceful, learning new skills that have been untapped because you specialize in one and only one thing. And hire out pretty much everything else that depends on the credit card or write a check.
Simpler living means removing the money needed to keep it complicated. When it is a personal choice to step back, buy the Maine land and plan you cutting ties with the city to make the leap to work the dirt is not as scary because it is self inflicted. When the Great Depression caused drought, a dust bowl where nothing grew and the locals packed up to move away with little hope in their sails, the need to create a living besides farming meant industrial jobs, learning a trade besides the managing acreage.
How much land do you need to start a Maine farm?
Once fertile acre of Caribou loan will grow 32,000 pounds of food. That’s a square just shy of 208′ x 208′ and Maine land is cheap. Small rural Maine is the 4th lowest for crime statistics. Your fun is low or no cost when the outdoors with fresh air, clean water and missing the wall to wall sea of unknown faces city dwellers maneuver around daily. Would it be a shock to the system? Do you easily make the transition to small country living without much thought when it is your kids welfare that gets considered as the most important goal in your life? What’s important does change when you start a family and start to study where you can do it best for your children.
What’s Brown And White And Surrounded By Green? You See Lots Of These Among Maine Farmscapes. Start Of Living Off Grid, Starting A Farmstead?
New solar lightning, advances in batteries, LED lighting that uses less energy make living off grid more feasible. Wind generators have popped up around the landscape even here in small rural Maine. By living off grid do you mean unplowed roads and stuck way up in the woods far from town? Is there a happy medium of being on a dead end road not so far from town conveniences without all the added work of making a road, maintaining it by yourself. Neighbors are not bad but keeping them at a distance helps the fondness. Don’t fence me in was not just a Western notion. Too many people too tightly jammed together is a recipe for tension, emotions to boil over and it is all due to your personal space being invaded. Feeling you have no space of your own if you share it with every Tom, Dick and Harry.
Feeding yourself first and just keep your expenses low to the ground. Life is more enjoyable when you are not chasing the dollar to keep the wolf from your door. Feeling satisfied with personal success raising farm field to family table is also healthy for your body. In a day and age when cancer and other diseases are prevalent, you have to wonder about the toll stress, what we eat that should not be put down the gullet causes to the body we were given to care for the best we can. Do you feel you treat yourself the healthiest way possible? Or is it give me something to forget how unhappy or empty you are? That’s medicate the symptoms but not tackling the root of the problem.
Fixing up old ME farmhouses and all the buildings around the homestead.
Country living housing projects require plenty of skill, lots of home work study and boat loads of patience. Building construction on older agricultural properties are definitely labors of love. It is best if you the home owner can tackle as much of the rehab work yourself to save money and for the joy of a real estate fixer upper restoration project.
Fresh Hot Coffee, Whatever Meal Tastes Improve After Maine Farm Chores Are Done.
The older homes that were once the cornerstone of vibrant small Maine farm families present a challenge though from the two extremes.
The never had any repair places are original. But the damage caused from lack of maintenance means the repairs are more than just addressing the surface of what you can see on the inside. Deep down inside the bones of a Maine farmhouse you will can be forced to replace or repair the sills, the floor stringers, any dry rot that is hidden until you start swinging a crowbar.
The replacement materials in your re-construction of the country home that has fallen from grace sometimes means making the woodwork or hardware supporting it by hand. Because you can not just trot into a big box building supply outlet to move it from a shelf aisle into your shopping cart. Often finding another farmstead that is being torn down is a source for what you need on the construction project. Re-purposing from a salvage pile of another deceased farm home dwelling with the property owner’s permission to pick through the rubble. Or locating someone that did save the yesteryear materials that were once part of an older farmhouse that is no longer standing straight and sound. Who piled them up to store under cover for their own re-building project that lost steam or they simply had more than their needed and now want to gladly free up the storage space for other trinkets.
Referring to the historical building notes on the New England, whatever style homestead is part of learning curve in the housing restoration maneuver.
To determine what exactly is needed once the reconstruction project gets underway in good shape. Study of floor-plans, the cut away more detailed diagrams, watching videos on the repair of vintage older housing. Talking to the old time now retired tradesman that all add up to combine and help guide the rehabilitation efforts. All are essential in combination for the know how needed to tackle the many loose ends the old farmhouse can present. It is delicate finish work in the hammer and nail but also to bring the major operating systems of the country home into present day.
Coffee Early In The Morning The Old Fashion Way! Get To Maine, Relax, Breathe.
The home in rural Maine that has gone through many owners adding their own creative talents to the Walton’s type housing is in some ways even harder to bring back into line. The past owners did not work together toward the same goal. Instead of just a few areas needing immediate attention and small ongoing detailing to make it like the original structure, there can be too much lost that resembles what the place looked like back in the year it was built. The attention to detail can make the re-construction scope pretty much every single room no longer mirrors what the original builder put together from the ground up.
The fixing up old historic farmhouses in Maine is slow tedious work and often too extensive to hire out because of the hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars to fix or repair or replace what ails the homestead.
But as long as a bank mortgage underwriter is not pushing for the place to be complete before closing. And you have a partner that is equally patient in the undo, redo, make do as the house with all the land around it returns to what it originally looked like. The this old house story can have very few scary chapters and a happy ending at the end. Making it better than it was when you first started many moons ago.
The what to do first is usually like any house project triage. Selecting the repair or replace the roof or heating system ahead of the installation of a new to you old Monson and Maine slate farmhouse long sink. Or removing to replace the kitchen cabinet hardware, electrical light fixtures and switches to match the period of this particular home era it really belongs. To get it back like the Beatles sang about being where you once belonged. Buy a farm house, whatever type of property where the renovation can be done in stages.
If you are buying to hang onto the place and are invested, the repair this old home movie is a long one with sequels.
You can buy a home you can not afford if it needs work, you are your own general contractor and you go slow. And hire out when you absolutely have to and recognize you are over your head. But stay on budget and pull back, extend the time to completion when something pops up you did not anticipate but that needs immediate attention and some funding to correct.
The saw horses in one room where the lath and plaster is being removed to hang new sheet rock after insulation, electrical and plumbing lines are put into the wall cavities. The peeling back multiple floor layers of old linoleum to get back down to hopefully a solid sub-floor or hardwood/softwood finish level. You don’t know what you are going to find the deeper you go into the many projects that spring up in the fix and repair of the old farmhouse you signed on for when the deed to the land under it was recorded in local registry of deeds.
Houlton Maine, Shiretown of Aroostook County. The Early Years. More Farmers Growing Potato Spuds, More Lumberman Sawing The Timber Logs!
Study of online imagery from others who embarked on the same repair your farm residence journey just prior to you can be encouraging.
The before and after images on any housing rehab can scare even the homeowner holding the camera to snap the shots and reviewing them in the progress album. Once you get started, there is no turning back. And when you run out of money or the projects to repair are large ones, the timetable to completion can be pushed ahead many months or even years on the calendar hanging in the old farm style renovated home kitchen.
The original acreage can be part of the missing puzzle piece when you decide to pick a farmstead residence real estate mission to accept if you dare. Too many times the land around the home was sold off by the widow of the last farmer on record to own the place. A neighboring agricultural grower that rented the land makes the purchase of land, no buildings to absorb the fields, pastures and woodlots into their down the road operation.
Buying back land from one or multiple land owners around your investment can be costly or require waiting until the timing improves. Strongly held and currently cultivated farm land does not get sold off but remains cut off from the original spread it use to surround on the family farm in Maine. Fewer but larger farm operations in Maine are the trend but my state does show promise in reversing the trend. More than four times the national average of micro farmers are showing up in the US census information from the last Q & A done on the local population. No farmer, no food is a sobering thought no?
Other things to prepare for that you might not have thought about in the housing repair exercise? Pet smells, the kind you may not remove and definitely are not going to gloss over with some sweet masking replacement odor. Perfectly good walls, floors and other building components can be marred deeply by animals inside a the home that should have been out in the farmyard or in the barn, machine shed, whatever building circles the main dwelling.
Farm Fresh Locally Sourced Food From Maine. Get Healthy Inside And Out In Maine Vacationing In Maine. Ever Thought Of Owning A Maine Farmhouse, Lots Of Land!
The best smell is none. Although the fragrance of flower beds, the smell of a woodshed, a summer kitchen where root cellar shelves create a winter draw grocery at meal time is not to be discouraged or can not be replaced. Burlap in a granary, leather in the tack room and saddle soap. Or disinfectant used to keep clean the milk parlor on an old Maine dairy farm with all the cattle stanchions and box / standing stalls for the smaller animals.
Making sour into a mixture of sweet works with chicken at the local Chinese restaurant. But lighting a candle or baking oven brownies won’t even begin to mask terrible pungent odors that linger in old neglected country homes of Maine.
The nose knows and your sense of smell is the strong of the five we all possess they say. Once the construction projects complete, it is time to move on to the finishing touch that does involve more than what you can see. The sounds of the wind chime on the front open porch, the colorful pinwheel that works in tandem with Mr Scarecrow out in the garden to discourage predatory gleaning. The crackling wood fire in the old Clarion or Home Comfort or whatever brand kitchen cook stove. A grandfather clock ticking in the front parlor. This is part of the lifestyle of country living in your old Maine farm property.
Pantry cabinets that need refinishing, finding original style or genuine imitation door knobs and Christan doors, trim to match the rest of the rooms in the old home out in the Maine countryside. Double wood storm windows with felt and numbered to help know which opening they go to in the fall get ready to a Maine winter ritual. All part of the bring it back to the way it was in the re-construction time machine that you pilot.
Outdoors, That’s Where People Hang Out In Maine. More Land, Lots Of Wildlife, Less People, No Crime, No Pollution. Want Some Of ME?
A working farm of your own or a gentlemen operation where the fertile fields and pastures are leased out to someone else with the headaches and backaches.
Of watching the weather and hoping for a profitable market to peddle what is grown or raised. You watch others till, plant, cultivate and hoe leading into the fall harvest. For the winter storage and slowly selling off what the good old Earth provided with seed, water, fertilizer, lots of sweat and toil.
The old farm house DIY renovation with a little hired out help along the way can mean putting the rear apartment for the grandparents back into the layout. Or adding a home office so the out of state farm buyer who appreciates the open space and fresh air around it more than a native. So he or she or both can bring their old job online with them and telecommute.
Ever thought of repairing an old Maine farmhouse and be honest. Have you ever caught yourself looking at the Maine farm tractor and machinery section of Uncle Henry’s or on Craig list? I am guilty as charged and am lucky to own the family farm In New England I grew up on. That my Dad and mom purchased from a great uncle who’s first name I use for a middle one. That along with my Great
The Maine Barn Sitting Back On Its Haunches. Leaning, Straining And Recently Went Down Completely Like 52 Pick Up.
Aunt Hettie a world war one nurse made a good living on the patch of dirt. Investing wisely the spoils of the toil with a Bangor Maine stock broker named Banks. It was her pension check though from serving as a Florence Nightingale on medical cases all over creation in and out of Vacationland that put in the running water bathroom plumbing. Into the farm in Maine located up here in the Crown of Maine that had a two holer out in the north end shed. Up here in Houlton, the oldest town in Aroostook County dubbed “The Shiretown” where the glacier gave us an edge blessing growers with Caribou loam soil to play in with the horse than tractor dragging longer and longer lengths of machinery.
Country properties are a special kind of Maine real estate offering.
Looking out when you do up the supper dishes and watching another setting sun at dusk. Sipping lemonade or slurping hot coffee on the open or glassed porch at the rural property with no neighbor in sight. That’s off the main drag and where road noise is missing from too much traffic that city dwellers get tone deaf to with the constant exposure.
Read up on the topic and learn this is how they did it on this style of property in this particular period of time. If you hanker making it original again or as close as your wallet or available spare time will permit.
Unorganized townships in Maine. Over half the state is township this, range that and just not organized
Didn’t even get a name. With no school colors or mascot or basketball team to maybe get to go to the tournaments during Maine February vacation. The “town office” is in the Maine bureau of taxation’s unorganized townships division. Or in the unorganized division of the county government that the territory in question Maine land resides. The deed to the real estate title of all the acreage is recorded in one of the sixteen Maine counties.
Maine Fall Colors, See Them Shine Brightly Four Wheeling On An ATV Seat. More Scenery, No People, Lots Of Wildlife.
Like people you meet who have no middle name, the unorganized townships are like that.
Oh sure there are nicknames like TA R2 is affectionately called Letter “A”. Or Township 6 north of Weld in Franklin County Maine, and others have handles so every local knows where you are referring on the Maine map. When you break down on a snow sled or ATV four wheeler. Or describing the best place ever to hunt and fish or hike or tap into the wilderness lake where no camps hug the shoreline.
Very big in land mass area in this vast New England state but coupled with such a sparse population. Maine is extremes. The 39th largest state and the USA’s 9th least populated.
Elbow room, Maine sure does have plenty the further inland and north you go. Oh sure, Maine has 22 cities, a whopping 435 towns but the number of unorganized townships number 424 and another 33 entities are labeled plantations. Don’t forget 3 Indian reservations too. More on early Maine history. Life is definitely simpler living with low or no population areas. Where wildlife in the and out of the waterfront run the show unopposed.
But what about something else, a settlement in Maine?
What are those? Well the Plymouth Company of Popham Maine showed up in the same year as the famous Jamestown Virginia settlement. The year was 1607 but the Popham colony now present day Phippsburg in Sagadahoc County Maine on the Kennebec River settlement had a down hill slide because of a harsh winter. The new to this land landing party could not sustain. Petered out the following year. That put Jamestown in the history books as the first American permanent settlement. Along the Maine coast, other settlements sprung up in the 1620’s but not all lasted due to a the climate, the being on the look out for Indian attacks and just plain lack of provisions in the pantry. The early Maine settlers were used to easier living conditions and taking a step back in the Maine landing new life.
Several French explorers including Verrazano reached Maine in 1524. Champlain discovered and named Mount Desert, the largest island off the coast of Maine. The first English settlement of Popham Plantation was near the mouth of the Kennebec River.
Baxter State Park, Local Jewel Created By Governor Percival Baxter Back In The 1930’s! Maine, Over Half Of The State Is Unorganized Townships In The “UT”.
Massachusetts gobbled up most of the Maine land claims in what was a wilderness territory of the USA and by 1820 when Vacationland became a state, only about six settlements had survived.
1820 was the year the state of Maine pulled away from the Bay State. Even though despite a few New York Yankee fans among us, most are still in Red Sox Nation after the separation from Massachusetts. Early fishing settlements and tradings posts had their share of ups and downs in this New World. Not everyone was cut out for starting from scratch and totally new undeveloped surroundings.
The price of furs that soared high and low made trade with the native trappers feel cheated. The new settlement band of newcomers were used to open field line them up and mow them down warfare. They did not react well to hit and run raiding party spur of the moment attacks from the natives who knew the landscape so well. The locals always have a home court advantage. They had tamed daily conditions to make life in their area of Maine easier. For safety sake, it was mostly coastal fishing and river side settlements in Maine locations as a rule. And the existing native tribes headed inland. To blend in with the forest where they felt right at home trapping, farming, respecting the land and natural resources.
If you visit Maine you will learn of areas called settlements.
You could think they were a township, a plantation or just dubbed a little more interesting nick name for an unorganized township location. But low and behold you will find a place like Robinson Settlement in Aroostook County Maine that sounds like a municipality is really just an area of the township of Blaine(formerly Township Letter B, 1st Range; Alva Plantation). The name changed from Alva Plantation in honor of James G. Blaine, the current US House Of Representatives Speaker. Who never delivered on the promise of a town bell for a carrot if the locals did switch to his last name. Often a grist or lumber mill was the reason for the settlement name, like Whitlock Mills. Whitlock Mills near Calais in Washington County is the northern most lighthouse location in Maine.
Moose Not People, Other Wildlife Too Hide In The Woods, Waterways Of Maine.
Sometimes besides the name sticking for a settlement location in early Maine the locals knew from sight where you were from because of your clothing. It was not uncommon for the few families that carved out a new Maine farmstead in a new territory to buy their cloth material in bulk for the cost savings. For clothing production by hand from a large quantity bolt to save money. So when these settlement members did come to a population center to trade in commerce, to buy some feed, seed or pasture fencing, coffee, sugar, etc the color of their clothes defined where they were from out in the country.
In Hancock County Maine alone there are 1522 islands under the unorganized territories heading. In Maine’s unorganized territories, the UT, there are roughly 9000 year round residents. Lots of seasonal ones in the UT of Maine.
Rich Where It Counts, Maine Is Unspoiled, Drop Dead Gorgeous.
I listed a log home for sale with 25 acres of land in Hersey ME recently and that town’s six mile by six mile population is just 79 people. No, there won’t be a Walmart super center breaking ground or a set of golden arches rolling in to this very small Maine township anytime soon. Traffic lights, gangs fighting turf wars, drive by shootings or high crime or pollution just not happening in Hersey or other the very small Maine towns like it. Where there are not layers of players.
But look up, see the stars at night in one brilliant sky back drop. The woods infested with wildlife too. No people, no problems. Fresh air, clean water. Listen. Hear birds chirp, loons cry, woodpeckers knock or just the wind in the trees. The rain on the cabin roof. Not emergency response vehicles or heavy highway traffic or airplanes lifting off or landing. The other sounds of the city that never sleeps.
Peace and quiet happens in these small Maine town or plantation or unorganized settlement locations.
But employment to pay those property taxes, register the car and pump the fuel to make it move. That’s the catch. Maine is a great place to live if you can make a living. Or have a knack of removing money out of your approach to frugal living. Where bartering happens. It’s a long long ways to town pulled by the horse team or in the buggy or farm wagon.
Just water down that buttered rum laddled out to the men friends and male neighbors who are coming over this weekend to help you with the barn raising in Maine. They climb high and are cat like quickly putting the hand hewn 8×8’s mortised into place in the barn skeleton. The folks you work with the same you helped one by one with their community building projects on their homesteads weeks earlier and in future projects scheduled ahead.
Other small population centers are disbanding and electing to try to deorganize because there are just not enough folks to fill the elected offices to to keep the area running.
To keep it marked on the Maine map. In these small areas, the animal control officer for the dog chasing deer serves as a selectmen, on the district school board and mows the ground around the cemetery plots. His wife or her husband is on the planning board and heads up the recreation department and is serves a term on the board of property value assessing and zoning board. Oh and they serve on the local volunteer fire department, down at the local grange hall or snow sled club. They may be a licensed, registered Maine Guide and can help guide you in the hunting, fishing, maybe canoe or kayak or rafting trip.
Maine Is Real, Peaceful, Not Crowded. One Of The Lowest Crime States.
More than one hat is worn in the teeny weeny small Maine population centers that often were once large bustling lumber cutting forestry communities.
Or railroad communities, mill towns in an earlier time in Maine history. When they herded logs down the Maine rivers. Where the commerce was local before Interstate and Internet happened. Blacksmiths, local clothing stores, drug stores with ice cream soda fountains, phone company with party lines and Mabel helping make the call. Sometimes listening to the conversation.
Often if one more person dies and lets go of the local reins of control, that’s it. All she wrote. Deorganization or annexing, absorption in another municipality are the only options. To lower property taxes from over 30 mill to say 6 mill is another reason to wave the white flag in the legislature. That is fueling the dismantling of local government control at a increasing pace.
Looking for small itty bitty population centers but incredible large areas to roam?
You must be thinking about a place like Maine, the way life should be. Letting the state and the county government take over the municipality or plantation to absorb the tiny population. It is a last gasp surrender, is a last resort when the declining, aging population just continues to slide uncontrolled. We have room for you… all kinds in all four directions. Well maybe not so much to the east where our Canadian cousins hold down the Atlantic Provinces. Could you imagine living in an unorganized township in Maine? A recreational sporting camp or woodlot land owner is the biggest component of who does in Maine’s UT or unorganized townships.
