Category: Moving Relocating to Maine

Small Town Living In Maine

Small town living in Maine.

Living In Small Time Maine. Volunteering Is Big. Crime, Traffic Is Not.

The attraction of Maine small town living is stronger than ever. The longing for space, a sense of connection and being needed is part of it.

The joy of volunteering and helping others is a way of life in Maine small town living too.

Volunteering is a way of life in small town living in Maine.

All ages involved from youngsters helping little ones. Older active seniors training those middle age workers. The volunteers of all ages are the community fuel. Baking for fund raisers, coaching a youth sports team, working on a community event you’ve been a part of for years.

Small town living in Maine is not boring, never dull because you are invested.

The feeling of being needed and relying on the talents and consideration of others is security, contentment. You can feel you make a difference in small town living in Maine.

You are needed.

Folks count and rely on each other for the greater good of the area.

In small Maine town, you can make a difference.

Serving on local community boards and shaping policy. Combining personal talents and collectively guiding the community is its own personal reward. If you don’t do it, who will?

Each season living in a small Maine town there is plenty to work on that improves the quality of life.

Floats to decorate and put in parades, practicing for an upcoming community band concert, playing a role in a community play.

Small Town Community Plays In Maine. One More Way To Volunteer.

The folks who choose to live in a small Maine town step up and contribute their time, money and ambition.

Not once in awhile but all the time due to deep pride for their community’s small town living in Maine lifestyle way of life.

Volunteering at the local Salvation Army thrift store, ringing kettle bells, distributing local food to families who need it most.

Maine, Vacationland Means Lots More To Do For Fun And Recreation. Small Towns Are Friendlier. Volunteering To Help Out Happens In Local Small Towns.

That’s part of living in a small Maine town. Our local Rotary club sponsors a literacy volunteer program.

Taking turns, the club members visit local Maine area elementary schools to share the joy of reading. To cause a spark to get new readers in the habit of reaching for a book.

Who says young children today don’t have the attention span to read a book? Literacy volunteers give away so so many books through the year.

Our local small town library in Maine has a summer reading program.

And a children’s section of the library to foster reading for its many lifelong benefits. Christmas stories around the holidays are part of the library festivities. When someone dies, money is channeled to the library to purchase books in memory of that individual. The sticker label in front of what is bought helps you get a sense of what this person loved and enjoyed.

Local businesses contribute funds to put on free weekend movies too.

For families to enjoy a free Christmas theme movie. For kids to munch on popcorn and watch the flick on the silver screen while Mom and Dad can Christmas shop locally in privacy.

Businesses Donating To Local Maine Small Town Movie Theatres To Create Free Holiday Matinees.

Small town living in Maine.

You have a deeper awareness of more than the open space, the clean air, fresh water and wildlife. Exploring the recreational trails and being close to nature is what Maine is all about but who needs help. Those in your small Maine town that are struggling with an illness, loss of a family member or spouse. That’s where folks get together to make sure the person or family suffering is getting the help and support they deserve.

Maine Is Outdoors, Nature. Small Town Living In Maine Is 4 Seasons Outdoor Recreation.

I think you have greater obligations choosing to live in a small Maine town. There is a sense of duty and like I said before in this Maine blog post. Volunteering is a way of life. As you step up, as those around you pitch in, everyone looks for ways to help. You feel the personal responsibility to make a difference if you are able.

Asking if you can give a neighbor a ride to medical treatments down country.

Or to feed their cat, keep the driveway cleared or the grass mowed. While another neighbor offers to shoulder some other burden chore to free up a community member.

Lots more local communication happens in small Maine town living.

Try to pop into the hardware store, dash into the local Walmart or a grocery store for what should be a quick easy task. Chances are, you will bump into lots of people you know and the next things that happens is a conversation. Often about something only those living in the small Maine town would care about or know the individual or event being discussed.

The upcoming big high school sports game, the local weather. How’s your garden growing or your recovery from surgery going? Knowing the names of all your kids and asking about where they are? How everyone is doing keeps the small local town population current in their local community conversations.

Where is there a job for kids to make some spending money? All kinds of those opportunities in small Maine towns.

Money From Working For Area Farmers. Picking Potatoes In Maine. How To Make Your Own Money, Not Spend Mom And Dad’s Important Skill.

Front porches in Maine small towns get used for local new updates.

Folks out for a walk stop by and chat. Same thing happens in small Maine down towns. On sidewalks, or rolling down the vehicle window to talk about small Maine town events and the people living in it. It’s not nosy (usually) and it’s caring and sharing for the most part.

Getting Fresh Air, Spending The Day Outdoors In Maine. Kids Do That.

Living in a small Maine town means more covered dishes and public suppers.

Less trendy chic dining at a slew of local eateries. You need a bigger population to support the greater choice of places to pay to dine. But the local eateries we do have in small Maine towns are well supported and you know or perhaps are even related to the folks you see eating or that put on the apron to work there.

Public Suppers At The Local Farmers Museum. Volunteer To Work Them, To Dine There To Raise Money.

I think there is a greater appreciation for the small things living day to day in a small Maine town. Because you are more involved, there is more sweat, love and tears poured into the local community.

Each of us knows the quality of life living in a small Maine town depends on the individuals.

Home grown not store bought. That describes living in a small Maine town. Fueled on volunteers stepping up and pitching in to create the sense of community.

Window Shopping, Tooling Around A Small Maine Town At Night. Mom & Pop Operations, Not So Many Franchise Set Ups.

Living in a small Maine town means Saturday you help gather folks to get behind a bottle drive.

Or a spring clean up or attending an important meeting. Working or attending on a snowmobile or fish and game breakfast, a farmer’s museum fall harvest supper. Buying a magazine subscription from a youngster who knocks on your door from down the street.

Fitting in when from away in a small Maine town.

If you had problems where you live out of state now fitting in, often the reasons you left follow you to a small Maine town.

The Small Town Maine Local Events. Like Dance Recitals. Everyone Goes. Or Is Working It Behind The Scenes.

Small Maine towns are protective and highly invested in their communities.

Make an effort to get involved and with a positive helpful attitude, you can blend in wherever you live right? That’s pretty universal and along the lines of if you want friends, be one.

If you are highly critical, pretty much self centered and like to whine or dominate a conversation where everything has to be done your way or it’s hit the highway.

Well, there may be a real estate for sale sign planted shortly after your initial move to small town Maine. If you think folks were not friendly, you have to make an effort to get involved. Pace yourself because there are so many avenues of service to consider.

Small Maine Towns, Food Vendors Working Community Events. MMmmmm Good.

Many people start small.

Investing in a simple vacation property to try out small town Maine on a part time basis to see how they like it, how the simpler lifestyle fits for maybe longer periods.

Expectations, what caused your desire to move to Maine and leaving where you used to live before?

Maybe you were raised in a small Maine town but left for college or job advancement and poof. Next thing you know, four or five decades whirl by before the return to your small Maine town roots.

Tap Your Toe, Sing Along. Music Made Locally And Live Is Huge In Maine Small Town Communities.

The older we get the more change is resisted and maybe the small Maine town experience is not going to be exactly as you remembered it years before you left.

Interstates and Internet have impacted small town life in Maine in good and not so healthy ways.

In life, there is a constant stream of trade offs and where you would enjoy living most is a highly personal decision that only you can make.

Attending Local Sporting Events, Alumni Games Are Popular. For Fans Of All Ages.

So what to plan for as you bite the bullet and make the leap into living in a small Maine town?

If you used to let your fingers do the walking through the yellow pages looking for a long tall list of contractors. Well, welcome to small town Maine where anyone good is busy and worth the wait. All about timing. You need to be the first guy or gal out of the gate in the spring for home building.

Keep Your Eye On The Black Circle. Dangling It Skating Down A Maine Ice Arena Contest.

Or hit it right just before winter getting the groundwork down to construction a house that is weather tight from the elements. And you slowly finish it off as local tradesmen become available. Not into the slow cooked, think it out, easy does it approach to building or house repairs? What the delay causes is folks to develop and sharpen their own skill set.

Tired of waiting? Let’s attend another session of YouTube University to DIY as much as we can ourselves.

If you are used to hiring everything done and highly skilled in one discipline and pretty much helpless in all the rest, it may be like the old TV slow “Green Acres”.

Traveling Instate Maine To Enjoy Mini Vacations. Easy When You Already Live In State Maine.

Heart ache and frustration and longing for where you used to live that offered different taken for granted luxuries.

In Maine, independence to control your destiny and not be so tied to others to help and serve.

It is a strong deep running trait of folks in small town rural Maine. Used for more than survival but for the joy in making more of your own decisions. That’s satisfying and custom made to what you want your life to look like and not so helpless just bumping along seemingly out of control.

Out For A Walk, Gradual Climb Up A Waiting Maine Ski Area.

Lack of traffic because you live in a small town in Maine with only one or two traffic lights.

Because that’s all you need to direct the flow of traffic that is slower moving and more considerate.

Lower cost of everything because money is tighter and not spent so freely in small Maine town circles. That’s part of what you get in the Cracker Jack box of living in a small Maine town. Let’s face it, the way of life in small town versus large city is very different. It depends on where you are in your life cycle of what works best and weighing the pros and cons.

Gathering, Squeezing Local Apples To Make All Nature Cider. Do That For Fun Where You Live Now?

Community owned and not privatized for profit.

Where I live in Maine, you see a lot more of that. Our local electric utility is a co-op and not for profit. If the local electron power juice provider makes money, there is a utility price reduction. Less exploitation and more for the greater good.

Small Town Living In Maine, What’s Like? Home Made, Local Talent, Volunteers Pitching In.

Maine Is Farms, Lots Of Land, Less Population, More Wildlife.

Money is not the end all but managing it is in living in a small Maine town.

Jobs in small towns in Maine can be less varied but the need to make lots of money from a highly specialize vocation is not so important. Housing prices, no cost for parking, less concern about personal safety, low crime all have their own reward in small town living in Maine. Barters, no money exchanged is huge. Some folks are hard to pay back too and very generous. Which is contagious.

Telecommute to work remotely online from Maine to anywhere.

My small Maine town has it’s own broadband Internet provider too. Wired wall to wall and beyond with speed of thought connectivity is a beautiful thing. High speed Internet connects rural Maine to the rest of the blue and green revolving marble quite nicely.

Mt K, Maine’s Highest Peak! Fun To Climb, Memorable Climbs Up And Down Growing Up In Small Maine Towns.

The audience does not know I am blogging this early morning post from a wireless laptop pausing to peer out over the misty, magical Maine lake today.

Unless I tell them. Or show them to let the cat out of the bag.

Peaceful, Quiet, Magical Mist Enjoying Fresh Coffee Early Morning On A Maine Lake. Priceless.

The move to small town living in Maine often is due to where is the best place to raise a family. We don’t worry about the white van sliding open the big side door and snacking our kids in the 4th lowest crime state in the nation.

Walk to school, ride your bike to the movies, library or little league practice.

Would your kids be able to have that kind of independence? Get that kind of exercise outside the house and off the eerie blue glowing screen living in a big city setting?

Crisp Clean Air, Pond Hockey Or Cross Country Skiing, Snow Shoes Strapped On For Exercise. Small Town Maine Populations Don’t Hibernate.

Healthier, not just your kids but everyone gets out to enjoy the four seasons of living in a small town in Maine.

Instead of climbing on the commuter train and all the time stuck in traffic to get to any destination, walk. When your small town home location is a block from the corner store or a place to eat a meal, hoof it.

Your backyard in a small town in Maine lifestyle is not a few feet with a tall fence to define it.

There is no need for a fence. You are not in a 300 lot subdivision with snarky HOA bylaws living in a small town in Maine.

Small Town Living In Maine. Means Trail Rides With Your Family And Friends.

Most of the neighbors you can’t see spaced well down the country road live in homes not weighed down with a mortgage. Their cars and pickups, SUVS have many miles on them but are owned outright.

Spending money with impulse control is taught early on with kids earning their green bills wearing the dead Presidents.

Money not doled, handed out like candy by parents to meet their kid’s every needs.

Voting in a small Maine town is taken seriously. Being in line to cast your ballot and knowing by name the folks in front and behind you. To be in a large polling place and not know a soul living in a large urban area would not be the same experience.

Artistry Thanks To Mother Nature. What You See On A Walk In Maine.

In a small town in Maine there is pride and also concern on problems we need to tackle together.

There is not a feeling of hopelessness or of what good would only one person be in the outcome. No matter how small the group, band together and make the situation better than it was in whatever way you can.

You don’t just blend in with the landscape or step back to avoid responsibility in small Maine town living. Not everyone gets along peachy keen all the time and like families, there are squabbles and division. But there is a shared love of the small town way of life in Maine communities.

Spring Means High Fast Water, Canoe Races.

The parents in small town living in Maine don’t fear their kids.

There is mutual respect mixed with love going both ways in the family connection. It is true the village really collectively raises the child in a small Maine town. Small towns in Maine are really like one large family.

The stigma of living in a small town anywhere comes from feeling trapped.

FOMO, fear of missing out. Or due to early on being told by family and teachers that you have to leave after high school. See what’s out there, travel, relocate for perspective. But never let anyone make you feel somehow you are local townie loser for choosing to put your heart and soul into living in a small town in Maine.

Small towns are walkable and safe.

Maine Looks Different Captured From The Air, Using Real Estate Drones.

People wave, smile, stop in traffic to let you cross streets in small Maine towns.

Holding doors open, striking up a conversation. Friendly happens in small town Maine town living. Less fears, more comfortable and no one ignores others. Social happens in small Maine towns. Lower population means closer to all the special places folks flock to Maine to tap into on vacation.

No crowds at a lake boat launch or need to reach for your wallet.

Parking in a small Maine downtown is free and plentiful.

Everyone Outdoors Meeting, Greeting, Attending Local Small Maine Town Events. Click For Farmer’s Market Video.

Restaurants, stores are mom and pop unique not always franchise branded in small Maine town.

The economics of small Maine towns are not rich and flashy. More simple down to Earth practical. Using common sense for survival and Maine humor applied in large doses. Locals are fierce about supporting their friends and neighbor’s business establishments. Every dollar spent locally turns over six to seven times.

Trading with each other in a small Maine town feels good inside.

Like being current on property taxes, casting a local ballot, supporting the many fund raisers around you. There is a shift in more and more working remotely and an exodus from expensive, impersonal city living underway.

Walks, Talks, Everyone Brings A Covered Dish To Enjoy After The Outdoor Exercise. That’s Small Town Living In Maine.

Have you thought of where to move and Maine comes up in conversations or in the thought process?

Glad to share what we know as a life long native of small town Maine! Here to help answer questions about what small town living in Maine is like as a local insider.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

November 9, 2022
Migration Back To Small Rural Maine Towns

Migration back to small rural Maine towns.

It’s happening and it’s not a fluke. This blog post is a look at why the former trend of outward migration and population loss is reversing in my small town rural area of Maine. I see it and hear the reasons why every day as a Maine real estate broker. The call of the country and simpler living up in Maine. It’s all causing the relocation to Vacationland pace to pick up speed.

The Village In A Small Maine Town Raises The Kids.

The tug on the heart strings to move back to Maine small towns.

For some it is an easy decision to make.

They remember growing up in small Maine towns and know what they are missing from first hand experience.

Jobs and financial career goals the only reason that forced the move away from small town living in the first place. It was a reluctant but necessary natural progression. Population centers offered the largest variety of good paying jobs. Maine is a great place to live, always has been. But the catch is you have to be able to make a decent wage.

You gotta eat and want more than a hand to mouth existence if what you or your parents did for employment was tied to farming, fishing, mill work or cutting pulp in the Maine woods.

Bustling small Maine towns before the Interstate and Internet were vibrant with flourishing small Maine businesses. Working hard with the owner in the store dedicated to serving your friends, family and neighbors. Performing with fierce pride in your local school sport teams too. Maine rural communities offer a tightly connected small town way of life.

Able to telecommute to work online remotely during COVID was the dress rehearsal.

Folks everywhere across the land and around the globe learned we can do it from the comfort of our own home sweet home. We’re moving. Lower overheard for companies, happier workers not wasting time socializing around the water cooler. No hassles with traffic, crime, carrying a tazer. It all helped fuel the migration to Maine. Packing the Worldly possessions along with the current job and heading North up the pike to to work remotely in Maine. IF that last mile of Internet broadband connection is long and strong in place to make it a viable relocation option.

You are no longer in a city skyscraper corner office when the kids come home after school living in rural Maine.

A Peek Of The Blogger’s Homestead Where Sheep Graze On A Fall Afternoon In Northern Maine’s Aroostook County.

The kids can now walk home from school because everything is so close in small Maine towns.

Picking Maine Potatoes, My Entry Level Job That Taught Me So Much.

A block to the store, two blocks to school, and kids hoof it rather than parents providing the valet drop and pick up daily dance. Multi generations living together is more efficient and the kids benefit from the wisdom of older family members nearby or sharing the same roof line. You don’t have the giant city salary but your expenses are way way lower to the ground. No worry about a white van kidnapping your kid either. The village watches and raises all the children.

You do more for yourself than hiring it out in small rural Maine towns.

The cost of living is lower in small town rural Maine because insurance is cut in half. No white vans lurking near your home that you worry about snacking your kids in the 4th lowest crime state either.

So so many Maine vacation places overhauled to be way way more than a three day or week long take a break stay.

When the COVID sky started falling and toilet paper was scarce. As the initial wave of adjustment to life as we knew it hit, anyone with a Maine coastal, lake shore, riverfront, woods retreat toyed with the thought.

What if I packed it in and headed up to Maine as my refuge to regroup?

To weather the COVID storm and tough it out for a spell until things settled down. But COVID is the hangover that did not go away. The virus is not a temporary condition and forces everyone to consider where they hang their hat and why for quality of living.

Perkins Cove Maine, Boats Anchored For The Night.

For many close to retirement, the memory of sea gulls and lake loons on Maine vacations is the all natural pure and simple drug. A carryover flashback OF memories of good times enjoyed during time spent here on the fun Maine rest and relaxation stint. For young folks struggling to make ends meet in the city, getting more for less financial overhead in small Maine town living has appeal.

Less people, more down to early friendly folks and all this four seasons outdoor unspoiled natural beauty.

Maine is a place you love her for what she offers and what she does not at the same time. Less traffic, lower crime, cheaper to live in Maine. That coupled with the friendly people and more elbow room. The ability to pitch in and feel you can make a difference as you add your talents to the mix. You are needed in the small Maine town special home grown connection. The village raises the kids and you are closer to the day to day action in smaller circles you travel in small Maine towns.

Older Teach The Younger. Small Maine Rural Towns Are Tight Family Connections.

When COVID’s trapped inside living stress doubled up, the little space with far too many people in the city made urban dwellers hanker low population Maine.

The common sense and pitch in to help out approach to living in small Maine towns looked pretty darn appealing. Small Maine towns are really like large families. You don’t pay to attend events, you are working them behind the scenes year after year.

Kids Helping Area Maine Farmers. Learning Work Ethic, Responsibility Early On To Benefit For Life.

Home grown beats store bought and the hands on to make the next event even better causes others around you to dig in and do more. That’s how small Maine towns work. You don’t just live and work there. Instead, you are the small Maine town and go above and beyond to maintain and increase the quality of life for others.

The polarity and division of the last national election just added fuel to the fire to pick up and move to Maine.

Feeling like buying 40 acres up in Maine might be the answer caused more emails, texts, office visits and phone calls to pour into our small Maine town real estate office. Land big and cheap. To plant a large garden, to cut, split and stack the winter wood. With next year’s stash for heating your home already steadily added to to be boy scout prepared.

Halloween Is Big, Trick Or Treating Is Safe.

Migration back to Maine for locals that had picked up roots and moved.

That’s part of the Maine real estate market activity. Others buying vacation property that could be more if the new owner decides to head to Maine. This market segment hedging their bets and looking for a fun but sensible insurance policy investment. Maine land is way way under valued and boy can you produce a lot of farm to table food if you work it. Enriched living, everyone from the smallest to the oldest family member has a role in the household.

Dangling, Handling The Ball To Advance Up The Maine High School Soccer Field!

Taught how to do it, to develop the right attitude for success. To approach a task carefully and perform it slowly. Easy does it. Like the early on advice to never run with scissors and to avoid getting hurt. But with expertise to plan your work and work that plan learned from past experience growing up in small town Maine.

Everyone is assessing today what exactly “quality of life” really means.

How to achieve it, maintain it, make it last. Maine small towns have far less obstacles and in most cases, money is not the deciding factor on where you live anymore. We Mainers are more hands on, have a skill set and don’t have to wait around for others to do everything for us. Raised in Maine, kids learn work ethic, gain self confidence and are shaped for adulthood. Happier, independent, not blaming others for why their life did not turn out the way it looks around the artificial social media circuits. “If it is to be, it is up to me” and being grateful enriches your life and those of the folks around you.

Any Season, Any Angle, Mount Katahdin Captivates A Person Any Age.

When you live in a city, the options to provide kids with their own hard earned money are not so common. Obstacles to work… that’s part of it. But also parents that don’t push for Jimmy and Jane to do chores and hold down entry level jobs. COVID fear make parents hover even more but also work legislation restrictions threatens skill building and opportunities first jobs.

In Maine small towns, kids mow lawns, deliver newspapers, have odd jobs around the neighborhood and bag groceries, stock shelves. If kids work out in the gardens, stack wood, pitch in with daily chores around a Maine household. Good things are going to happen.

Maine Home Offices, Working Online From Home Sweet Home Up In Maine. No Worried About FOMO Because We Are Grateful.

But if mom and dad hand you $20 bills and Zeke or Pebbles’ cell phone and car are better than their parents have.

If teenagers are not cutting grass, flipping burgers, delivering papers or helping area farmers, small businesses. Oh oh.

When they don’t babysit and are slumped on a couch peering into an eerie blow glow device, a full and rich dynamic life is not automatic. No skills, lazy, depressed and not able to connect the dots why happens.

Kids suffer when adults are hired to do those jobs they need to learn self sufficiency … that’s another part of it.

Outward migration from say Florida with over 400 people per square mile or California at 250 plus or New Jersey with over 1200 head count.

That’s another piece of the labor shortage puzzle. And why employers are paying so much to attract a labor force. That means the cost of goods and services provided will be sky high too.

A kid getting $14 an hour or higher working at a fast food outlet is too much and only going to lead to wanting higher wages than the job warrants.

The raking blueberries, picking potatoes, apples, working on a farm in Maine builds stamina, responsibility, develops a hustle in your step. You earned every cent you made when it is the sweat of your brow manual entry level kind.

My rural Aroostook County area is growing with folks rethinking where they live in a crowded areas with high cost of living, traffic, crime.

Mid Coast Maine Lighthouses. Lots Of Them To Collect Easily From A Boat Ride.

You will never ever see local signs stating “no one wants to work” because lazy is the by far worst label anyone could wear.

We are not lazy. All raised to work hard, pitch in and make a difference. The local Louisiana Pacific plant is expanding, Smith and Wesson employee numbers are going up and small rural areas a

Pitch In, Help Out, Make A Difference. That’s Why Maine Small Towns Quality Of Life Is Rich And Tightly Connected.

re booming with work options.

Some of the reasons to explain the move to Maine population increase numbers.

A change of pace and getting healthy by hiking, biking, skiing, kayaking and daily exercise. That’s another perk living in big and beautiful wide open Maine. Maine is the way life should be. Life longer, live better up in Maine is the conclusion more folks are drawing these crazy days. Recreation is second to none on your own and the parks and rec programs are extensive. Lakes, rivers, mountains, scenic trails, picnic spots. Our backyard is outdoors everywhere you look out over the land in Maine.

This blog post nails down the reasons for why people moved away and now are returning to small town rural Maine.

Why new to the area folks are picking Maine as their next mailing address. Real estate inventory is being snatched up to meet the demand and the transplants from out of state are so amazed at small town living benefits. Their kids are learning the skills to be successful adults for wherever they end up living from growing up in small Maine town communities.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

November 3, 2021
Moving To Maine, How’s The Real Estate Market ?

Moving to Maine, how’s the real estate market?

You are not alone if Maine is on your where do I want to live now radar. The thought of of picking up lock, stock and barrel and relocating to Maine may be on your mind. These days especially, folks are looking for down to Earth family values and seeking our communities that provide quality of life. COVID19 and the Maine real estate market, the pandemic just added fire to what was already happening.

Time To Paddle On A Bottle Smooth Glassy Maine Lake. One Reason To Move To Maine.

The virus with the number accelerated the hunt for someplace where social distancing is easy.

Less people, more space and all this four season outdoor living. It easily makes Maine a top contender answering the where do we want to move next for quality of life question.

Maine is clean air, fresh water and not crowded.

The real estate is low cost and affordable housing happens all day long in rural Maine communities. Land to enjoy space, the same ground affords planting and harvesting good wholesome food. Or land is used for a life style and explored in recreational pursuits.

The attitude in Maine is tread lightly.

Easy does it. Respect the environment and pass on your property in at the very least as good but hopefully better than you received it. Mainers are good stewards and when using the trails across the land of others they realize it is a privilege not a right.

Respect operates round the clock and on the national scene today what’s broadcast does not mirror that simple Maine living theme. There is fear and anger and sensing something is seriously out of whack.

When you are surrounded by lots of land, the urge to roam and discover Maine nature is easy.

Especially when the low or no Maine population factor is figured in. Freedom, recreational trails, hills and mountains to hike. Ponds, rivers, lakes and streams to paddle, fish, swim or wade in happens. No parking problems or expense. Less waiting around in lines. Keeping your wallet in your back pocket or down in your purse. Everything does not have dollar signs attached living simply in Maine. Life is hands on and less hired out up here in the Pine Tree state. Is life like that where you hang your hat now?

So big step, moving to Maine.

Outdoor Living, The Space. The Biggest Reason To Move To Maine Is For Personal Space.

It often starts slow and small. Just a couple acres of Maine land is purchased.

The land used for low cost vacations for now. But in time, life events like retirement or just an itch to move from an urban area kick in. To make the once in awhile used recreation Maine land become something more. Either full time in the move to Maine or part time when you spend half your days here, the other half somewhere else. When you move to Maine whole hog and make Vacationland your zip code after living in a higher priced one, you are headed in the right financial direction. The move to Maine. Using the one 207 area code, and often with plenty of money left over from your out of state real estate sale.

How’s the real estate market in Maine today?

Strong. Because to own and enjoy some it is so much lower cost to buy real estate today in Maine. Part it is the long hike up the pike that insulates us. And part is due to the fact we have more wildlife than people. Vacationland is not spoiled or over commercialized. We safely parked up in the corner of the country. Like a thumb stuck up and almost in Canada. Like the other states of Alaska and Hawaii, kinda by ourselves and out of the cross fire of day to day ups and downs.

Space Where You Can Hear Yourself Think. Maine Is Outdoor Four Seasons Natural Beauty.

The Maine people are friendly, helpful, hardworking.

That’s the best treat that comes with the Maine real estate purchase. The further up into Maine and away from the expensive coastline, the cheaper the price and more property you get. The best value for Maine real estate is found in the small town living experience where the population is four thousand or less.

Telecommuting to work online remotely at your cyber office job means bring your employment with you can happen.

Internet broadband connectivity is the number one questions from those in the Maine real estate audience that depend on tethered or wireless connections to the copper, glass strand or through thin air. Pack up your job and bring it along. The Internet over the last thirty years sure has changed our I list, market, sell Maine real estate. It’s helped the move to Maine possible when before it was not in the cards.

Low crime, no pollution, no gangs, no drive by shootings, no traffic. Maine.

The big attraction in the move to Maine is not just the salty sea air, the steamed lobster, baked potato, fresh blueberry pie. The scenery is drop dead gorgeous. Money to enjoy Maine is not the end all and having lots to just survive is not necessary. Real estate is not the only item that costs less. Insurance on what you buy is lower, just like the premium on what you drive. Less crime, lower property values all reduce the need for lots of green stuff to spend. We don’t spend money like drunken sailors. Kids are taught to manage it better and see their parents doing the same. All circles around the respect approach to living life in Maine.

Hiking, Climbing Maine Mountains Gets Kids Off The Couch, Away From The Boob Tube.

Respect Nature, enjoy the four seasons around us and easy does it on the spending.

To prepare for setbacks that will happen right on schedule ahead. More do it yourself and developing a skill set to avoid being highly dependent on others to help you through life. We pitch in and volunteer and make being in a small Maine community worthwhile for our families and others around us. Positive not negative is the atmosphere all of us strive for to enjoy life not simply endure it until “The End”. Moving to Maine, lots of folks are soul searching that topic these days.

Pure and natural is big attraction and major positive change for many who have gone without it for far too long. But what we don’t have, that long list of what you don’t want all adds into the decision to move to Maine. Maine’s low population makes traffic, crime, pollution and heavy layers of building regulations go away. Common sense still rules the day. We strive to make our days worthwhile and fruitful and a lot it is simply worth ethic. Lessons learned in the woodlot, out on the back forty farm field or in the barn.

A Wicked Witch Of The West Spent Summers Hear. Maine Cast A Spell On Margaret Hamilton. Who Also Pushed Coffee Not Just Flew Blooms And Terrorized Dorothy, Her Little Dog Toto Too.

Running a small business, maybe on the docks or the skipper of a fishing boat off the coast of Maine.

Or making a living sharing the experience with tourists sampling Maine on their vacations. Simple living, hard work, not needing a lot to be content. Isn’t that the best approach to life when you reduce it all down and stop trying to keep up with the Jones’s or what highly effective marketing tries to convince you that you need and lack?

Many move and relocate to Maine in retirement.

To replace the forty hour work week with close to the same amount of time spent differently. Their days and nights split between relaxation and volunteering in their new Maine community. Moving to Maine is not just for the space, the lower cost real estate. It’s a whole new lifestyle that is thrown into the mix when you move to Maine.

Moving To Maine, You Ready For Some Of This?

How’s the real estate market in Maine?

Are you in moving to Maine mode? Good time to list and sell in definitely a seller’s real estate markets outside of Maine. Healthy, vibrant and listing sales fast and furious is the temperature of hot real estate sales in Maine. You get more for less in Maine. The real estate market sales are up because so many folks don’t like where they live now outside of Maine for lots of very good reasons. And Maine real estate buyers are able to sell for top dollar, often over list price because of bidding wars with multiple buyers. Maine. I admit it, I am spoiled and feel so lucky to live in Maine full time. Thank you for following our Me In Maine blog posts!

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730

January 13, 2021
Maine News, Would I Lie To You, Tell You Something That Isn’t True?

Maine news.

Local fresh eyewitness news reporting and personal experiences from folks who live in Maine. That kind of journalism really hits home and delivers the truth. The home grown community news gleaned and presented first hand from the man, woman or child out on the village street or the countryside is my favorite.

Local Maine News. The Best Kind Comes From The Home Town Local Beat. News From Where It Happens Is Freshest, Most Pertinent.

Like the wisdom from a twelve member jury of your peers if you have ever been called up for court room service. It is refreshing and surprising how much local Mainers deeply invested in their communities possess for wisdom.

The stakes are way higher when the future of your small Maine community is at stake.

But how to poll correctly the sentiments of the local population in small town Maine? You have to trust more than your gut and there needs to be a local forum to encourage it not apathy allowed.

The best Maine news is fresh, live and local.

Eye witness news and you are there. Covering the local beat with your friends, family, neighbors sharing the perspective and collectively adding to the information details. Truth not fiction and presented in a way that mostly locals would relish getting it. Too mundane for national coverage. Just lacking enough pizzazz or excitement to really sizzle and sell on the World stage.

Local Maine news for free.

Instead of a talking head sitting on a lighted set or a newspaper editor tweaking a two thousand word piece, cue a local Mainer. Someone who has spent their life in the home town, others transplanted recently or a number of years back.

Like Noah, gather and cover the Maine news landscape to collect representation across the board of all ages, livelihoods and loaded with a wide variety of interests.

The longer you live here, the better the depth of the historical perspective to draw from to make the best local Maine decisions.

Roll some tape and open up the video and audio channel to collect the raw and personal Maine news from out in the community.

To distill very little and deliver in an unaltered state for their local community member’s benefit. Some Maine news topics can be light and bright. Others not so comfortable but all so very necessary to cover for the greater good of the small Maine community. The folks in a small Maine town really care about each other and there is a strong connection.

The Maine news personal and close to home. Hearing, seeing a local describe what they are up to for a hobby is interested to a local Maine resident. They may be related or from the same home town and like visiting with them to get up to date on what is going on in their life.

Maine news.

Out in the small Maine community and countryside. Using that setting for the presentation to the local audience works best. Collecting bits and pieces of a slew of topics collected to share with the local audience small town communities. Those Maine news soundbites or video loops and black and white copy are the best but rare. Why? Money. Advertising dollars.

Local Maine News That Reflects The Area Where It Is Made And Covered. That Kind Of News Beat Works Best For Locals Starved For Maine News!

The money for professionals hired to cover the beat when there are more trees and wildlife than people in the reporting location.

Hard to monetize when the audience is very small and select. This is part of why Maine is such a mystery or best kept secret to many. But also what protects and insulates the vast size state with only so many people scattered within her borders.

“Would I like to you, would I tell you something that isn’t true?” like Annie Lennox sings in the song.

I think we were all taught not to lie growing up and the damage it causes to a person and those around them.

Farming News, Produce Prices, How’s The Crop Yield. Part Of The Local News Beat For Coverage In The Garden Of Maine, Aroostook County!

Maine political news.

Oh sure when there is a heated election underway, lots of money pours into the media outlets to create the ad spot clusters to carry the message. Loaded into the automation rotation carousel to saturate and inundate until the audience is numb. Especially when the negative campaign rhetoric bombardment blitzkriegs the Maine landscape. That kind of journalistic news campaigning warfare forces many to not energize and rally to a cause but to retreat deeper within yourself.

Local Maine News. Folks In The Community Want Local Happenings And News From Close To Home.

Maine news when the saturation and intensity is high and the fact checking is missing.

On topics you know something about and are not buying what’s being sold. Take a break, stop the World time. The highway to Maine. To run away looking for peace and solitude of a Maine woods camp or waterfront retreat. It’s not cowardly but more a feeling of overwhelmed. A cocktail of a dash of a little distrust mixed shaken and stirred with a twist of futility. So much energy and drama and emotion makes the noise hurt your heart and head.

Solutions not just complaint. Attacking problems not people. What can the average local Mainer do to help move the community in the right direction? Stay positive. Rise above and be civil, keeping an open mind and looking at the state of affairs with a realistic approach.

Maine news that applies to the small town and of great interest to all in the village, out in the country landscape.

Where are we, where were we, where are we going and what can I do to help nudge things in that direction. Getting the majority in your small population corner of Maine pulling together. Everyone to agree which trail is best to take ahead starts with the truth and Maine news based on facts not opinion. That’s kind of Maine news is going to require more local conversations from those most affected from the outcome of some pretty important local decisions that need to be made.

What’s Happening Around You In Uncrowded Maine. That Kind Of News That Impacts Families That Is Home Grown Is Spread More By Locals Than Media Outlets.

Getting the best information for the Maine community to use to make the best decisions moving forward.

No news is not good news. But hit or miss or slanted news is worse and does more damage. Maine news from the local perspective gleaned from the community where it is being made. To be appropriate and helpful, the Maine news better accurately reflect what is happening today within the state, county and local town limits. For a rock solid sound foundation to build on for a small Maine community or region or state to sustain and prosper based on the truth.

The local Maine news coverage unique to the part of Maine where is made is hard to get on a consistent delivery basis without a commercial enterprise inking the press type or turning on the sound and blinking red camera light.

Michael Clark, Dedicated Local Rotarian, Past District Governor, Paul Harris Fellow. RIP Michael A Clark. You Are Missed.

The by far best when the presenter is honest, personal, and pretty accurate because the “report” is factual and not fiction.

Nothing to gain misrepresenting the news and always delivered with colorful expressions and a seasoning of other local reference sources. The local Maine news grapevine can be serious topics hashed out among whoever dropped by a local small Maine business establishment. Or featuring fishing, hunting, local sporting truth stretched a bit or sprinkled with some friendly teasing. Fact checkers doing clean up to make sure of the authenticity of the conversation exchange? Nope.

It used to be the five W’s reported digging and collecting just the facts by journalists and broadcasters thoroughly researching a subject.

Then like coffee, entertainment sweetener was added because the audience developed a shorter attention span. News to not just inform morphed into news to amuse. To entertain, to push an agenda develop. Mass media feeding everyone truth or dare. So reporters developed their own style and approach to how to twist and shout today’s news to make it fun not boring. Personal opinion shows through in the news delivery on purpose for ratings and ad dollars.

Give them what they want. Get the widow on the set.

People like dirty laundry titillating delivered by the bubble headed bleached blond not just meh taste boring cold hard factual from the guy wearing the horn rimmed spectacles. Because that’s the way it is at the end of every newscast according to Walter. You used to only have a few flavors of news not as many as the number of colors in the rainbow for selection. For getting what you want to hear presented just the way you like it sliced and diced. No thank you. I rely more and more on the local Maine news grapevine.

The Local Landscape Maine News. Not Exciting Enough For Someone After Entertainment Value. How’s Emma Feeling? Did You Get Your House Banked Elmer? The Local News From Folks You Know And Care About… That’s What Locals Care About In Small Maine Towns.

The national audience became more segmented, polarized by what they are fed as gospel.

And to go after those low hanging advertising dollar demographics more flavors of news sources sprung up. Not just chocolate and vanilla, black and white news reporting these days. And as you pick a channel flavor of news to plug into daily, you are fed from a particular slant what you want to hear and believe.

When the Maine news is generated by local reporters who live in Vacationland, it’s way more accurate.

It’s more realistic and less Hollywood filtered and enhanced. It’s less valuable to the small Maine town.When the news gathering arm is out of state, on a different coast, much of what is reported does not seem to pertain to small town rural Maine. It is not that useful or helpful. It wastes daylight that is time better put to other purposed on the to do list.

I had a conversation with a California wanna be Maine home buyer yesterday who used to live in Maine and misses life here.

In his area, he said when a new person moved into his neighborhood in Maine the folks close by whipped up covered dishes to present. To say hello, welcome to the area. Where he has lived in California folks just don’t take the time or extend the same set of courtesy. Same thing happens at his church. When an older person can not get themselves to worship, he and his wife offered to pick them up if along the way.

Covered Bridge That’s One Lane, Wait Your Turn. Not Six Wide And Hurry Scurry Where Highways Are Fast, Stacked And Packed In Gridlock. That’s Not Maine.

And back in Maine anyone living near them did the same to help an elderly person attend a church service.

You don’t neglect them, you cherish them and look forward to their pearls of wisdom picked up as you do a good deed assisting their transportation to and fro. But on the other coast, those same church folk are left out and not included like they are discarded. Pretty sad and something to look forward to as you climb the hill but are not quite over it yet but the day is coming.

In small town rural Maine, we are brought up to do lots of for the good of the community actions. Many that are not even thought about until someone points out they don’t do that where I live now outside of Maine. Who wouldn’t want to rather live where traffic and crime are missing. Where folks worry and care for each other on a daily basis and you feel strongly connected? Instead of just existing as one more blank face in the sea of sameness crowd.

Jammed together but pushed apart seeking more personal space. Maine does not lack personal affordable wide open space.

Maybe the division in the country is a lot about country and city mouse approach to living and the coronavirus will force a bigger shift telecommuting to work online remotely to small Maine towns. I see it already happening so much in my day job. Since last March, bailing out and getting to Maine has been a frivolous mission of many who are hungry for small town living. Social distancing is easy in small Maine rural towns.

How’s The Maine Lobster Catch? Prices Up Or Down? What’s The Fishing Industry Going Through Along The Coast? That Is Important Local Maine News.

Where the news report originates outside of Maine makes a big difference.

If the lifestyle is vastly different, if the take home pay checks are way different sizes, then the news substance may not hit home the same. When you have been brought up to be frugal and manage money wisely but witnessing it wasted in a higher cost of living news market that delivers you information. The norm there has to clash with the one in your small Maine town that struggles to keep its population numbers from dropping.

Editorials used to be the only lone news hour or newsprint segment slot to get personal opinion.

Otherwise it was check your sources, interview lots of authorities to avoid flawed shoddy reporting. I remember Maine Broadcasting’s general manager Fred Nutter in Portland or Bangor’s Margo Cobb presenting editorials. They were clearly thought out and not sharp edge mud slinging. Just a personal plea that Maine needed to go in this or that direction and why. Nothing sold to the audience but just legitimate concern that we as a state should all share. Pointed out that we needed to be putting more effort into this area or pulling back from too much resource excess in another one and explaining why.

How many times do you Google to find thorough information and have to wade up to your knees in fluff and recycled same old same old bits and pieces?

Like a slow drip of low level propaganda the audience is sold and educated from the spin. Or just fed the same old skim repackage and sold as new and improved news. If you want real, fair and objective news, you need to read several sources. Take the time to not just glean quick doses of headlines. Make the time to do the research and look hard for the truth. The what’s left out. Not to get just scrape the surface headline news. Blogging took off because you begin to trust the down to Earth guy or gal on the street’s honesty and sincerity. Way way more than the slick paid professional sensationalizing today’s news using the read read read then big smile teleprompter. News generated by someone who lives where you do is home cooked and healthy. Being fed what to think from someone who could not find where you live in Maine without GPS is not.

Local Maine News, Getting It From Within The Boundaries Of The State, County, Local Rural Town. Collected From Small Town Events, A Corner Grocery Store.

Question the validity of a poll, learn who was asked, from where, when and how large a sample.

If “experts say” who is being touted as an authority? Same folks drawn from for the news or lots of new voices in the mix for a healthier perspective and something new and different? The guy or gal who try to keep you hanging and tuned in for what’s after the next advertising spot cluster. Go to the bathroom, take a quick trip to the kitchen for a snack if you must but be back here couch side in two minutes audience for more what’s served up just the way you like it “news”.

The news reporter can do it using the five w’s.

Tap lots of news sources to glean and distill what is missing or clearly bent to achieve a purpose but keeping an open mind presenting with fair and objective.

I disagree with the broad brush statement There’s no such thing as truly objective, fact-based reporting. You have to dig, research and ask folks in the field not just rely on newscasters dumbing it down or missing the facts. The first rule in blogging is to write about what you know. Because you draw from experience, the truth and nothing is fabricated. It’s real, the truth without the fictional spin seasoning.

The Snug As a Bug In The Little Red Log Maine Lake Camp. Telecommuting From Maine. One Good Thing Salvaged From The Coronavirus Pandemic.

The blogging post should be a conversation with your reader.

Whoever follows you should be contributing to that conversation and often times the down below comments are the real flesh of the story. Because it is not just from one person’s perspective but from many voices out in the audience. The elections are over, the Maine population is prepared for winter and new work arounds should the coronavirus low numbers start to spike. Just grateful they are low virus numbers. That folks are doing their part. And like a Maine winter, we’re prepared for anything ahead. Not just planning to survive but to make the most of whatever we have to work with and to come out on top.

Keep it simple, stay positive, look out for each other and be kind.

Do your part and pitch in to be careful what you say, how you state it and examine the reasons why you feel the way you do about something. And consider how that helps or hurts looking for the best solution at hand. I think most down to Earth Mainers from small town experiences and drawing from The values they were raised with are doing that. Just my humble two cents. As I finish up this early morning Maine blog post. Typed out as the wind picks up, the temperature drops and cold lake water splashes against a concrete retainer wall out front, I feel happy to live in small rural Maine.

My oldest daughter letting her small dog out to do his business walks over from the next door log home pictured above. The one where she, her husband have been telecommuting to work while raising a new born grandson.

Patting the dog who comes in through the glass slider opened a little to say good morning we have an exchange. Being near family is more important than ever. I think the coronavirus makes everyone examine where they live and why and ask is it time for a different way? I see it at work as so so many question what is missing. Asking themselves where should I be headed with plenty of soul searching surrounding the where to go, when and why.

Maine news, thank you for hanging in there that long to get to the bottom of this most recent blog post. We are used to challenges and work hard for everything we have and don’t expect it to come easily. I think in Maine we appreciate what we have more because we realize it’s not like this many other places. Keeping it real, making it honest and unspun, Maine is the way life should be.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

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

November 18, 2020
Small Towns In Maine | Better Coronavirus Recovery Chances

Small towns in Maine, better coronavirus recovery chances.

Social distancing is easier in small towns in Maine because let’s face it. Just less people populated vast and sparsely inhabited Maine. Too many people that crowd together and no where to go is COVID19’s best scenario. It’s why cities are hardest hit and can not handle the high virus cases. Too many people makes it like living in a giant petri dish in populated areas. Maine is vast, uncrowded, more wildlife than people.

Can I Have A Little Privacy Please? I’m Bathing!

But survival, starting with meeting your basic needs and moving out from there.

Keep it simple living in small town Maine is already in place. Not wall to wall people to tip toe around or avoid. To begin with, living high on the hog and complicated or expensive lifestyles is not small town Maine. It is not regressive to strive for a cottage or farmstead existence but enriching and highly rewarding.

More People In Cities Make Social Distancing During COVID19 Harder.

Your kids benefit too from more chores and no other choice but pitching in to be a vital part of the family.

Learning new skills and responsibilities over just camp out on the couch. And then veg out on a device to deal with boredom of just not enough to do for the rest of the day and night.

What coronavirus does show in small towns in Maine is how much we all care about each other.

Because of the strong connection of small town Maine living, your concerns are much more on the local level.

We watch the news World wide and collected off the small towns in Maine local grapevine.

Feel badly for heavily hit coronavirus population centers and makes all of us sick to our stomachs, helpless for them.

But we spring into action and reach out to help those locally who we do know and care about daily. To help make a difference in their lives.

The disabled, elderly members of the small Maine town community are on our minds daily.

Meals on wheels providers check in to add the social interaction at a safe protected distance. The phone calls to see what they need and pitching it up for them at the local grocery store outlets happens. You would be surprised what happens behind the scenes in small towns in Maine with or without a COVID19 pandemic case swell.

I think the coronavirus reminds us of how lucky we really are living in small towns around Maine. Yes we struggle for economic independence and fight something fierce to protect local jobs. Keeping the money spent locally and turning over six to seven times is a beautiful thing. But when the small town provider of goods or services does not have enough volume to stay out of the red ink. Or there is not local provider and you are forced to go online if no other options exist in the region out of your small Maine town.

There is the challenge to retool and reinvent in the small Maine town’s economy.

Opportunities are opening up as small town Maine living is seen as a very viable option. Safe, easier to social distance and getting back to basics. First, everything that you need and then easy does it moving on to what you think you need. As people’s standard of living increases, their spending habits and the more more more gotta have this and that complicated their lives. Creating the need for even more of something they may or may not have really needed. When the money to fuel the complicated living dries up or gets interrupted, there’s the rub.

Farms, Horses, Barns In Maine. They Go Together For The Simple Rural Lifestyle.

Only in times like a coronavirus or an economic downturn is the necessary change going to happen because you have no other choice.

Can not continue on the same expensive course and that’s where what about if we relocated, moved to Maine thoughts intensify in the brain. Native local Mainers are masters at creative work arounds when bumps in the roadway of life show up and they do. A lot. Lessons learned from mistakes or coping with hardships early in life benefit the rest of how things play out in a Mainer’s life. Has COVID19 caused you to consider what if you lived in a small town in Maine?

A person’s opinion of small town living changes 180 degrees when instead of itching to leave, you long to return.

If you were raised in a small Maine town, you know what it is like. What is taken for granted and missing in a populated area living where you lose the small town living approach.

Have an oldest daughter, her husband, new grandson living in a “pod” next door on a Maine lake. I get her perspective on what living in Boston was like during the early stages and now during the coronavirus. Small town and city living are also part of the contrast because by nature just the number of people in an area dictates the way things are gonna roll or not.

Crossing The Big Green Bridge From Maine To The Rest Of New England.

What you need and what you want and the price you pay for anything in time, money, sacrifice.

In my job I hear the statement a lot. “Something is missing in my life”. Which could mean something is lacking in my life at this point. Maybe what you needed before you started a family is causing the hole of what’s missing for your kids. In a small Maine town, the village raises the kids, not just Mom and Dad.

Or the “been there, done that” could be I chased the American dollar and achieved an income to support this lifestyle that was too high a price to pay. Or took away time I should have been living life gleaning small pleasures and not the pie in the sky high life. What do you need in your life? You know the answer if you can stop and catch your breath long enough to reflect and ponder. Not what marketing says you need and can not live without.

Living your own life starts by not being so concerned how others live theirs. Social media look at me is not always accurate and who has time to live their life externally through others anyway ? Small town living in Maine, the way life should be.

All I know is small town country living creates the stage for everything you need. The real foundation and nothing artificial. As I hunt and peck this blog post this Sunday morning, I look out over a bottle like surface Maine lake. My daughter and I will enjoy a freshly ground coffee bean cup of Joe in a few minutes. Talking about the new grandson.

A pair of boys just cruised by with fishing rods and checking out the best deepest spots for angling for fish this morning. Six lake loons are about 200 feet off shore and circling, cooing, socializing closer than six feet spacing. It is sunny, comfortable, not hot and muggy. I feel lucky to live in Maine not where there are so many people to motor or walk around or any crime to worry about round the clock.

Living In Small Maine Towns.You See More Nature, Less People, Have The Space Needed For COVID19 Social Distancing.

The walk to the lake landing happens after sampling a hot coffee, some sliced mangos, two banana packages.

Along the way a stop to talk from one ditch to the other on Chickadee Lane. The couple live full time four lake lots down and the wife was my oldest daughter’s first grade teacher. We share where all the kids of each family are and what the grandchild count is up to now.

After the stop, we trudge on and it is learned Mrs. Austin thirty plus years ago was one of my daughter’s favorite teachers.

I ask why and she recalls her honor reward system. There was money involved, the fake in school kind. A store set up with items to purchase with the “money” earned for good behavior, academic excellence or just staying caught up with school work. Small towns in Maine educators have lots of common sense and make sure the students

My daughter remembers buying a book with her reward money and it was a book written from the big bad wolf’s perspective in the Little Red Riding Hood classic with a twist.

Mrs. Austin also let the classroom kids raise ducklings. Two of them when the school year was ending for summer break were relocated to her Grandfather’s farm out on US RT 2. A farm pond introduction ceremony was a big deal.

The Little Red Log Lake Camp Next Door In Maine. Ideal For Social Distancing During COVID19 Pandemic.

The two ducks, Chocolate and Butterscotch seemed happy paddling around the pond.

Then disappeared. We hope to more private surroundings away from US RT 2. But the fear the pair became a fox’s chicken dinner is hard to shake when you are a first grade school girl growing up in a small Maine town.

What’s All The Buzz? Eye Candy And Bee Honey Extraction In Nova Scotia Canada Cross Border Trip.

The walk resumes, the distinctive patented sound of a motorcycle chugging along becomes louder. The rider in leather slows, raises his left hand and smiles. It’s Jimmy Ritchie who lives up the lake. He and Lou Ann his wife used to live across from my parent’s Maine farm and were close to mom and dad. Helping them with new born Durham baby calf births during the coldest days of the year. Naming them, feeding them and part of the small population surrounding us in Northern Maine.

Living in Northern Maine means the perk of being close to Canada.

No, it is not dangerous being this close to New Brunswick or Quebec Canada. Taking trips to Atlantic Canada are common to PEI and Halifax, Nova Scotia for example when the International boundary opens up again. Maine residents are related to our Canadian neighbors and both sides feel lucky the other is there for cross border travel. The dollar and loonie difference helps the trade too.

It is cheaper to live in small towns in Maine in many ways beyond the just price of real estate.

And if you learn the joy of raising some or most of your own food. If you heat with wood or twist the dial when oil prices are low to the ground and stay frugal. Maine can be a wonderful backdrop for your life. Living careful rewarding lives communing with nature that is everywhere you look. Awareness increases, protection of the environment around us becomes more important and that good stewardship attitude is passed down to the next generation. The Maine real estate prices are cheaper and you can own not mortgage your low cost properties.

Sheltering In Place, Small Towns In Maine And Country Settings Are Ideal For Sheltering In Place. To Increase Your COVID19 Avoidance Chances.

Cities are great because they have lots of people to support many endeavors.

More variety of food, sports, entertainment… the paid for kind. That’s why native full time Mainers love to head down to Bean Town for a Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics game or theater show, music concert, etc. But can not wait to cross back over the big green bridge on the southern end of Maine. Our locals can create lots of home grown food, fun and social distant fellowship.

More second homes than any other state … (ripping envelope opens sound) Survey says “Maine”.

That’s Maine. And lots of those cottage owners on a Maine lake are tooling up with insulation, Internet connections and make the slide from city to waterfront vacation cottage. Telecommuting from a Maine lake instead of the city setting is underway with a fire in their belly. Thanks for reading our small towns in Maine blog post highlighting better coronavirus survival chances. Lots of activity from folks jammed in a city trying to trade it all in for a safe spaced place like Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

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

August 10, 2020
Solar Power In Maine

Solar power in Maine, does DIY partnering up with the sun work in Vacationland?

Maine is ideal for off grid solar power. But there are lots of “if”s” attached to whether you should make the off grid investment.

This blog post dives into solar power use in Maine.

First things first, are we talking a remote camp up in the great north woods of Maine? Where your electrical needs are small. And it’s like a vacation camping for just a long weekend here and there? Or are you out in the audience thinking whole hog giddy up go for solar power for round the clock living? Where it is not just a light or two and that’s it. Now everything in the homestead is off grid. No utility bill to cuss about now. You are really relying on Mister Sunshine for fuel to power those roof top solar panels Bub. Power consumption use is one big obstacle on whether solar power is going to cut it for you in the long run. Think, read, ask questions. Do you solar power home work. Before the big investment, which Maine solar energy experts say is roughly $18,000 consider a couple things.

Before making that big of an energy investment, what does life look like pulling the plug and living off grid depending on solar power to light up your day and night?

What is your average electric utility bill now? How does your power consumption change with the seasons? Study those old kilowatt numbers from past electric utility bills. Consider if you did nothing to cut back and conserve, what would the costs for off grid solar power producing panels be? And don’t forget the associated hardware to maintain the same level of electrical consumption using solar power instead.

Before severing the relationship and dumping your utility juice provider, how really dependent on power are you?

It’s more than sticking a few solar lights along your driveway and marveling at the free power. It means study what needs power drawing current each day to make it run. Dialing back your power consumption is like dieting for life. When you decide to pull the plug and go off grid, some can do the segue easier than others. Couple of simple questions. Dirty dishes. Load ’em up and rely on a dishwasher now or hand wash dirty dishes, pots and pans in the sink? Do you do full loads or a few items here and there? The kids wear an outfit for ten minutes and toss it in the laundry hamper when the wardrobe gets changed up during the typical day?

Maine Solar Power Panels. How Many Do You Need? How Much Power Do You Consume?

Do you wash one or a few items for the big school dance tonight or do weekly full laundry loads?

What you wash, does it automatically all go into the clothes dryer after that? Or did you grow up using a clothes line to hang those wet items fished out of the washer? Heat totally with wood or partially supplement the household temperature with a firewood stove? Do you have several chest freezers but its kinda fuzzy on what’s down at the bottom and how long has it been there? Would you hunt and fish for what gets served up hot and ready on the supper table? Could you live without a microwave? How fast is your life living these days?

Whirling of the tops of cans electrical opener or the clap it on and hand crank to get to what’s inside the what’s for supper?

Electric toothbrush, one cup Keurig coffee makers essential in your household now? Hair dryer or air dryer for your daily doo grooming? Cranking it back to adapt to solar power you generate yourself is a bigger life adjustment for some. Long drawn out frequent showers or shorter, less frequent in and out ones? You don’t have to smell gamey and stay upwind from your own body or avoid getting too close to others around you. But on demand water heaters instead of 50 gallons or more types waiting for usage and less hot water household consumption is the goal. Could Suzy handle that approach to her daily shower routine? Young kids can be taught conservation, adolescent ones not so much. It is way way harder to retrain teenagers who are energy dependent spoiled.

Maine Homes Living Off Grid. Need Super Insulation, Triple Glazed Glass For Solar Powered Living. Not Everyone Is A Good Fit For Solar Power Living Lifestyle.

If you are frugal, did not have money to burn growing up and were taught to conserve, going off grid solar power is not going to be so hard.

You already live easy does it and strive for minimalist keep it simple and not expensive or wasteful. The cost of power, you know. Already are weaned off the habit of juice it up and just don’t waste it. Heating and cooling your home can be responsible for over 50% of your electrical bill.

Do you really need air conditioning in Maine or is the well insulated home you built for off grid solar power living? Opened up in early cooler temperature summer mornings and then shut tight, drapes pull to keep it that way? Is the place heated winters a bigger square footage living space than you really need or smaller, better laid out for simple affordable living? If there are no cracks, drafts, loose as a goose construction areas of your home sweet off grid solar powered home, heating it to be warm and toasty won’t tap and waste energy resources. A off grid McMansion is an oxymoron in small keep it simple living rural Maine.

Also, is your solar system a DIY approach, do you hire it out?

Plan to have a grid-tied solar power system which costs less money because no buying expensive batteries that only last so long? Grid-tied solar power systems don’t provide electricity if it’s dark of night and your grid is off line. Like your chickens who put themselves to bed, you might be right behind them when daytime is your only power producing opportunity. Is solar power part of your electricity production and weaved together with other supporting power making technology? Do you understand solar storage batteries and setting up a home grid and regulating it?

Storing The Power Produced From Solar Sun. Solar Power Storage Batteries To Carry You Over Night Time, Through Long Dark Cloudy Days.

How much power do you need living off grid and homesteading in Maine?

You and I have seen the Harbor Freight solar panels that produce a 100 watts and thought just pick up a couple of those and maybe that’s all we need. But long and hard thought about if you did not have power available at the flick of a switch and a monthly bill to keep it flowing into your household. How much power does a person need as seasons change in Maine? How many solar panels and what size does the family living off grid need to fuel their basic and beyond needs?

Like growing your own food, heating a home with wood from the back forty acres, producing your own power is one more ball to juggle with self sufficient living. The shorter days of winter, less or no powerful rays from the sun add another wrinkle to the solar power cocktail you create to fuel your off grid solar home.

Solar power in Maine, it’s expensive to living off grid if you expect the same life you had when energy was delivered to your door by a local electrical utility provider.

Controlling The Solar Power Generated In Your Maine Home. How Were You in Science Class?

New habits and adjustments to the off grid solar power alternative life style have to happen. Unless money is available in an endless supply and just keep adding more roof top solar panel arrays, extra space consuming electrical storage batteries is possible. Then you are going to have to bite the bullet and prioritize what is most important to wire into your off grid solar system that consumes your self generated power from whatever source.

Sun, wind, water, it gets considered in the electrical mix that works best for your lifestyle and your pocketbook considerations. The storage batteries are not cheap and cost dearly. There is a lot to learn with this shift to solar power in Maine. More than just tacking on a few roof top solar panels and keeping everything you were used to powering up online and purring like a Maine coon cat.

Make a list of what your simpler life off grid using solar power looks like.

So the two approaches to solar power in Maine… simple camp part time and homesteading full time. Let’s look at the simple camp lifestyle using solar first. Your typical little camp in Maine in the woods, on a stream or river or lake when there is no power. What are your power needs up to camp in Maine out in the willy wags where using a public utility link up is not in the cards? Basic power needs are lighting. Cooking can be an outside open camp fire, an inside wood or on a gas cook stove. No electric power outlet needed there.

When you are at the Maine camp or cottage setting, it’s not a long term stay so loads of laundry needing washing and drying are not a problem.

Outdoors, Maine Is All About Being Outdoors Any Chance You Get All Year Round! Kids Play Outside, Adults Don’t Forget To Do The Same In Maine!

Drying clothes too does not have to involve power if you use the wooden rack in front of the wood heater stove or an outside clothes line.

Living without power or using less of it is easier for folks brought to conserve it. Or used to living without it. I grew up on a Maine farm with a wood cook stove used for more than the heat it generated to warm the kitchen and pantry area of the homestead. The side glass sun porches, two of them were east and south facing to generate free solar heat and spill lighting into our farmstead living space. My Mom would open up the windows early in the day before hot, humid weather temperatures arrived.

The practice to cool off the home and then shut the windows, pull the shades to make it dark and lower temperature for the hot day ahead.

First floor screened in porches for living and second floor ones for sleeping are standard in older New England housing stock. Built before air conditioners and even before electrical lines were added out on the street or roadway address. Up at camp in the middle of the woods in Maine, refrigerator is a need. Not in the winter months but in the dead of summer, refrigeration can be supplied by a gas model. Or a smaller, more efficient college dorm size model that draws less current. Living off grid using solar power in Maine is like being on your own private utility island.

Keeping Small Maine Town’s Running Smoothly. Calm Is Nice, But Ripples Happen.

Your approach to solar power use in Maine revolves a lot around your consumption and energy saving habits.

Ask the average person what the Maine household electrical bill for a month is and besides whoever writes out the check to pay it, how accurate would the response be? When money is tight and there is a not a lot of it to waste, the knowledge of what things cost is much keener. Anyone using solar power in Maine suddenly knows loud and clear what electrical devices use a lot off power, which ones are small potatoes.

Electrical water or space heaters, clothes dryers, cook ovens, curling irons and blow dryers all make an consumption meter whirl faster.

New LED lighting has saved the day with small wattage bulbs that produce much more than old standard counterparts. Positioning your living space for a southern exposure helps the overall lighting too. It’s winter months, the night time that is the hurdle when solar power is off the clock and stops. Storage batteries, deep cycle marine ones or crystal lead type is where you can start spending a big chunk of change. But they add power when gaps in the sunlight happen. Mr. Sunshine goes to bed at night just like you,I and all the Maine farm and deep wood wild animals do.

Fresh Air, Clean Water, Wildlife Not People. That’s Part Of Maine’s Secret Beauty.

The number of solar electrical panels, the storage capacity needed is all tied to how much power do you need generated to fuel your household?

It you are not living a simple existence without every outlet in the house working to power your life, solar may not be such a wise choice. Talk to folks you know that live off grid, that don’t have the luxury of a public electrical utility provider to deliver the power to their household. What life adjustment has that caused and put yourself in that homeowner’s shoes and be very honest. Can you see yourself making the adjustments needed to easy does it power consumption wise?

Looking back at life before power was an option helps too.

Think of Abe Lincoln in the White House. No green light desk lamp in the oval office brightly lit while writing his speeches. Instead oil maps or candles providing the lighting or the best writing done during the day by a window. No power living means concessions and simpler living meeting your basic needs. Do you think the average American is up for that today? Too dependent on electrical devices would be like going on a serious life long diet that many just could not hack.

Exploring, Teaching, Sharing With Kids What You Learned When You Were One In Maine. We All Need Outdoor Sunshine To Do That Best!

So solar power in Maine… are you pulling the plug to harness the sun as an alternative?

Or is there no other option on the Maine land location for juice? Is the option to run power to the site to be on grid not possible and the numbers financially astronomical ? Solar power panels, batteries, inverters, wiring and all the associated paraphernalia are expensive. But so is running a copper line either underground or strung along your collection of power poles.

What if the weather is cloudy and overcast trumps sunny sky days to harvest the solar power? Cloudy days still yield solar power, just not as much when the Sun’s rays get reduced. Regardless of the cost to tool up for solar power in Maine, instead of installing more panels to create the additional power to run your life. How you live your life from a power consuming perspective should be considered before stepping into the solar power zone. Solar power has drawbacks and was always an alternative not the norm.

Talk to someone who lives on a boat that is powered by the wind in the sails and not pushed through the waves with diesel motor.

Maine Is Scenery, Four Season Beauty, Rock Bound Coastlines, Vacationers.

The boat owner knows all too well what you need for electrical power. AC, DC, amperage, volts and watts come up in the conversation that can sound like another language. If you just pay your electrical bill and give no thought to energy conservation, the shift to solar power is going to be harder. To anyone used to just flipping the switch, plugging in the electrical power cord.

A kid today that has never gone camping, lit a tent or cabin with a Coleman gas lantern. Unless they have experienced a few electrical power outages at home and groped in the dark to find candles for lighting, living without power is very foreign. You and I take cheap, dependable electrical power for granted.

Besides solar power in Maine to light up your life, do you incorporate other energy producing methods?

A little or a lot of power in the mix produced by wind generators? Is there a water wheel to harness hydro power in the river or stream that passes through your Maine land? This source of power is not so easy because Maine is very protective of its waterways.

Beavers don’t need a permit to divert and dam or restrict the natural flow of the water. You and I need to make sure about riparian rights before just wading into the water to set up a hydro electrical generating power plant of any size. Shore land zoning makes the list longer for what you can not do around the water in Maine than what you can.

The Maine environment is sacred and to be passed on in as good or better yet, a new and improved state. Solar power in Maine if done carefully can be a win win for man and the environment. Using less power is the key to solar panels being the fuel to energize your Maine home. Southern orientation when building and strong insulated glass, lots of insulation, wood heat can all help the solar power living shift from utility to off grid in Maine.

Maine Sunsets, Every One Is Incredible. Share Them. Don’t Do Them Alone. Harness The Sun.

Firing up a gasoline, LP gas, diesel generator to produce your own power is expensive.

You can do it but not nearly as cheap as ten cents a kilowatt for the power produced and delivered cheaper due to the economy of scale in a Maine community. Just like homestead and living off the land in Maine, no everyone is cut out for cutting the power cord and going off grid. The local Amish settlements dotting the countryside in rural Maine are a shining example of how you can live off grid. Oh sure, there is a little cheating around the edges. But the goal is to not be dependent on living with power on the grid and delivered from the road, up the driveway and into your Maine home.

Maine is more small town rural than larger regulated city living.

But still, permits for solar panels, do you need to file some paperwork with your municipality before bolting on roof top photovoltaic power collectors? Your household power consumption goes hand in hand with how many panels to buy. And where to arrange those solar panels in a grid on your roof top or facing south attached firmly to ground supports. Hope this blog on solar power in Maine helped you on your way to unplugged living in Vacationland.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

July 27, 2020