Halloween trick or treating in a small Maine town.
Halloween is a big dea in Mainel. I know in large cities, parents worry about sending their little goblins, witches and monsters out on the door to door candy parade. But in small Maine towns, the trick or treating tradition is big. COVID caused a wrinkle. But with precautions in place, the candy show knock knock tradition continues in Maine with individually wrapped treats. The excitement starts early. Planning for what to be this year for a costume, a theme is part of the fun.
Everyone Puts In A Lot Of Thought For Halloween Trick & Treating In Small Maine Towns.
Do you remember trick or treating on October 31st Halloween growing up?
Did you or do you enjoy taking out your kids, grand kids to canvass the neighborhoods around you for candy collection? What was your favorite treat? Which stop growing up along the hop up and off open porches with lights on do you recall as your favorite?
I remember the Chamberlain sisters who lived on the corner of Frandklin AVE and Court ST in Houlton Maine. The pair made the Halloween holiday effort.
Each Halloween the sisters were as excited as the door knockers out front their gorgeous Maine home. Word gets around and you remember last year’s visit to each and every small Maine town home. So this house stop’s popularity only grew greater. Lining up to sample their home made donuts. The warm cider to wash it all down was another treat as they invited you in to their large Victorian Houlton ME home.
The take off your mask, show us who you really are under the Halloween trick or treating costume routine.
That happened in their formal Maine home living room. Kids escorted in and out and everyone got a home made from the kitchen treat. Sugar ed or plain, it’s up to howling werewolf. Looking back, what an effort this sister pair put out to add to the Halloween trick or treating in my small Maine town in Aroostook County.
I used to come in from the country where I lived on a Maine farm to trick or treat.
Not many homes along the Maine rural landscape when you are a couple of miles away from town. And out in the dark, on a busy highway is not a good combination for someone trying to navigate. Carrying candy loot and trying to get your bearings. Wearing a mask with just two small eye holes and maybe a flashlight in the other hand. My cousins lived on the Highland Avenue in a large yellow home that was always the beehive of fun growing up. Seven kids with one pair of identical twins in the mix, I would pair up with my cousins to ply the streets for treats. We covered a lot of ground, hit a lot of houses. Like a politician campaigning for a vote, it was all for the treat.
The Adults Snack Too, Lots To Eat For Treats At Home Or On The Neighborhood Candy Trails.
Some houses had the self service bowl of candy on the table to help yourself for a handful of Halloween treats.
Others decked the place out with a lot of time spent to create the spooky look. To make you question your judgement to really take the dare or not to ring the door bell or apply the knock knock knock. Many of the door to door candy vendors wore a costume too. You could tell who really was a kid again and made the effort to put on a show for the trick or treaters. Boo. Made you jump. Here, let me help pick up the spilled candy.. pretty dark huh?
Give Me A Musical Beat To Go Along With The Sweets. Light Shows For This Halloween Trick Or Treat Pit Stop On Commonwealth Avenue.
With my own four kids, I really looked forward to the door to door.
One of my favorite holidays really. You see other parents as you advance up the small Maine town streets. Say hello, hey there’s an old classmate or another relative walking across the lawn you just visited. Someone you work with is doing the same October 31st tradition. Orange, purple, weird eerie glow of green, it’s approaching. Halloween trick or treating in small Maine towns across the state. Do you stay at home and turn on your front porch light to attract trick or treaters?
Boo. Scared Right? Hey, You Gonna Eat That Snickers Bar?
To let them know you are open and now serving come one, come all as a cavity creators Or do you lay low, act like no one is home? Maybe high tail it to another candy central location to help dish it out and have a Halloween party of treats for all the supporting cast at the home away from home?
I remember one man, Forman Swallow who worked for Nabisco I think. He and his wife lit up their driveway with the weighted paper bags and flickering candles inside.
Dishing out large size cookie packages and candy like you used to only be able to get at the movie or outdoor drive in theatre. Looking back, you want to thank them for creating the experience of Halloween trick or treating for your kids.
Some households would have the apples, the century old dry as dust popcorn balls.
Others would give out a collection of treats in the orange, black and white bags with the witch on the front riding her broom. Someone took a lot of time, spent much time and money to hand out a quality treat. I remember one house stop, the kids waited, waited and were about to nix this visit to go on to the next porch.
The owner finally opened the door, seemed surprised and had forgotten it was Halloween.
He may have had a few too many barley pops and snoozed off watching “Wheel of Fortune” or Gunsmoke reruns. But he insisted, no candy treats to dish out but he pulled the five trick or treaters in the gang down to his kitchen pantry.
Lots Of Spooks, Might Be Halloween Haunted This Patten ME Home.
Each kid came out with a can of vegetables to show for the Halloween stop.
Makes trick or treating a good work out when hefting a couple of cans of corn, peas, green beans or carrots. Boo hoo if your arm gets tired and the next guy wants to give you a piece of firewood to
Yours Truly. Small Maine Towns, Everyone Gets Into The Spooky Halloween Mood.
lug back to the candy beehive. One household, the manager of Shop and Save Grocery store gave out cans of soda.
Hope you have a strong bag to carry the loot load.
Others with the can giveaway choice would strap and wrap a dollar or more around the cylinder. Nice.
Thank you very much. No eggs or toilet paper you older trick or treaters up to mischief for this five star Halloween eatery.
One group of three houses joined forces to create a theme park for Halloween.
Ultraviolet lights and snakes on a pulley. Giant mutant spiders from some other solar system climbing up the sides of houses.
An army tent with a casket and other skeletons, Halloweeen haunted house devices to entertain and scare. My youngest in his bat mat outfit taking it all in and jumped a foot when the body in the casket elevated to say “good evening”.
Some Maine neighbors cause the biggest flock of trick or treaters from their set it up and then tear it down production. Attracting hundreds of costumed characters to visit to pan handle for candy.
Trick Or Treat…Don’t Forget To Say Thank You!
What are you doing this Halloween trick or treating season? Individual wrapped and no handfuls from a bowl to be sensitive to COVID protocols.
What do you dress up as around your place of work or are you thinking just too old for this Halloween trick or treat game of make believe?
Anyone with grandchildren, young kids of their own will be swept into the holiday mood of Halloween living in a small Maine town.
There are a lot of folks with a sweet tooth across the Maine landscape. Trick or treat and go slow motorists to make it safe for all the ghosts, goblins, witches, fairies and super heroes with a candy craving.
Have a candy basket in the real estate office and folks reach for the candy corn, anything chocolate. The house hunters get hungry really from tramping properties and enjoy the treats year round. What’s your pleasure for a Halloween treat?
For many of us in Northern Maine, picking potatoes for an area farmer was our first real job. For anyone raised on a Maine potato farm like I was, the fall harvest tradition is a strongly ingrained tradition. Many grown ups take their vacations to work the harvest. It’s was that memorable and enriching for them to remember what working the harvest was like. They like helping out an area Maine potato farmer get the crop in the storage bins.
Lessons Earned Young To Apply To Life For The Youth Picking Maine Potatoes Out In The Farm Fields!
This blog post is all about Maine potato picking.
First things first. Picking potatoes like raking Maine blueberries, collecting apples climbing the ladder, digging for clams, etc all start with a system. My Dad and Mom preached before charging in to plan your work and work your plan. Reminded us enough times to never ever forget. That “you got to have a system.”
There is an art to everything we do in life and Mainers are definitely hard working.
Putting their all into every endeavor with zeal and innovation. Being raised on a Maine farm, the last and most cruel label you could ever wear or have applied was the word “lazy”. You were not, could not be lazy. You learned worth ethic early on in life. Lazy is considered stealing, not contributing for the greater good and is simply being a poor team member.
Pitch in, work hard and be proud of your “fire in your belly” passion driven by the industrious gene.
So Maine potato picking, how does it all work? As a kid, waking up early and first turning on the radio to see if farmer Bob or Jim are starting on time was key. You don’t want to be late for work. True Mainers pride themselves on showing up consistently on time. In fact, if you are not early you are late thinking happens. Because you are trained to be dependable, responsible, a constant wherever you work. You want to be present and accounted for and ready to work.
Reasons your potato farmer might not be starting the digging on time, at the usual early AM morning time slot?
There was a frost last night. Gotta wait until the Maine farm field ground warms up and the air temperature is a tad higher. Late in the farm season, snow flurries can happen as the pressure to get these potatoes out of the ground only increases. Often staying in the field to pick hard later into the evening happens when their is a frost in the forecast and it gets down to crunch time.
The Fruits Of The Earth. Farm Fresh Hand Picked Maine Potatoes And Veggies Direct From The Field.
All that work to till the soil, plant the spring crops, tend them over the summer cultivation into the fall fall harvest finale. No one wants to leave any potato acreage behind in the farm field as winter approaches.
Another reason for hold your horses and before firing up the farm tractor that pulls the potato digger?
Rain. Too much moisture last night, yesterday means more time spent getting unstuck as farm harvest equipment sinks in the mud. Only gets mired deeper in the wet saturated farm soil.
Another reason to wait on getting into the field and firing up the pickers and all the agricultural equipment?
Too much potato field dirt sticking to the spuds when it is swimming in wet soil. Precious field dirt that gets trucked into the storage facility. Never gets a ride back to the field where it left.
The loss of farm dirt speeds soil erosion so park it and let the air clear. Wait until the soggy ground dries out the best advice during fall field harvest.
Hurry up and wait can happen picking potatoes by hand.
A potato digger gets reaches down below the buried tubers. Gently lifts them up and out of the ground with a metal revolving bed of hooked together connected sifting digger lags.
To lay out the two hill rows merged into one flat double one. Drying in the fresh air and beating sun before pick em up, put em in the basket potato barrel filing fun.
Quality control starts with protecting the potato from weather damage of freezing early morning temperatures. From blistering heat by afternoon in the Maine potato field.
A kid picking shows up to the field sometimes wearing long underwear, layers of clothing. Shedding them as fall harvest temperatures rise and the barrel count increases. Extra pairs of cotton jersey gloves for when one set wears out, gets snagged on a barrel nail. Or plunges into a rotten potato that stinks to high heaven and is wet. Labor warms you up living in Maine. Whether picking potatoes, splitting firewood or shoveling new winter snow. Exercise is your internal heater. Lugging empty barrels, the spud baskets to fill ‘er up to the brim to win burns calories.
So how’s it work, potato picking in Maine?
You show up at the edge of the latest unharvested field armed with a water jug, a home made lunch, plenty of snacks. You take your pick of potato baskets made of ash at the beginning of the season. That basket is your weapon to create lots of barrels to make money. You keep tabs on your basket and guard from losing it all harvest long.
Picking The Potatoes By Handfuls Into A Basket To Fill The Empty Barrels. Full Potato Barrels Weight 165 Pounds Before Storage In Potato Bins Over The Winter.
Line up behind the field boss picking crew.
He or she hands out your potato barrel ticket number all wrapped tightly in an elastic. You follow him or her up into the potato field and everyone is assigned a section. From this boot soil drag mark so many paces up to this next one. Sure you can handle this territory row and after dug row in the potato field? That is your field section that you promise to keep picked up for the next three weeks or longer.
Maine area schools still go in three weeks early the end of summer in some places so the potato harvest recess tradition can continue.
The kids picking potatoes or working on harvests is vital to the farmer’s harvest plans. Other field workers drive trucks, work on the back loading barrels or running the potato digger.
Others take the filled barrels or bulk body trucks onto conveyors that deliver the field spuds into storage bills. Filling the potato house a pretty important too. Some school districts still recess for fall break to allow kids to work the Maine potato harvest.
The potato picker has selected his section, marked the ends with water jug and lunch box or articles of clothing as things heat up.
You need empty potato barrels to play the game and unearthed spuds to row by row travel across the field. Grab an empty barrel, drag it to the middle of your just dug section if it is a long one to save steps filling it.
Put the empty barrel on it’s side.
Lean over and pick the potatoes to clear the area where the barrel gets set up. The potato barrels will go every other row because space for the farm truck to get through is needed to pick up filled ones, drop off new empties.
Generally an adult or teenage potato picker will fill four baskets to create a 165 pound barrel of spuds. Littler pickers can only lug so large a potato basket and will make more trips to top barrels off to just below the rim.
Three rules of many in the potato farm field to follow.
1) Protect the precious potato crop by clearing a spot in a newly dug digger pass before putting up the empty barrel you fill. 2) “Pick ’em clean” which means don’t leave behind perfectly good potatoes. Look under the dirt clumps and grass clods. And 3) No over filling barrels so truck field hands collecting potatoes cause damage with the “tongs”.
Tongs are the attachment mechanism thrown down from the truck body as it passes your section.
It hooks on and hoists up by grabbing the full potato barrel using hydraulics or earlier models an truck battery. Tongs attached to a cable or chain to land the barrel up and onto the truck platform. Then while the truck is still moving, roll the barrel back into place. To fill the body with fifty or more loaded barrels. The farm truck is a flat open platform, with wooden stakes around the edge all connected by a rope to secure the barrels for the quick unloading trip to deposit into the potato house bins.
Pick Up, One Potato At A Time. Four Baskets Fill A Potato Barrel In Maine. Teaching My Oldest Daughter The Art Of Potato Picking One Fall Years Ago.
Each potato picker field worker takes one of his or her tickets from their numbered bundle. Slides it securely into a groove on the top to protect from wind blowing it off the full barrel.
The potato barrels come in two varieties.
165 Pounds Is The Weight Of A Full Maine Farm Potato Barrel.
Either cedar wooden staves or the plywood sheet kind. Wrapped in a circle and held together by wooden bark strip sections nailed top, middle, and bottom of the barrel. There are cracks in the top wooden strip fastener where you slide your numbered ticket into securely for barrel payment credit.
The tickets collected by the barrel hoist operator as the potato truck slowly plies the field. Tickets put in a two gallon re-purposed oil can with a handle and can opened hole at the top. These cans like the black box in an airplane. Telling the tale of who picked how many today.
I counted many a ticket with my Mom each night after a harvest supper.
That supper involved a version of baked potatoes of some kind. Not a lot of rice eaten on a Maine potato farm. We would clear the table of meal dishes, then lay down newspapers. Then shaking out time to empty the dusty cans one by one.
Lots of fine potato dirt made its way into kitchen table ticket counting process each night.
Lining up the ticket numbers numerically and next counting each pile after all the cans were empties from the field trucks. Wrapping the tickets up with an elastic to return to whoever is assigned this potato picking field number for this fall season. That person could count their tickets to know how they did yesterday but most already had a pretty good idea.
A check at the end of the week barrel count announced in the memo section the total barrel production. Tabulated from the day by day hand tally for the grand total each week to determine the pay check size.
When I was a kid, 25 cents a barrel was the going rate per barrel. My four kids each picked and it was 60 cents for each full picked barrel ticketed during their era. Money you earned, not just handed to you by Mom or Dad without effort on your part.
The Saturday night ritual of going into down town much like the giddy feeling you sense in the western movies.
When some dirt farmer or trapper, miner, whoever rode in off the trail to town for supplies. Kids pitched in an bought their winter clothes to help out the family budget. Most of the checks saved for something useful like your winter jacket. You bought it, you take better care of it.
Very shrewd and careful as you shop with other cleaned up potato pickers you bumped going in and out of store doing the same bargain hunting. When it is your own hard earned money being spent, impulse spending control happens. You keep looking when you don’t think what you are considering buying is worth so many barrels of potatoes or not.
Part of the potato picking money a kid can blow on something fun. I remember saving for a new bike, then a motorized one after that.
Dreaming about it in the field along with awfully good snacks and carefully prepared tasty lunches that helped smooth out the laboring. Every fall, the new Sears or Montgomery Ward Christmas arrived to help the dreaming process take your mind off the pick and fill field drill.
The other field crew pickers are your friends on the potato chain gang.
The grower needs you to show up, pick ’em clean and help get the crop out before old man winter arrives. Fellow pickers who you ate lunch with, talked to in neighboring field sections. You rode to and from the field in the back of a pick up bed with these dusty, dirty hard working spud handlers. You learned other entertaining skills… like walking balanced on a rolling barrel. Or becoming William Tell accurate putting a small potato on the end of a wood’s switch stick that is used in brief potato skirmishes until the field boss comes into view. Back to work after a little potato picking brevity.
Potato picking was your entry level job, your first real employment for money.
Not just a house hold chore like making your bed or helping do the dishes because it is your turn. You picked more barrels if the field harvest yield was higher, if the growing season was favorable, when the potato house was not too far away. Which caused delayed return of the empties you needed to fill to keep from getting behind. Lots can affect your daily barrel count. How much sleep you got last night, if you were on an end field section that kept shortening. Or growing longer and causing discouragement as the hot sun beamed down from overhead. All as you found yourself hopelessly falling behind. How cold or windy or rainy it was, how much the digger pushed you to keep caught up was the potato field dynamics to do the best you can.
Lessons learned in the Maine potato picking field that last for life.
How big a section can you handle? Don’t bite off more than you can chew. You don’t want to get fifty rows behind because it was too long. Although if you did, another potato field rule. No one leaves the field when day is done until everyone is picked up and no dug potato rows exist.
Where Your Love Lies Obvious On The Maine License Plate. Farm to Table Is Pretty Sacred.
You do run out of barrels and that is the time to head to the woods for a nature call. When you use the expression “I have to go see a man about a horse” as you carefully stride across the un-dug potato rows.
If waiting for the empty barrel truck to return from the potato house delays production, might be a good time for a snack or to eat your lunch early. Make good use of your time another lesson learned. Shift gears quickly and expect set backs and road blocks. But you rise to the occasion and take it all in stride as a professional, seasoned potato harvest picker or spud house worker.
Pick the potato tops off your section of newly dug potatoes. That will make filling barrels quicker when you do hear the thud of an empty or two being dropped as the truck passes your section.
Be nice to the truck crew who might land an extra empty because you did. That’s my insider local expert as a long time potato picker in the farm field since a little shaver.
When you run out of barrels, might trot down to a place in the field where there are plenty and folks are behind. To pick a couple barrels and then return to your own section just as empties arrive or the broken digger comes back alive and squeals by. Stay busy.
Some stand up and lean over.
Others drop to their knees and drag the potato basket beside or behind them to fill it with golden, other color spud varieties. Shot in the Sherman Maine area, the video embedded in the top portion early on in this blog post shows the sights and sounds of harvest in case you missed it. The video below near the end show and tells what potato picking looks like in the potato house working the storage / grading lines.
The home made donuts, cookies, sandwiches and ring dings, yodels, ding dongs, moon pies and candy bars. The fuel to keep the potato picker rolling for quick energy. It all tastes so much better out in the fresh air. Enjoyed amidst the brilliant fall foliage colors surrounding you in the scenic Maine potato fields with your friends and relatives.
Picking potatoes, you are out in nature.
You see the occasional deer, rabbit, fox, black bear or moose out of the corner of your eye too. As the wildlife wander by the edge of the field. Crossing it to head to a babbling brook for a slurp of refreshing drink of cold cool running brook water. Or curious and watching what you are up to as you fill barrels and slowly as a group advance across the harvest field.
I was raised on a Maine potato farm where every family member has a vital role. Starting as a young grasshopper, the fall harvest potato picking season just one of the tasks working together with your mom, dad, brothers and sisters. Back when I was a kid, everyone picked potatoes and there were more farmers needing the hand crews.
My Dad always said pickers did a better job and were gentler on the potato crop quality then mechanical harvesters. Now less farmers, more larger Maine potato growers make potato hand picking crews not as common.
On my Maine family farm I bought from my three older brothers, hand crews still used. But instead of barrels, orange baskets gets filled to empty into wooden two thousand pound wooden box crates. All organic with the kids paid by the hour instead of piece meal by the basket.
Sampling The Local Maine Location On Your Cheap Vacation. Learning What Life Is Like Here! Early Morning Heading To The Maine Potato Field To Harvest Spuds.
Not just bending over or on your knees to pick potato for the fall harvest work. Other jobs exist like working on a harvester, in the potato house grading what the bulk body unloaded that ends up in storage bins. There are also jobs over the winter working to get the spuds loaded into tractor trailer trucks to deliver to the produce markets. To plant in spring and cultivate and hoe over the summer to raise the next fall harvest crop.
As the Maine blog post wraps up, this is a short clip on showing with the spuds end up bring graded, working in a potato house. You are there sight and sounds below.
It is enlightening to see the kids today rise to the occasion and dig in to work hard during the Maine potato farm harvest.
The lessons learned in the Maine potato or whatever vegetable field or fruit orchard picking operation are never forgotten. Everything you learn is your system for life and used as you approach any other task big or small. You learn to have a system, develop a plan and stay resourceful with resiliency with lots of passion to do your best. Some of the pickers end up becoming the next generation of farmers to continue the tradition and put food on the table.
Hope you enjoy this blog post on the Maine farm potato picking institution.
Thank you for being a follower of the Me In Maine blog that tries to paint the picture of what living in Vacationland is all about one topic at a time. Maine truly is the way life should be.
Recreation camps in Maine, one property owner’s story shared today on a blog post.
The attraction for many to get to Maine is less people, more wildlife, wall to wall nature all around you. It can all start with just owning an acre or two, a small piece of ME. Often the old travel trailer sinking up to it’s axles from lack of use in the backyard is tapped. Spruced up to make it road worthy for the last trip up to Maine. To go off road forever.
Meet The Locals! Camping In Your Recreation Camps Up In Maine.
Before graduating to the recreation camp in Maine, the camper or RV used as a command base in operation ME low cost vacation.
Creating a spot to head and camp out every three day weekend, any much needed vacation week long stretch. Slowly a cabin is hauled in already built or one is crafted a stick, log or beam at a time. Nothing fancy because the living room is going to be outdoors. Hitting the trails and exploring or getting out onto a body of water to rest and relax. You do your best thinking and find the greatest enjoyment when you can hear yourself think.
Baxter State Park… The Wilder Side Not So Touristy Appears The Deeper You Explore.
Below radar and off grid and hidden in the woods or parked next to a stream, river, pond or lake is the perfect setting for a low cost Maine vacation.
This blog post is a story about how much one couple from below Bangor Maine enjoyed their recreation camp in the Mt Chase, ME. Owned for 44 years and built from scratch. Nothing fancy and simple. To serve as a jumping staging area place to hit several times a year. A post to hit the many remote waterways around the north entrance to Baxter State Park. Listen to their Maine recreation story. As they explain how much fun they had and what was enjoyed most “uptah camp in Maine.
They miss the place up in the tippy top of Penobscot County but realize it is time to let go.
No regrets and so many memories made up at the recreational camp in Maine. Used to part of the Brown Farm in the Patten area, but the 44 acres of Maine land turned into a woodlot, a camp location. They could have had power, it was running up and down the Shin Pond Road, or RT 159. But they chose not to connect the juice and to make their own with battery packs.
Keeping it simple, close to the ground and immersed in nature.
In the beginning the couple spent less time at the camp and more of their days tramping and exploring. Learning one adventure at a time about all the not so easy to get to lakes, streams and ponds around remote areas of Baxter State Park. The ones that don’t get much traffic and very little press.
Added Later, The Much Enjoyed Screened in Camp Porch.
You find the further north, east and west you plow up into Maine, the more unspoiled and all natural the surroundings become.
As the husband who was a college profession and the wife a nurse got older, more time was devoted to being at camp. In the video you hear them talk about the screened in porch that was added. The storage shed for their outdoor toys was built from scratch too. Nothing elaborate but not because they could not afford to have it that way. Fancy dancy or hoity toity “look at what we have” to post all over social media channels was not the goal. Private, special, all that they needed that was more than enough.
See The Pale Blue Dashes Marking The Trail Ahead? Remind You Of Climbing Mt Katahdin Up And Down?
The trails carved from old logging roads and through pasture farm fields that grew up to trees painted with blue dashes.
You know if you have hikes Mt Katahdin or any of the other foothills around Baxter State Park about light blue dashes. That mark the trail so you get up and down before sunset and having to call the warden’s service to go find you at great tax payer expense.
Hiking Baxter State Park. Which Trails Do You Use The Most And Pick To Hike?
The couple with the recreation camp up in Maine also kept a journal.
To help remember and recall each and every trip to the Maine camp or cabin in the nestled in the woods. Looking forward to getting to the Maine recreational camp was as special as the times cherished made their through the year. All of us have to have something to look forward to for fun.
Who Left The Water Running? Baxter State Park Crystal Clean Waterways!
Many recreational camp owners use four wheel ATV’s and snowmobiles to access the nature trails. Others prefer like this couple to hoof it, to hike, bike, kayak and with no motor involved.
Here’s another from the recreation camps in Maine popular people’s choice category that just came on the market.
Wrapped with fourteen acres high on a hill with a big Maine lake in it’s lap, the simple cedar shingle sided cabin is 20′ x 16′. Built with a loft to expand down the road. There’s a brook that is more verbal after a two or three day rain. You get to hear Maine loons in this Maine real estate video.
You can rent a cabin, reserve a motel room in Maine to move around and explore.
That’s how it starts out to get your feet wet and get your bearings. Good way to start to slowly ease her into your diet. One vacation visit no matter how short or long at a time. But once you find a location that tugs at your heart to return every time you leave, you decide to invest in some Maine recreation land. To own a piece of ME and start the family traditions. To drill down into an area with repeat visits and feeling the relationship growing stronger.
Some Winters Are More Snow Fall Than Others. All The Better For Snowmobiling, Skiing, To Create Snowy Trails To Explore Maine’s Winter Wonderland.
Trips up to the recreation camp in Maine happening more frequently.
To explore and discover all four seasons what folks lucky enough to live in Maine full time get to enjoy.That’s how addictions get rooted.
Drews Lake Night Sky In Aroostook County Maine.
So so lucky to live in Maine full time.
I know I am very lucky and glad my kids were raised in Maine. To not have to only get a morsel, once a year visit and that’s all she wrote chance to get to know her more fully. Maine, come for a day and end up staying a life time. Vacationland, Maine is the way life should be.
Allison Britton was one who painted some of his signs in his shop next to Chadwick’s Florist on Spring Street in my small Maine town.
Rise And Shine, New Day To Do What You Were Put On Earth To Do In Your Small Maine Community. Allison Britton Was A Local Maine Sign Painter.
Many of the hand painted sign missions though created from scratch on premise.
My parents along with spud and grain farming their own crops, brokered what other area farmers raised. Mom and Dad bought ten trucks one by one to transport them overnight to produce markets to the south. These trucks lettered outdoors when temperatures were high enough. Inside the barn truck bay during winter with heat on but never above 55 degrees which meant Allison painted with his coat on. Just warm enough for the paint surface to allow the paint to barely cure properly.
Those 18 wheelers needed lettering, consistent branding.
The half circle arch of shaded “Prem Pak” on both doors. The matching font of government ICC GVW 73,280 and vehicle number, Maine town location applied in fresh wet paint by Allison’s steady hand. He smoked a pipe and I can see him sitting on a wooden stool, one hand resting against the trailer truck door. The other one making the strokes to apply the lettering paint. An outline, shading added to the lettering for the finishing touch.
Roll With The Flow, Rise And Drop With Tide. Small Maine Town Living Is Memorable And Rewarding.
The painting watched by an eight year old version of me.
In the original Maine farm barn converted to a truck terminal where the lettering happened in winter. Or admired outside sitting on the same wooden stool or up on the step ladder. Both splattered with a million hues of paint color Allison Britton took turns using to create lettering by free hand.
The local sign painter was busy with both hands.
Drawing a wax crayon reference line to guide the process. To make sure what was in his head for a design and spacing ended up the carbon copy same on the building, vehicle, sign surface.The faint line sketch easily rubbed out was the small Maine town sign painter’s dress rehearsal before fresh paint brushed in long fast deliberate strokes. The trucks got pin striping too. And funny lettering added to the front bumpers. “Home Wrecker”, “Here’s Come Kelley”. “Ole Elmer” for the gas job that donkeyed trailer boxes around the yard or on short hauls. Elmer Snell was Prem Pak’s mechanic.
Truck Letting, Done by Hand. One Man, Allison Britton Lettered All The Prem Pak Trucks.
Dopey was another trailer truck that Allison create a cartoon for that did not have a sleeper.
That over the road truck drivers received an extra thirty five dollars in their weekly salary envelope to spring for a no tell motel if they wanted. Most drives took a cat nap slumped over the wheel. Or laying down on the shot gun seat for a form of rest for the second wind to get back up the pike to the truck terminal.
Like the giant 8 foot tall, 4 foot wide ear of yellow corn.
This one his wife told me years later when I listed their red cape home and detached shop next door where her husband created one of a kind signage. Mrs. Britton told me the sign painting was usually ho hum same old same old.
But her husband loved the chance for something unique and that really provided the chance to create more than sign letters. That involved a picture to tag team with the lettering.
The two words “Farm Fresh” across the top, the ear of corn still wearing it’s green husk with just a hint of the big juicy yellow kernels tucked inside showing.
Teasing, peeking out to tempt the road traffic about a mile and a half outside of town to slow down. Keep it simple. Make it real. Brown and gold tassel silk applied just so on the top of the ear for realism. Peel back ever so seductively by the sign painter’s imagination to briefly show and tell what was hidden underneath.
Come on in, you know you want some.
It’s in season and farm fresh farm to table time. The spot lighted ear of corn suggesting to motorists what could be steamed and boiled for tonight’s supper. New cobbler potatoes, yes, you can buy those by the pound too. But you have to stop. Put on your blinker. Turn here to enter the U shaped driveway to come and get your farm fresh corn.
Sold in a baker’s dozen.
Always 13 ears for good measure. Corn on the cob direct from the local Maine farmer you know and trust. Get it here and don’t forget to check out the just as fresh, home grown tomatoes, cukes, carrots, squash, peas, even strawberries in season.
The ear of perfect size, shape, color and shaded corn on the cob was the trumpet solo. But the hint of more veggies waiting to tempt and be bought to bag up and help load into the shopper’s car.
We even grew yellow eye, Jacob’s cattle, soldier dry beans that could be bought in two pound bags all cleaned and filtered.
Or in large quantities straight out of the field. One of my Dad’s many expressions was “you can’t sell meat from an empty wagon” which mean variety. Have something for everyone in all prices so no one goes away empty handed. The truck farming cash in the economic dead of summer was crucial to keep day to day expenses current.
A Maine potato farmers plants a lot of 100 dollar bills all over the field acreage that the family hopes to recoup.
During the wait, some cold hard currency for the cash and carry comes in handy to tame the farm expenses. A break even year is considered a good year in small Maine farming operations. It means you get to plant again, to tend the next year’s crop to get it harvested and sold out of the field. Or carefully stored for slowly loading one truck at a time to head to the produce markets further south on Interstate 95.
More Space, Less People, More Wildlife. That’s Simple Living In Maine.
Back to the small Maine town sign painter that my parents hired a lot for many reasons.
His daughter dated a boy up the street on Commonwealth Avenue. And when he walked her home from school, he would stop into the painter’s shop her Dad ran next door to where he said good bye. To watch with awe and to learn how the painting process starts and ends. To eventually not marry his daughter, but to catch the spark and become a sign painter for his profession. And witness less and less actual hand painted signage performed and more computer generated graphics that standardized the sign making process.
Before computer assistance and back when you needed talent to do hand painted signs, everything was created piece meal.
You could have a printer create multiple copies but the original was from scratch. All the signs at the grocery stores, car dealers, down at the Grange or along Main Street was done by small local Maine sign painters. Allison Britton create a wall mural of Christ’s last supper that I think when we listed and sold his widow’s home, that masterpiece went to the local Catholic church. It was amazing and I bet something more interesting to create than just a trailer truck door lettering job caused for a creative stir.
A Little Maine Color Spices Up The Landscape Scenery.
I have talked with house painters who love to apply the colors.
To do the scraping, the scaffolding to prepare to get down to the nitty gritty of putting on the paint. They love to paint and stand back to admire their work. Square it up. To make sure no spots were missed, that the paint goes on evenly. Protect and make the house admired from out on the curb. To do it’s part for neighborhood appeal from out on the street.
Do you like to paint on any level?
Stain or paint your own porch or deck or interior walls and trim? New color schemes, old traditional paint styles and excitement pulling out the tall skinny samples. Nothing transforms like a fresh coat of paint and a mowed lawn when you’re talking listing, selling a Maine home. Allison Britton, the story of one small Maine town sign painter who left his mark.
Agricultural state fairs in Maine, they are underway around Vacationland.
Many were scaled way back or not held at all during the pandemic. But the COVID virus is in the rear view mirror and all around the state folks are returning to traditional life. Here’s the list, the circuit of agricultural state fairs in Maine. This blog posts to showcase what happens going into an local agricultural state fair and why they are so important to the area of Maine where they happen.
What Would You Do With This Maine Farm Land Acreage? Critters Or Crops?
Maine has a deep, rich tradition roots with family agricultural farming.
The lumbering of forest tracts and timbering vast tracts is right up there too. Managing your woodlot is a big way of our life when you are 91 percent wooded too. And we won’t leave out the vital importance of the Maine fishing industry. How important harvesting what’s below the water off the coast of Maine is at meal time and for the state’s tourism.
Hi. Maine Dairy Cows Itching To Get Turned Out, To Kick Up Their Heels, To Roll In And Eat The New Spring Field Clover.
Farming in Maine, there was a time when the state was number one in agricultural food production.
In small farming communities around the state of Maine, it was not uncommon to need the ten fingers of both hands to list them all. Up and down each country road you could recite the small family farms in Maine that worked the dirt. Those folks who carved out a living from agriculture. Feeding others, being a farmer is and always was a noble profession. Now less than two percent of individuals grow the food consumed by the masses. There was a time in Maine when ninety six percent of folks tilled the soil and worked, raised families on farmsteads. Maine is right up there with a resurgence of micro farming. The average age of the national farmer is pushing sixty years of age.
Working For Winter Clothes, That Jacket, To Help Out Family Expenses. Kids Learn Work Ethic Early On In Small Town Rural Maine.
The number of small family farm spreads dotting the countryside around Vacationland was pretty impressive.
It’s why the Grange hall was big in membership and the Future Farmer Of America chapters flourished. In Northern Maine, schools went in three weeks earlier than the rest of the state. To close for the same amount of time so students could help area farmers harvest their potato crops. Many a kid earned their winter jackets, helped out with the family needs by picking potatoes for area farmers.
Farming in Maine is such a big part of the state’s history and locals cherish the rich experiences learned by being part of area agricultural operations.
Baby beef, sheep, goat, raising chickens and egg production on a small scale and large truck gardens. They all are enjoyed as a big part of the simple lifestyle of farm to table living in rural Maine. So it is no wonder that state agricultural farm fairs are popular around Maine.
Kids chasing a piglet with the winner who lands one in the burlap bag getting to keep it. Can I Mom and Dad? He’s so cute. Oink. What’s that about you think I should call him Bacon? Hamchops? Why’s everyone laughing? 4H exhibits, baby beef, sheep being sheered for their woo. Ribbons in all colors awarded for everything from bread and butter pickles to dried flowers.
Quilting, art, photography, home cook food competitions. Raising goats, rabbits, chickens means responsibilities on a Maine farm and everyone in the family has a job. All the Maine farm family members are important parts of the agriculture operation.
Maine Farm Sheep. Beating The Heat Wearing Summer Wool On A Maine Farm.Bored, Wishing They Had Some Wire Cutters To Take A Vacation From The Pen.
Tractor and horse pulls, oxen displays, demolition derbies, vendors peddling fair food of all kinds.
Have a dough boy, sprinkled with confectioners white powdered sugar. My favorite, the Italian sausage smothered in onions, mingling with green and red peppers sauteed on the grill. Everyone hungry? Local service and church clubs have hot dog booths and burger wagons and you know the folks that take your order in small Maine towns. I’ll be on the Rotary gate to the park for a shift or two to exchange money for ticks to the state fair in my hometown this weekend. Everyone pitches in and helps make the local event home grown special.
Working Together On The Land In Maine. Amish Families Resettle In Vacationland To Strengthen Local Agriculture.
Take a number and socialize with others you see on the state fair agriculture midway while waiting for the food order preparation.
Fireworks, little miss and mister firecracker pageants when your Maine agricultural state fair happens to land around the 4th of July. Exhibits of all types, car shows, carnival rides depending on COVID restrictions or the size of your fair. And farm tractors new and old appeal to a big segment of the fair audience who worked with them growing up. Someone’s Uncle or Grandfather owned a Maine farm spread and everyone has memories haying, picking potatoes, raking blueberries, repairing fencing, haying, etc.
Barns In Maine, Some Store Bought From Sears And Roebuck. Others Hand Hewn Post And Beams Created On Site.
Have you ever been to the agricultural state fair in Maine called the Common Ground?
2021 is the 50th anniversary of the Common Ground Fair. The multi day state fairs in Maine require year round planning. Sometimes insurance to be taken out to hedge the bet because so much is riding on the gate size and event coming off without a hitch. The living off the land lifestyle of simplicity. To appreciate the basics and what is real, all natural and not store brought. The Common Ground Fair is worth the annual t-shirt, the experience so many share so freely for the skill set gleaned from the agriculture “down on the farm” lifestyle.
Big Barns In Maine. They Fall To Their Knees If Not Maintained.
The state fairs in Maine have to have a full slate of activities and events to be well rounded to appeal to all ages year after year.
Fireworks, horse harness races and shows, parades, craft exhibits, carnival rides all are part of the state fair agricultural in Maine circuits. The cooperative extensive service, 4H, Future Farmers group all come together with the Maine agriculture families to celebrate rural living.
Treats, Fair Food, What’s Your Favorite? Cotton Candy, Dough Boys Or Grilled Sausages Smothered In Onions And Peppers?
Here is the link to the Houlton State Fair website. Beef, dairy, goat, alpaca shows are listed on the events list. Tractor pulls, open stage musical event, fireworks to cap it all off on our Nation’s 4th of July celebration. If you can sneak up into “The County”, see you this weekend at the lead in Houlton State Agriculture Fair for the 26 on the circuit around Vacationland.
Since COVID came into our day to day living, what’s happening post pandemic in the Maine real estate market? Like most news reports about a hot topic, what you read and hear does not always tell the whole story. Hard to sum up in a few words or learn much from a quick headline or clever sound bite. And the news article from a half a year ago or more deserves a return feature update to be current and factual information.
More Wildlife Than People. Lots Of Space To Be Naturally Socially Distant During COVID And Beyond In Maine.
Let’s face it. Buying and selling real estate in Maine is big deal in any market. It’s the largest single investment most of us ever make, real estate. The buying and selling of Maine real estate is affected by supply and demand, the local economy where the property listings are located. And the push from out of state real estate buyers to buy a piece of Maine when COVID locked down city living.
This blog post takes a snapshot look at the real estate market in Maine post COVID pandemic.
Just how buyers and sellers are adapting to the COVID pandemic, and how does the Maine real estate property listings come in to play. To begin with, the small town local Mainers approach to day to day living is loaded with common sense and practicality. Early on in life, our children are taught valuable skills on just how to make and manage their own money. Saving for dips in the road and those rainy days means to expect setbacks and delays. So we never go that far out on the limb and saw it off without a lot of thought before hand.
For Many, The Real Estate In Maine Search Starts With Land. Just Land.
Mainers are used to economizing and have pretty good impulse control on the spending. Taught early on to work hard, take care of whatever is purchased and don’t spend money like a fish drinks water. A simple approach to living with emphasis on not living in excess and more independent, self sufficient and a solid piece of the local small town fabric.
In January of 2020, the state off Maine had a total house listing inventory of slightly over 13,000 units.
This past January 2021 the supply number was not much over 3,000 units. As kids, we all played musical chairs and know what happens when where to sit in a hurry is at a premium.
Other than a handful of cities, Maine’s vast number of small town communities had an ample supply of affordable housing before COVID hit. The absorption rate of that low cost Maine housing supply is causing bidding wars. I recently sold a modest country Maine log home with nine real estate contracts of sale. The seller took her pick and ended up with $20,600 more than the listed price of $64,500. Lose out a number of times bidding until it hurt when you need a Maine home causes stress.
Maine Looks Pretty Affordable, The Simple Life Style Approach Highly Attractive.
The buyers can be demanding, edgy and expecting quick easy real estate closings.
When the local Maine bank mortgage lenders and lawyers doing the title work are pushed to the max like a MASH unit field hospital, a line for services grows longer. Take a number, have a seat.
A cash buyer able to close quickly trumps the home buyer bogged down by the bank loan process.
Cash is still king. And as real estate in Maine inventory shrinks and nine months supply becomes three and dropping, desperation sets in.
The Maine home is affordably priced but needs a new heating system, exterior paint, a new roof to replace the one now leaking. But banks selling the mortgage paper to secondary market investors do not want to finance homes with large job jars attached.
The deficiencies to a place are why the property is in the low price bracket it is.
The buyer who wants to take his time fixing a place up is sadden to learn lending on no or low down program picky loan programs don’t work that way. Repairs, a visit from the real estate appraiser to make sure the loose ends are tied up take money and time for the corrections. All needed before a real estate closing can take place.
Home sellers in Maine don’t have to wait and many other buyers are in the wings flush with cash to take over where a bogged down bank mortgage home buyer leaves off when no more contract extensions is announced.
In the real estate market pre-COVID pandemic, many Maine property buyers with just enough money for the down payment and closing costs are stuck.
They looked to the seller to help out and save the day but in today’s real estate market in Maine boom, the property owner does not have to for tickets to a closing. So many buyers leaving expensive city living loaded with money, many with cash and ready, willing and able to close on cheaper Maine homes.
It makes it hard for local home buyers with meager savings to buy the house they can afford that is not up to par to pass muster with bank lending mortgage underwriting standards. Some are lucky to have support but many lack parents to help the offspring obtain their own nest competing with COVID caused migration into Maine from outside cash buyers.
Maine Farms Are Bought By Many During The COVID Pandemic Move To Vacationland. Where Your Family’s Food Comes From Is Very Important Right?
Just go out and build if you can not find an existing Maine house for sale to call home you say?
Well, whoa, hold up and hot so fast. At the same time that existing affordable housing supply inventory is hammered hard post COVID pandemic, the cost of construction materials to build your home Maine home spiked thirty percent and higher. Plus try to get a carpenter, plumber, electrician and the guys and gals pushing the Earth moving machine levers to create a building site with all the amenities. Those tradesmen are all right out straight and it never let up like it typically does over a Maine winter lull to catch your breath thanks to the post COVID real estate market in Maine.
The Maine real estate market before the COVID headlines started was already a healthy, robust one.
The virus just threw the conveyor belt into warp factor five speeds. Like someone hit the nitrous blue button in the center console of a fast and furious car movie. Bidding wars, like the multiple offer situation shared above is very common. They used to only happen around Maine waterfront properties that are never in large enough supply. The real estate market in Maine is always anemic in the number of listings bordered by water. But that same faster than most buyers need for time to buy a new to the market home listing is just not there.
The new listing appearing for sale this morning is gone by sunset.
Off market and waiting for a closing, wearing a sale pending, under contract sign rider.
Farming Yesteryear Style! Staying Small On Your Patch Of Maine Farm Dirt. I Have Two Farmalls And Red Tractors Are A Weakness Using Them Growing Up.
Low interest rates, the affordable housing in Maine combined with our simple outdoor approach to four seasons living.
It is not hard in a rural state as vast and unspoiled as Maine to keep your six feet apart CDC directive. The COVID numbers are low, the Maine population is way ahead in vaccine inoculation compared to our Canadian cousins across the International border. In Maine, we already were socially distant and love the peace and quiet of space out on the water paddling a kayak. Biking a trail at Acadia or hiking on on Mount Katahdin. All that was found in real estate online Internet searches about how lucky we are to live in Maine. Maine, the way life should be right? If you are going to be stuck in a state during COVID, Maine is pretty hard to beat for no or low cost outdoor recreation.
Folks already working from home remotely thanks to the COVID pandemic restrictions in a city saw a chance to make a run for it.
But where? Hey, I heard good things about Maine. Liked it on vacation and why not Maine? Cash in and sell for big dollars whatever you own in a hot urban high priced real estate market. And then take your same online job to Maine to telecommute and buy a property outright for cash to avoid the strings attached and time delay caused by a home mortgage. That is what I see happening over and over in current Maine real estate market sales scenarios post COVID pandemic. Many in the audience are retiring early, opting to take the watch and the golden parachute benefits package to high tail head to Maine. Police offices in groves are retiring as early as possible or looking for safer places to protect and serve.
Where You Buy Real Estate In Maine, Expect A Wide Price Fluctuation. Head North, Further Inland Away From Population For Lower Cost Maine Real Estate.
Maine already had a pretty good reputation for vacations, for raising a family in wholesome fashion and where the village has a hand shaping the individuals in a good way.
No one spoiled, everyone pitches in for the common good and has a vital role living in small town Maine. There is a good work ethic and favorable discrimination when someone from Maine gets picked over someone that is not in a job interview. Our connection is stronger, people travel smaller circles and get to know each other deeplyin small Maine towns. The telecomute to Maine with your online job means keep pushing that last mile of Internet.
Populations of small Maine towns will increase if a job you already had out of state can follow you to your new small town community.
The new home buyer likes the sounds of 4th lowest for crime, no gangs, no violence or crowded highways in this northern most New England state of Maine. Less restrictive living and lower cost real estate in Maine are all in the mix to where to move.
But what happens if the supply of affordable Maine homes dwindles, if the cost to build new ones to sell with reasonable price tags can’t happen due to high priced building materials?
Enter the new generation hybrid homesteaders. The micro farmer and folks that used to have one primary job skill and hired everything out beyond that. They are being forced out of their comfort zone in society. If you own everything around you, life is not so scary. The passion, if what excites you is no cost, not a latest model gadget that soon is outdated and loses its artificial luster. When being outdoors in Maine is possible without the long drive over the big green bridge. Control of your finances, empowered to be more hands on and involved in your day to day destiny. Neighbors helping each other, bartering skills takes place on a regular basis. Money is not so important or valuable when removed from the daily living up here in rural Maine.
Skiing, Outdoor Fun Is Low Cost Like The Real Estate In Maine.
Small town living in Maine makes a person feel worthwhile and a part of the community because they truly are.
Those people and all their individual talents and willingness to pitch in to improve the area are the community. Not the empty buildings on Main Street or the map rows of streets and road. The community needs people who want to be here. Especially after living in a high cost city landscape. Those folks appreciate Maine even more than a local who has lived here most or all their life. Many out of state home buyers are from Maine but left for higher paying job opportunities. COVID just sharpened the focus of everyone that did the soul searching. Asking the question of where am I best off living? Maine?
Even though there is a say Connecticut blue vehicle plate, this Maine real estate broker often learns this is a native returning home.
And they always intended to when they left but some returning to help elderly parents early. Or because of COVID or to just retire early because the Maine economy is much cheaper to stretch the fixed income.
For Maine real estate buyers it starts with find a piece of land for low cost camping vacations and then in time, much more.
Hard work but self inflicted by choice to reduce, reuse, make a smaller carbon footprint up in Maine. Winter can be sobering. But with global warming, that time around the end and beginning of the calendar is way gentler than I remember as a kid. Winter in Maine is easy when prepared and expecting it, embracing it. Mainers are year round happiest outdoors creatures. Just with a change in wardrobe and the number of clothing layers worn or not.
The real estate market in Maine is strong coming out the other side of the pandemic.
Because people feel safe, worthwhile, hands on in Vacationland. COVID, the election, lots of factors make Maine popular for a popular real estate buying state these days. Multi-generation Maine real estate buyers are on the increase too.
I just listed a 1434 acres Kingdom lot that would be ideal for even the largest multi generation family planting roots in Maine.
Do it yourself. If it is to be, it is up to me thinking.
Maine Has So Many Facets, So Much To Explore In Your Lifetime. Thought Of Living Full Time In MaineSince The Pandemic Hit? You Are Not Alone According To Real Estate In Maine Sales Statistics.
Hardships experienced early in life temper a person, broaden their resiliency and deepen their passion.
Kids raised in that simple rural environment learn what is important in life. Not what is the result of highly effective marketing to create the carrot to attract the masses. Since COVID, the Maine real estate market has flourished. Local schools, businesses, community members embraced the challenge to not let COVID negatively effect their life. They did not have time to whine and complain or sink into pits of despair. Like most obstacles in life, with a little patience and lots of creative experience to draw from their upbringing. True Mainers come out the other side happy and grateful.
Many who owned seasonal properties in Maine have been like spider monkeys converting them to year round real estate use.
That’s why the best thing Maine leaders can do is invest in Internet. Tap into all the available funding out there to hammer away at that last mile of fiber or copper. Or boost those wireless tower signals to make the connection long and strong. Thank you for following our Me In Maine blog posts and hope this inside look at the local real estate market was a worthwhile read.
