Category: Maine Real Estate

Maine Made Christmas Presents

Maine made Christmas presents.

Something not from across the pond or with a “made in China” sticker on the bottom. Low tech not high tech and made in Maine. When you think something unique to Maine, what comes to mind? Christmas tree or wreath to be part of your holiday tradition? Or presents with something from LL Bean? Maybe a wild Maine blueberry scented candle or pie or jar of jam?

Maine is famous for it’s lobsters, variety of fish from pulled in from deep in the sea.

The Only Fish Fresher Is Still Swimming In The Maine Sea!

With all this coastline, 228 miles but 3,478 miles of inlets, coves, harbors and other watery hide aways, Maine fresh shellfish is part of a lot of Christmas celebrations.

Growing up oyster stew, shrimp cocktail or crab melts all showed up on the Christmas Day or Eve tradition. If you were born and raised along the coast of Maine, seafood of all types could be a regular meal time staple. Digging for clams, shucking oysters, cracking lobster legs and filet of all kinds of native fish.

Chances are someone you are related to has a commercial fishing license or back in the family tree did.

Or you run a boat heading out to sea and are born for the salt air and sea swells as you head out of the harbor in search of a big catch.

Fish Fresh From The Maine Coastal Sea. Barnacle Billy’s Crew Ham It Up For Tourists. The Maine Coast Has Lots Of Seafood Eateries.

Further inland, up into the belly of Maine and away from Boston, traveling to interior Maine. The holiday meal time Christmas celebration is pulled from old tattered and fade recipe cars. Gooseberry and mince meat pies. After hearty farmstead country style servings of vegetables of all kinds.

Venison from hunting season and pulling from root cellars for bread and butter pickles.

Deviled eggs, sticky sweet cinnamon buns and trays of home made sweets. Thinking about losing weight? Not during the holiday season in Maine. The feast is part of the one size fits all Christmas present the entire family enjoys. The big fat evergreen fir or pine tree in the living room corner is loaded down too. With fragile, precious decorations from Christmas past.

Artistry Thanks To Mother Nature. What You See On A Walk In Maine Over The Holidays In A Maine Peaceful Winter.

Photos of your brother or sister glued behind colored construction paper hanging on the boughs with multi color twinkling lights.

The power of a Christmas tree ornament you inherited from the growing up collection is immense. Memories and reminders of family members are spiked from these tree decorations enjoyed as a child. Throwing money at new flashy decorations is not needed when you hang on to and cherish these Christmas family ornaments.

This year’s tree hunted down, cut fresh and straight from your own land out behind your house.

Maine Is Real, Peaceful, Not Crowded. Winter Is Peaceful, Time To Hunker Down.

Christmas of yesteryear in rural Maine was not determined by how far into debt you went to pull it off on December 25th.

Home made hand knit mittens, sweaters, scarves. Carefully stitched quilted blankets worked on earlier in the year completed just in time to wrap up and slide under the family Christmas tree.

Practical gifts purchased with lots of thought because you remember the family member saying they wished they had this or that item. Money manged better when less of it to spend. Because of how hard it was to earn and save.

Thought and time put into what paper to use wrapping the gift up not parked by the tree in a gift bag with only tissue paper concealing it.

And the stockings as big a deal as the presents carefully wrap, ribbon and bowed under the Maine Christmas tree. Did you start first with the Christmas stockings?

How do you start the opening up of the wrapped presents in your home growing up? Free for all every man for himself? Or oldest or youngest goes first and then rotate around the room? Waiting for the grandparents to arrive and quite a breakfast spread served up first? Growing up in Maine…

Did you leave cookies and milk, a carrot for Santa?

Elf on a shelf and family parties, watching the same old Christmas films? Was there a Christmas Eve service in your holiday celebration? When did you stop traveling and started having Christmas celebrations in your own home? It is all about having yourself a Merry little Christmas with the ones you love.

Enjoying the child made gifts from school. Remembering when who made them had that small of hands and was lower to the ground. Home made items, decorations hand strung, Christmas cards taped around a doorway, putting on a feast of sweets and no one possibly able to go hungry.

A lot of the Christmas celebration one of gratitude like the Merle Haggard song “If we make it through December”.

Knowing despite it all, you and I are luckier than most.

Reaching out to help ringing the Salvation Army kettle bell. Knowing what families or individuals are suffering this holiday season. Doing anything possible to make things brighter for them. No doubt you know of some family where Christmas is not going to be so easy this season because of a loss. The hole, the missing family member that won’t be part of the Christmas celebration.

Delivering a cut, split cord of wood to help with the heat.

The Amish in my area have every Thursday designated as community day. Taking turns delivering the labor, materials and services needed to keep every household a float. Not a check from Uncle Sam for relief. A helping hand and a strong back the Christmas gift given all year long. Not just at the tail end of days marked on the kitchen wall calendar.

Getting off the couch, replacing feeling sorry for yourself with fresh air, outdoor scenery going for a walk in the woods. You never know what you will find hidden in the back forty acres of a Maine farm property.

Treasure In The Woods Getting Your Firewood To Heat Your Home! Old Cars Past Their Prime. Hanging Around For Hunters, Hikers, Land Brokers To Visit.

Maine made gifts for Christmas.

What items did you shop for on your list this year? Books, magazine subscriptions, movie tickets, museum passes and donations to local libraries, the animal shelters, food pantries. Know anyone in your community that needs a warm winter coat? That has no winter boats, hat, scarf and mittens or gloves? There are so many private ways to brighten someone else’s Christmas to secondary gain your own.

Thank you for following our Me In Maine blog posts through out the year and Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

December 20, 2023
High Food Costs, Lessons Learned In The Maine Potato Farm Field.

High food costs.

It’s not the Maine potato farmer or organic grower making a killing. Not just inflation. All the middle men is where the extra grocery food costs come into play. Your household family food budget. There is no way anyone pushing the wire cart with the one squeaky wheel in their local Piggly Wiggly has not noticed. Grocery store checkout sticker shock. Higher prices and getting less for more. Not the other way around.

When you live in a built up city landscape, you are beat. No matter which market the wholesale food supplier is pulling from in the country, the cost is higher on both ends. Wholesale to retail to the consumer is concerning. And not just the high cost of food but what you are actually buying.

Where did it come from, what was it sprayed with and food safety.

Lots to consider before preparing a meal to put on your family supper table.

All Ages Picked Maine Potatoes In The Farm Field.

When you are raised in rural Maine, frugal simple meals are the norm.

Easy does it applies. But meat and potatoes simple does not mean the taste needs to be forgotten. The way the food is put together with love and attention and a creative spirit and the seasoning can all transform the simplest of meals. Welcome to the Maine country kitchen. Here’s an apron to tie on.

Fresh produce out of your Maine garden or farm field to can, preserve and stored to be drawn from your root cellar or food pantry.

That is the corner stone of wholesome, healthy and tasty. But what if you have no garden, do not have local farm producers to buy your home grown food to place on the family table? Then eating right when it’s from a grocery store outlet is going to be even more expensive these days.

This image from potato picking in Northern Maine over the weekend.

Picking Maine Potatoes, Using Local Kids To Hand Pick The Spud Crop!

Potato harvesters on Maine farms leave a lot of spuds behind.

I grew up and own the Maine potato farm where my youth was spent. Potato harvesters cover a lot of acreage in a short period of time. But they leave a lot of spuds behind. All the wind rowers and mechanical handling can also ding or dent the delicate skin of a Maine potato. Some potato varieties more susceptible to abrasion than others and tender skinned.

Hand picked potato field workers do the best job leaving nothing behind on the Maine farm.

Maine Potato Farm Field Pickers Do Better Job Than Mechanical Harvesters!

Less handling or bruising or scrapes! It is all about The Maine potato farm fields that are harvest mean let’s go gleaning!

More on that a little later in this blog post. First things first. Back to high food costs and trips in and out of the automatic doors at your local Maine grocery. Convenience items, time saving but they have always been expensive.

Reaching for that five pound lasagna pan in the cooler case does not come cheap. Loaded with sodium but voila, quick and easy. Once warmed up, dinner is served.

So Many Varieties Of Maine Potatoes. Like Pinto Golds Washed, Sliced Up And Ready To Put Into The Meal Plan.

Time.

It seems regardless of grocery store prices high low or in the middle, you have to plan your week’s meals. Searching for simple, delicious, affordable recipes starts with your family members. My mom had lots of cookbooks. Some of the best ones in print were from church groups where many cooks submit their collective piece de resistance.

Early Maine Farm Life At The Homestead, Surrounded With All The Land. Pot Luck Suppers At The Grange Hall.

Enjoying the home cooked meals that you had a hand in creating helps the Maine household meal time creativity.

This blogger does live in Maine and has access to farm to table locally grown produce, Locals can glean farm fields and harvest the bounty of what is left by potato harvesters.

Maine Potato Farm Field Workers Hard At It! Working Around The Weather.

On a Maine farm I own Russian banana, French fingerlings, amarosa, all blue and more potato varieties are free for the taking.

Russian Banana, French Fingerlings, Other Potato Varieties Grown On The Maine Farm!

It’s help yourself but be aware as temperatures dip and exposure to the sun will only lessen the quality of your farm field gleaning.

Being out in the fall air surrounded by tree leaf explosion of colors only adds to the joy of farm vegetable gleaning. Stay tuned because red and golden beets, turnips and rutabaga are next up. Looking up recipes on all the ways to create tasty low cost fresh not heated up frozen meals. Maine potato picking … wonderful experience, totally awesome taste, a lesson in working outdoors doing manual labor.

High grocery store prices have stirred a desire to find healthy alternatives and people are discovering the joy of cooking in Maine.

Kids Learn Work Ethic In The Maine Potato Field! On Your Knees Or Bent Over Standing Up. This Is An Entry Level Job!

Field gleaning these organic vegetables creates a small window of opportunity to help yourself.

Whatever you do glean is served up hot and ready fresh for the family table. But canning, preserving, freezing for future meals has to happen to extend the good tasting food budget savings. No grocery October is practiced by many in Maine agriculture regions. Those lucky enough to live near farms take a break from the automatic doors and Muzak up and down the store aisles.

Instead, gleaning fields, collecting apples, hunting for game. Pheasant, deer, black bear, moose gets to play along in the grocery cost meal planning savings. Making cider, apple sauce, pies and milling grain to weave into baked goods. It’s all around you in rural Maine. And those lucky enough to live close to the sea, hoist up other local, close to home meal time savings.

Fish, clams, mussels, lobster all get to take a turn being the star of the Maine family meal table.

Clams, Seafood, Outdoor Dining At Street & Company, Old Port Maine.

So ho hum about what gets served at your house at meal time?

Want to ease away from $200 plus weekly grocery store bills? Local farm to table in Maine locations offers many advantages. Plus you know what you are eating, where it came from and the peace of mind that no chemicals were used.

Where I live, there is a local dairy too, a vibrant farmers market to shop. We Mainers tackle the high cost of fossil fuels by heading to the woodlot. Heating our homes with hardwood cords of fuel is good exercise. Are these options for simpler living available where you live?

Used to be go in three weeks early. Then three weeks off from school to pick Maine potatoes.

Everyone took part in the Maine potato harvest whether you grew up on a family farm or not. The smallest child just as important as the oldest in the potato picking fall harvest tradition. Getting up early, going to bed early and wearing layers of clothes. Because there might have been a frost this morning. But by noon time, stripped to your t-shirt and the sun hot overhead as you pick baskets of potatoes. To pour into the cedar or plywood barrels.

Maine Youth Working The Maine Potato Harvest. Did Not Hurt Their Work Ethic!

Four baskets per barrel that weigh 165 pounds.

The pickers take a section, a length of potato field that is your job to keep picked up as the digger pulled by a farm tractor squeaks by row by row. You don’t want to be “caught up” and waiting for the digger to unearth more spuds. But you are out here to make some money and stay productive. The trick is to take a section from here to there that you can complete just as the digger makes another pass.

Getting behind, row by row happens in the Maine potato farm field.

Too big a section, or ran out of barrels to fill to stay caught up. No one leaves the field until everyone is picked up, all the potato sections in the field are caught up and ready for the next day.

No one will be left in the field when it’s pitch black still picking.

No one can head for home until every potato picker is caught up. Here’s a video of what happens on the other end… when the potatoes leave the Maine farm field and get deposited in the potato house.

Your lunch prepared in the early morning with lots of energy snacks.

Fresh air, hard physical labor as the leaves change color to red, orange, yellow, brown and a million shades of green. Food takes extra good. Hunger improves the taste. When you do run out of barrels and as you slowly get behind, that’s the time to pivot. To make good use of your time.

Head to the woods to go to the bathroom. Time to have an early or late lunch. Or pick the potato tops off your section so when you do get barrels, you can fill those baskets quicker.

Your full barrel of potatoes marked with a numbered ticket.

Maine Potato Picking. Passing On The Tradition Of Filling Up Potato Barrels.

To show this is my barrel, I earned the money for this one. A Maine potato farm truck with flat staked body on the back cruises the field picking up full barrels. Taking full trucks of 50 or more barrels to the potato storage facility.

Watch the video on Maine potato picking in Sherman.

Lessons learned in the Maine potato field?

Work ethic, responsibility to show up, to work around the weather that you can not control. Earning the money to buy school clothes, to save for college, to buy something you really want that Mom and Dad encourage you to go for it. Work hard, save and don’t let the money sift through your fingers. And take better care of whatever you do buy.

Years ago, when you moved out of state, and raised your hand when asked “who is from Maine?”

There is healthy discrimination. The good kind where you hail from Maine, picking potatoes as a kid growing up in rural areas of the state. You are hired because you knew how to work, like to do a good job without complaining. You show up and pitch in, are dependable. Pride in your labor and enjoyment from the outdoor work in the potato field all absorb in your entry level job learning curve.

No matter how old or young, everyone picked in the potato field.

All were needed to get the crop out and into potato house storage. To load up and ship down the road to out of state markets. Skills were learned in the potato field and lazy was not one of them. Work hard, pick them clean and don’t miss any.

The more you pick, the more you make and it becomes a field competition.

My personal best was 88 barrels and was paid 25 cents for each with my ticket slid in the crack on the top.

Those barrels in every other row for the truck to hoist and deliver to the dark potato bin miles away.

My four kids all picked potatoes and it was by far the best experience any of them ever had.

Your first job, your development of work ethic and gotta have a system out in the field was invaluable. My kids learned you don’t buy it if it is not worth it.

They know how hard a dollar is to earn and make sure to get value or wait. Keeping looking until you find some worth four, six or more barrels of potatoes that took to earn it.

Local Maine apples are ripe, ready and all they need is you to pick them.

Beat the high cost of Maine grocery store food items!

Make into apple cider that is freshly squeezed. Instead of reaching for a quart of orange juice from concentrate for $7.99. Make the effort. The fruits of your labor can be fun and tasty and wholesome.

Switch it up from OJ to Johnny Appleseed nutritious Maine wild fruit of all kinds when you are lucky enough to live, work, play in Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

October 16, 2023
Maine Real Estate Market, What’s Shaking?

Maine real estate market. How’s the market today in Maine?

Buying, selling, trading Maine real estate is a fast paced process. Knowing what is going on in the market when it comes time to buy or sell a Maine home, any property listing is critical. So what’s the temperature of the Maine real estate market?

Maine Is One Big Beautiful State. Real Estate Prices Across It Vary Greatly.

This blog post zeroes in on today’s real estate listing sales activity in the great state of Maine.

To sum it up, too many buyers, not enough real estate listings. Prices up due to the shortage and house sales down a tad because of no inventory. Supply and demand keeps everything high and tight. Rental apartment units are hard to come by as well. Community leaders statewide are scrambling to figure out ways to create more affordable housing options quick like a bunny.

Every time the national media spreads the word of a Federal Reserve Bank interest rate hike, wishful thinking Maine house buyers think here it comes.

Finally. A flood of new Maine housing inventory to consider buying to stop renting.

Search For Maine Homes For Sale, Other Property Listings Here.

Or it’s now the right time to move up to something bigger and better or to downsize to housing that is smaller, more economical and say on one floor. But when the housing level cupboard is so bare and new listings across the board for size, location and price range are so scarce.

That’s the sad reality of how the market for real estate property listings in Maine works.

The shift from a seller’s to a buyer’s Maine real estate market will take a long time to happen when the inventory is missing.

Like a well that runs out of water, it takes time to recharge and refresh. The Fed’s latest benchmark interest rate brings it into a range of 5.25% to 5.50%. Since March 2022, the interest rates cost of lending increase 11 times. For buyers in the Maine real estate audience, it was wishful thinking. That higher interest rates would instantly create as endless supply of house listings to consider.

I just back from this year’s Maine REALTOR Association annual meeting in Rockland ME.

Northern Maine REALTOR Andy Mooers

Had a chance for more than continuing education credits for my Maine real estate license renewal in two years. Networking with other Maine agents and brokers in different real estate markets.

The try to sum up the Maine real estate market for statewide to apply to every nook, corner, cranny of Vacationland is impossible.

Because being an hour away from Boston, is a different real estate dynamic than up in Northern Maine. Or to the east or west section of Maine where everything rock and rolls differently.

And in Maine, it is not just homes, houses, condos we are analyzing up to the moment.

Land, just land listing sales happen in rural areas of Maine especially. So the price of what is listed and selling varies greatly. So does the type of real estate being peddled and purchased.

So how is the current Maine real estate market?

In a nutshell “demand for housing of all types in Maine remains strong. Real estate estate prices are up 9.41 percent and housing sales slowed 18.77 percent over the last August to August time period.

The Maine Association of REALTORS latest numbers reveal 1,510 Maine homes changed hands across the sixteen counties. The median sale price was $372,0oo indicates half the homes sold for more, the other half sold for less.

The problem with a short and street Maine real estate housing market report statement like above is the values across a state as large as Maine.

No, the median sale price of a typical home in say Aroostook, Washington or Piscataquis counties is not that $372,000. Depending on the region of Maine you are search for current accurate numbers, the figures vary greatly.

Maine Looks Pretty Affordable, The Simple Life Style Approach Highly Attractive.

Nationwide, the National Associaton of REALTORS is reporting house sale volume was 15.3 percent lower for the same time period.

Prices across the USA climbed 3.7 percent for a national MSP of $413,500 during the period. Sales in the Northeast section of the country slowed 22.6%. Read more about the latest Maine real estate market housing market number statistics.

Which segment, what area of Maine and the supply and demand dictate price increases and declines.

So do interest rates but not as much as the media leads you to believe when the price is so low cash is used, not credit to purchase. Rural Maine small town real estate markets are so different than something for sale in a city market location.

This week at the latest Maine REALTOR Association convention at Rockland Maine’s Samoset Resort. You get a true sense how wide and diverse the real estate market really is.

The 2023 Maine REALTORS State Convention Was At The Samoset In Rockland ME this year.

I’m at a dinner table or leaning on the railing at an after class hospitality suite talking with other Maine REALTORS.

This agent or broker lists property on Ocean Avenue in Kennbunkport Maine. The number of listing sales that agent has and the price point is so different than my real estate area of expertise in Aroostook County. Get closer to the ocean front and to a population center like Boston. Find more expensive happens. Remember, the closer to urban area, t6he higher the number of property sale price zero places.

The online marketing an area of Maine does can help the flow of tourists to a region big time.

Not just the lower priced property listings are the honey to use attract folks to consider why not take a trip to my corner of the big state of Maine. The friendly, hardworking, helpful nature of true Mainers who welcome you to their region of the state is well known around the World.

Dining Out, The Old Port Area Of Maine Prices A Tad Higher Than Northern Maine Eateries. The Further Up Into Maine You Venture, The Lower Priced Everything Becomes.

Remember, the higher the price, the thinner the buyers applies to Maine real estate property listing sales.

And when you hear real estate sales are down, it does not mean there are lots available and the market has cooled. Inventory is very tight, a new listing does not stay active long in the strong Maine

Swapping Loonies And Dollar Living In A Border Town Happens A Lot.real estate sellers market.

Building starts are up and if a piece of Maine land acreage already has a water well, septic, power and driveway or building pad all established, that is a buyer bonus.

Getting a Maine home framed in and weather tight for the winter is what some local real estate buyers are scrambling to do.

Where I live, the strong US vs Canadian dollar also spurs cross border trade of building materials.

Lumber especially to build the new Maine home is in strong demand. Maine itself is 91 percent wooded so this fact coupled with lower cost of living in Vacationland is a big shot in the wallet or purse.

Lucky to live in Maine where simple living is the way we all roll. With all this natural beauty, with less population and more wildlife and low crime, no traffic, 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 ME 04730 USA

October 6, 2023
Pot Luck Suppers, Covered Dish Meal Dining

Potluck suppers, covered dish meal dining!

In rural Maine, it’s go easy on the host. Everyone brings a covered dish that is known community wide as their piece de resistance that gets rave reviews. Look at that long row of covered dish surprises at a potluck supper in Maine. It’s never take you chances or settle for “potluck”. No no, only the finest from each chef, cook, household prepared with love from the many Maine kitchens.

Early Maine Farm Life At The Homestead, Surrounded With All The Land. Pot Luck Suppers At The Church Or Grange Hall.

At Maine potluck suppers, it’s remarkable how the selection of items is perfectly balanced too.

Not three bake bean pots and no potato salads. From past experiences and because everyone has a signature dish to create and bring, everything rounds out on it’s own. Plus you have several dining variations on a theme. More than one of everything for a true home made hot and ready buffet.

Grange Hall pot luck covered dish suppers also required your BYO silverware and plates.

When done, slide them all in a bag. Return them to your home to wash and put back in the drawer and up in the kitchen cupboard. Nothing lost and way way less wear and tear on the pot luck supper host.

Fresh Farm To Table Locally Sourced Meals Prepared At Home Not A Maine Restaurant. What Dish Would You Bring To The Potluck Covered Dish Supper?

The potluck covered dish come and get it delivered to the venue carried in with pot holders and oven mitts.

Zipped into insulated warmers. Maybe tucked away in a picnic basket. These pot luck suppers not a once a year tradition but held on a regular routine. It’s social too, more than another just meal to brain storm create and put together all by your lonesome.

It is a lot of work to host a party at your home in Maine. House cleaning, grocery shopping, decorating. The tidy up and set the stage, tear down the extra tables and folding chairs is a lot of work.

Maine. Small Word, Big Place, Lots Of Unspoiled Space. Folks Are Neighborly, Friendly, Socialize. Community Pot Luck Suppers Happen Around Small Town Rural Maine .

Attending a potluck supper, toting a covered dish with serving utensils is one efficient buffet variety meal to enjoy.

The lots of people who come together at the pot luck supper makes the meal memorable. Not just a table for two tucked away in the corner of your favorite restaurant haunt experience.

Some cooks excel at pastries, breads, your pasta salad, their artichoke dips. Others are grillers, their skill set is for casseroles, soups and chowder. Crock pot jack pot slowly simmered and ready to serve at the community meal. Who brought the smoked salmon or toasted crab cakes or brook trout?

Small Towns, Food Vendors Working Community Events. MMmmmm Good. Sometimes The Dining Is Pot Luck Covered Dish Home Made!

Maine garden home grown farm to table platters of vegetables, fresh fruit with a floral center piece completes the menu.

Dig in but leave room for the buffet array of desserts of all kinds. Carefully created by many that migrate one by one, two by two and more to land in a small Maine community or family pot luck supper location.

Add a couple local Maine musicians for background music and the setting is complete.

Tap Your Toe, Sing Along. Music Made Locally And Live Is Huge In Maine Communities. Some Potluck Suppers Offer Live Local Background Music.

The lack of shelling out a hundred dollars or more to settle up the bill only improves the take away taste from the potluck supper, covered dish experience. Maine is 450 small town communities and villages, plantations and only a handful of cities.

Small towns in Maine are masters at simple living, keep it friendly and neighborly. “Excuse me, can you pass the sweet potato casserole? Did you make it Marge?”

If you are moving, relocating to Maine, get ready for an invite for the potluck supper in Maine. The more the merrier.

Attending Local Sporting Events, Alumni Games Are Popular. For Fans Of All Ages. Potluck Suppers Happen With Covered Dishes In Small Maine Towns.

Would you be ready for a potluck supper where everyone totes a hot or cold covered dish to your home in Maine?

All take a turn and today, many might say no way. Not at my house.

I’ll contribute something good to eat homemade or store bought and gladly ring you up at your place. Just not mine. My house is a wreck, has been for quite sometime really.

Maybe a potluck supper, opening up your place to take a turn would be just the fire lit under you to make it ship shape. Clean as a whistle and the housework done for the week or spring cleaning now complete. The potluck supper can be a holiday tradition with decorations to make it festive.

Finding Your Way Home In Maine. Is A Victorian House The Goal? Would You Invite People In For Easy Potluck Covered Dish Suppers?

Growing up, my Mom from a family of 11 living on a Northern Maine farm who stayed close for life.

Each Sunday noon after church, each family member took a turn. This week Uncle Frank and Aunt Charlotte hosted the event at their Benn Hill in Hodgdon farm location. Or opened up their Nickerson Lake summer camp for the family meal time tradition. Kids splashing, boats plying by and the folks inside waving. Outdoor fire pits at night for the talks after the potluck covered dish supper time meal. Like group therapy!

The cousins socialize just like the parents.

Every Sunday it was a different family venue and we all stayed in touch growing up in a small Maine town. Each and every one of us in the family got to know each other better. In part due to the pot luck supper covered dish tradition and the variety of food it offered us.

Check The Locally Sourced Maine Farm Produce At Whole Foods Portland ME For Your Potluck Supper Contribution. What’s Your Covered Dish Contribution?

The ease and simplicity of the bring your own plate, cup, silverware and covered dish contribution.

Not a small group, but the best way to handle a large one. So one cook is not overwhelmed with the meal time task.

Public or private, the take away is the same. Too much home cooked food. Lots of people grouping together for a family event meal or a public fund raising supper. We did not go to a restaurant to open up the menu and dine with a few people.

Simpler Living In Maine. Slow Down, Live More Pitching Into The Community Lifestyle. What Can You Bring To The Covered Dish, Pot Luck Supper To Eat?

You opened up the Grange hall and arranged the tables and chairs.

Turned the heat up a little higher in the winter. Or opened up the place in early morning to bring in the cooler air. For lower temperatures that noon or by supper time when we used fans, took a dip in a Maine lake to cool off. Not just cranked up the AC when the weather was hot in our cars, office, homes.

Grange Hall In Maine Repurposed Into A Home. Hosted Lots Of Covered Dish, Potluck Suppers.

Maybe too many cooks in their own familiar kitchens creating what’s for dinner or supper is a good thing.

When they wrap the dish in a towel or slide it in an insulated cozy. Bring it hot out of the oven wearing mitts or chilled to perfection right out of the refrigerator. To beeline to the pot luck supper. Families in Maine had the standing invitation. This week’s pot luck supper is at this Aunt and Uncle’s home. Next week, we trek to Aunt June and Uncle Cecil’s camp or home depending on the season.

Bigger homes, larger families, more people living nearby in small Maine towns.

The pot luck or potluck suppers help families stay in touch. To not just break the bread and dine together. But to exchange what’s new in each and every family members life and to help each other share joys, endure setbacks. You don’t feel alone living in a friendly, neighborly tight knit Maine small town.

Wild Blueberries From Maine. More Delicious Than Bigger Ones Not From Maine. Ideal Potluck Supper Dessert Item To Bring.

These covered dish meals were like group therapy sessions in some ways.

They avoided isolation and created regular contact with family members and anyone else invited to come along. Card tables set up, crock pots plugged, lots of potato, pasta, green, three bean salads.

Coleslaw, fresh from the garden platters, relishes, dips. Home made rolls and breads. Casseroles, trays of finger food. Samplings of small portions to fit on your plate. Better double up that plate if it’s paper to carry the load. Too much good food. Way way too much variety makes it like holiday dining. Large, 2nd and 3rd size helpings expected from the local cooks who “super size” everything.

Pot Luck Suppers In Maine, Using Natural Ingredients. Get Them At Your Farmers Market In Maine.

Do you eat too much at a covered dish, potluck supper?

It’s tempting, hard not to over indulge. Those paper plates are pretty flimsy when overloaded like a Maine trucker’s trailer load of Aroostook County potatoes. Who brought the home made lemonade or iced tea? Is that gluten free? You eat plenty and can say because you don’t want the cook to think it was not the best you ever had. Often it is and you hunt down that same meal selection for the potluck supper because you are addicted to their style of cooking.

Save room for the hand churned ice cream.

I think it’s grape nut and chocolate for choices. To ride high a top that warm, hot out of the oven slices of blueberry, raspberry, strawberry rhubarb pie. Is that cheesecake? Gotta get her recipe and print it out to share on the Maine cooking blog I follow.

The Beauty Of Maine. Some Have Trouble, Can’t Find Their Way Home To Maine So Easily. Get Below Radar In Maine. Unplug, Recharge In Vacationland.

Oh look, are those date crumble squares? Home made pumpkin, chocolate chip cookies, whoopie pies.

Picnics along the road traveling. Had to before the Interstate and those canopied table rest stops to munch on a chicken salad sandwich. Maybe grill a hot dog, burger, some chicken.Marsh mellows on top of the sweet potatoes. More of a Christmas dish but might as well let me try a small scoop.

Jello with carrots suspended inside. Lemon squares. Everyone contributed to the potluck supper. 2nds? Heck 3rds. It’s all cook and makes the covered dish cook smile ear to ear.

Lucky To Live In Small Town Maine! Me In Blog Author Andy Mooers, ME REALTOR.

The pot luck or potluck covered dish tradition applied to weddings, funerals, graduation, reunion, anniversary event too in a small Maine town.

Or maybe to celebrate one of the four seasons, a successful harvest or holiday as a community. When is the last time you brought something home cooked to a potluck supper, covered dish event?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730

July 17, 2023
Flowers On Maine Farms

Flowers on Maine Farms on autopilot.

Flowers On Maine Farms. Some Tended, Many Come Up On Their Own.

I grew up on a Maine farm and the flowers around the 7 buildings pop up like clockwork.

My Dad orchestrated the field planting. My Mom wrangled the flower beds around the farmstead.

Years ago, bought the same family farm in Maine from my three older brothers. The rich fertile Maine farm dirt getss tilled, planted and cultivated tended with crops of organic produce of all kinds. There are sheep in the fenced pasture behind the second storage barn on the Maine farm. The chicken house had egg laying operations producing way way more than any family could possible consume.

You have to protect the chickens and ducks from predators like a fox. The fox has a family that likes chicken or duck dinners.

Mom and Dad are gone and relieved from the Maine family farm chores.

The farm field fields need yearly managing by others but Mom’s flower beds pop up right on schedule each year. While mowing the large farm lawns one early evening this past week, I noticed Mom’s and Mother Nature’s tag team handiwork.

This is pair of images of one flower bed closer to the road at the set of farm buildings that are set back off US RT 2, Houlton Maine.

Flowers On A Maine Farm Pop Up On Auto Pilot, On Their Own. See The Old Hand Pump Water Well Painted White?

Careful Mowing Grass Around The Maine Farm Flower Beds! My Mom On Her Knees Planting And Tending Those Beds Is A Fond Memory.

The simple, fragile beauty of flowers hit me as I carefully mowed around the many Maine farm beds.

Mom had many and enjoyed the beauty the Maine farm flower beds produced. I miss and appreciate my Mom in many ways but realize the flowers returning year after year is a comfort reminder of her handiwork. I can see her being industrious and on her needs planting, weeding, tending the farm flower beds. Looking back, knowing the hectic schedule of farming in Maine year round, I wonder how she made time for her flower beds.

On her knees, digging and transplanting in the Maine farm dirt.

That is one recurring strong memory of many about my hardworking and loving Mom. Both Mom and Dad grew up on Maine farms and instilled in all four boys the love and beauty of the soil’s bounty.

Get On Your Knees, Smell The Flowers, Digging In The Dirt. My Flower Bed At Drews Lake Reminds Me Of My Mom.

Do you have a garden?

How green is your thumb? Would you like to own a Maine farm? A small scale truck garden with a roadside stand to peddle the produce is a wonderful thing. Locally sourced, farm to table home grown produce and a relationship with your local grower is key to good health. Yours and everyone in the community that trades with you.

At the local Maine farmer’s market, lots of your “sales” are bartering this for that with other local community agriculture vendors.

Where your food came from, what it was not sprayed with this growing seasons.

How the local Maine foodstuffs were raised from seed to final harvest to served up on your family meal time table.

Family Farm Owned, Enjoyed By Me In Maine Author Andrew Mooers. Potatoes, Grains, Strawberries, Roadside Stand Veggies, Even Sugar Beets Grown.

When you reduce it all down, what you eat and in what quantities matters most to your health right?

How your food is prepared. It all determines your focus on you and your family’s personal health. Too much salt, sugar, fat. Not good. Easy does it. I am glad I was raised on a family farm in Maine and my four children learned valuable lessons from the raised around the career / lifestyle choice.

Watch another farmer’s market in Maine video for inspiration.

Please support local Maine agriculture.

Consider scratching, tilling, planting, tending, fertilizing, watering and harvesting local produce on a Maine farm. Even wild flowers like lupine grace the Earth on the Maine landscape.

Maine Wildflowers. The Natural Beauty Of What’s Around Us Enjoyed Daily!

Watch a video of a small Maine farm for sale in Aroostook County.

Off to bush hog the farm pasture sections around the crop fields and along the roadways that define the boundaries.

The practice around the 4th of July is something my Dad would appreciate me doing to carry on the tradition. Keeping the Maine farm ship shape and presentable. Pride in your farm fields, keeping buildings in top repair. But also fragile, fragrant flowers on the Maine farm. It’s all part of the managing a farm property in Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

July 5, 2023
History Of The Maine Home, What Was The Original Builder Thinking?

History of the Maine home, what was the original house builder thinking?

Maine has plenty of older housing stock. And along the way as a home owner sold and moved along, the new house buyer often adds his or her own “stamp” to the original floor plan. Colors change, landscaping updates happen or everything stays steady as she goes for the status quo. You would never know the house had changed hands or that there was a real estate sale that just happened.

Do you look into the history of why the original house in Maine on the empty lot turned out the way it did?

Homes, Houses Built In Maine. All Kinds, But Tend To Be On The Older Housing Stock Variety.

I think a lot about the real estate location and who built this Maine home whenever listing one to market online.

Was the house builder copying the layout from someone locally or from experience across the pond? Back before America became an independent small collection of states, a lot of what was built modeled after other country’s popular housing blueprints.

Does the house for sale in Maine fit in with the style, square footage style and auxiliary buildings placed up and down the street or road?

Little Features, Original Style And Flair. Maine Homes Not Cookie Cutter Simple Or Modern As A Rule.

And the design of the Maine home, was it simply from from whatever was popular at the time?

Was what is at the mailing address now what the place always looked like? Or was there a fire in the “L” on the back? What you see added touring it now, is it much different than the original structure wings? Maybe lightning hit the farm barn. Or new too much moisture wet hay stored. Then heated up and caused the blaze that took out a few of the Maine house farmstead buildings. Wild fire may have caused the house design changes through the years.

The 40′, 60, 100′ foot or more center stone of the Maine farm barn is the most precious in the collection. And the hardest to build or get insured. With rural farm property, the emphasis was on the barn, machine shed, storage houses that made your money. The houses were labeled “New England” and call it good. Plain Jane, no fireplaces, no ornate woodwork. You and the rest of the family did not entertain. Were out working the pasture farm fields with crops and critters. Or out in one of the buildings working on machinery or watering, graining the horses, cows and other livestock.

Questions come to mind touring a new property listing in Maine putting the hen scratching details on the clipboard initial tour.

Classic, Attractive, Not So Common Housing Styles. We’re Talking Maine Yesteryear Homes Aren’t We?

Does the house in Maine fit the spot on the lot or could have the site selection been better?

Where it was built on the landscape? Does it fit comfy and well spaced or stand out like a sore throbbing thumb? Maybe the spot had much or not much thought applied. To answer the quandry of where to build and how to make it all blend in with the least amount of visual static or eye sore. Possibly, the extra lot next door was purchased long after the house in Maine was built. There was a house where this house should have been built already hogging space to next door.

So the why didn’t they move it over and place the footprint of the old house in Maine back off more from the street?

Ah, because they did not own that land then. Or streets were not so busy or so wide so that kinda of future consideration did not cross the original builder or house owner’s mind. And what is here now and how much it still mirrors the original house design? Lack of funds or just don’t care about “this old house” like the original owner or builder does impact what we list and sell today in Maine.

Something Modern, Glass, Open Living Concept For A Vacation Home In Maine. Short Stint Stays, Maybe To Rent Out On AirBnB For Profit When Not Used.

With waterfront properties in Maine, there are lots of constraints to fit in and company with shore land zoning regulations.

No one wants to knowingly hurt the Maine lake, pond, stream, river or oceanfront out front. But erosion from too many trees removed combined with a steep incline to water’s edge to improve the view hurts the natural resource. Dirt dumped into a Maine lake by racing water carrying everything into the waterfront delicate wildlife and fish home.Very bad for the Maine environment.

Vacation McMansions and development like big paved parking lots, crew cutting all hilly landscaped hurts the original setting and soil stability.

Bigger, kinda gaudy house designs too may have built along the coastline of Southern Maine if an hour or less from the border are popular and trendy for the time.

But the rest of Maine does not rock and roll that way the further up into Vacationland you point the car or SUV or bike. Or wrapped around the way the builders put them together decades or centuries ago?

Stock plan or developer’s unique model in Maine using an architect, you just don’t see 300 lot subdivisions in a row like “Knot’s Landing”.

Even the brick work is ornate in small Maine town market squares. Made to last and usually to replace the wooden structures. The ones lost in a fire where someone kicked over a lantern in a horse stable out back behind the mercantile outlet.

Small Town Houlton Maine, Walk To Everything Easy! Everyone Waves And Is Neighborly Friendly.

So Victorian Queene Anne in town castle home, cute cape wearing natural graying cedar shingles.

A farmstead home with wrap around open or glassed porch to slurp hot coffee on as the sun rises. Or something colder, bitter like lemons as it sets in the west. Lake shore cottages can be pretty swanky but still dubbed “the camp” for vacation trips uptah Maine. Or often the house is a building or two repurposed. Hauled in on a trailer truck flatbed or pull to the lot by a team of horses or a Maine farm tractor. Or it is a church made into a home or event center to rent out for parties, weddings, graduations or family reunions.

Where I live in Aroostook County Maine, many barrack buildings from Camp Houlton, a German prisoner of war compound out at the airbase became a place to own not rent during peacetime.

Churches that became a home for more than folks working once a week on the condition of their souls. The old Grange Hall that needed a new purpose has been the “home” we listed and sold. Like this one in Weston, Maine in the East Grand Lake region below.

Grand Center Staircase Houses In Small Town Maine. Low Cost, Well Preserved, Loaded With Fine Details.

Renovating older houses in Maine.

Converting buildings to houses that had another purpose when they were first built. Slow cooked, do as much as you can yourself to save on the 2/3rd labor bill for whoever is hired to swing the hammer, run the saw across the boards. Building new houses that have the flair and features of yesteryear tied and tested classic designs and lines.

Grange Hall In Maine Repurposed Into A Home. This One In Weston ME Near East Grand Lake Four Season Vacation Fun.

Colonial, Federal, Green Revival, Mansard, New England, Cape or hip roof style homes in Maine.

It’s fun to list and market them all. Maine is not just the average 5-3-1 basic ranch style show box 24’x40′ starter home getting built and peddled.

Log homes, cottage simple homesteads where the Maine land is the star. Not the sticks and bricks.

Heck a yurt, a sod roof house built into the side hill or a geodesic dome “hippy house” It’s all good in Maine, the way life should be. Less building codes, no HOA’s and common sense still works here in the Pine Tree state. What would you build for a Maine home? Do you consider what the original builder on the house lot and had in mind that you feel obligated to preserve and maintain?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

June 2, 2023