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.
Worry About Parking Spaces Does Not Happen In Maine. Concern For Other More Important Stuff Occurs.
You must not be in small town rural Maine.
When the space to park your Civic or RAV4 is just not to be found in a crowded city landscape without digging deep into the purse or opening wide your wallet. Had a caller from Cambridge MA looking to relocate to Houlton Maineshare with me about a parking spot she saw listed for $375,000. Come and get it, hot and ready admit one vehicle parking spot up for sale. Better hurry. I believe she said it just hit the real estate market in the Charles Street area where parking spaces have all but evaporated.
Like sports or musical arena seats, the better the parking spot, the proximity to where you need to be, the cost increases exponentially.
Parking Near Fenway Park, Home Of The Green Monster And The Boston Red Sox. It’s A Trick And Usually Costs A Few Coins To Be At Red Sox Nation HQ.
For safety sake in the urban jungle, you want to be close to the three chain locks, two dead bolts and security cameras of home sweet home right?
Not to have to hoof it head down and trying to look small. To not call attention to yourself for the stroll of many blocks away from home hoping your tazer still has a full charge. Did you remember to plug it in last night wracks your brain as your breathing increases in the ready to fight or flight.
Paying for a parking spot.
In small town Maine, the down town has plenty of spaces to park the iron horse. Fewer people competing for them and a large supply of where to park that works best for where you need to shop. Not miles from where you want to go in the pouring rain or wading through new fallen white fluffy snow. We spend money on other luxuries like groceries, heating oil or fire wood, property taxes, not a parking permit. The cars and trucks we drive are practical, made to last and treated with respect. Because money does not grow on trees to allow it to be any other way in frugal, common sense thinking Maine.
Not Your Typical Maine Car Seen On The Less Traveled Highways. This One Spotted On The Way Into Boston, MA Of The Maine Turnpike.
This real estate home buyer hoping to telecommute from Vacationland in Houlton Maine.
Plans to pack up the job to bring it up the pike along with the rest of her Worldly possessions.
Where she lives in the Boston area, she says her Subaru has a war torn battle weary front and rear bumper. No reason to repair or replace them because more dings and dents happen daily. She says people more and more drive like they are behind the wheel of a bumper car. Tar instead of a metal floor the only difference.
Maine is easy to drive, not hard to do the parking.
You don’t have to own by buying your parking spot and around your home, lots of where to park options exist. The houses lots boundary lines are not zipped tightly around the buildings and have lots of side, back, front land components for breathing room. You don’t find zero lot lines zoning happening in sparsely populated Maine.
Not Maine, This Is What You See In Cities. Tunnels, Bridges, One Way Streets Of Boston MA. Think Quick And Dig Deep For Another Toll.
With COVID, she read there are 30% more cars in the Boston area circling the parking lots and trolling the streets competing for a parking spot.
New drivers have not mastered the art of parallel parking either. So they screw up 1.5 or 2 spaces cocked eyed sideways when they throw the transmission into park and walk away.
The less than black belt city drivers also don’t hug the curb to get in out of harm’s way of the busy multi lane Bean Town streets.
So their ride is over the parking line and kitty corner spilling into the traffic. Great situation for body repair shops I guess. Depends on who’s ox is being gored who wins or loses.
The commuter lanes are closed off too for repurposing to handle all the bike traffic.
COVID made folks a little queasy about hopping on the many colored lines of growded in your face commuter trains. Many drive or bike that used to climb up and into all those big diesel smelling buses. You never really forget how to ride a bike or to kiss right? It’s more of a sport when vehicles are weaving in and out off lanes like asteroids all around you.
Our Highways To Thrill And Maneuver In Maine. Less Traveled, Sometimes Watery.
But no doubt ER’s have a little more customer base hobbling in the automatic sliding doors due to bike injuries.
Too much traffic moving along way too fast for safety sake leads to casualties and fatalities at a time hospitals are already red line RPM jammed to the max with a high no vacancy COVID census.
Maine, where I live only 11 people per square mile.
Where in New Jersey, the head count per same space is 1000 Earthlings. We don’t lock doors, the cars don’t get stolen. Plus not much that is exotic to temp the car jacker and most rides proudly display 200,000 and more odometer miles. Not all the fender colors match but the longer you hang onto and nurse or doctor a car, the more attached you get to it. You have lots of history with the vehicle that becomes an important part of the family.
Plenty Of Parking At A Maine Ski Area Or A Small School Soccer Game. Welcome To Maine! Elbow Room, No Road Rage, No Paid Parking Necessary.
Maine, where house lots are measured in acres not inches or a few feet.
Parking spaces, paying for one would cause a raised eyebrow at the mere suggest. Parking spots surround going round and round into a dark concrete multi level garage. Or you checking your watch to drop and stop everything. To hustle back in crunch time to feed the hungry parking meter. We park in our yards, own the land far from our houses in all four directions. Lots of breathing room and parking happens in our yards. Not out on the street to compete with a winter snow plow that can steal a side mirror in the blur.
Where To Park? Never Ever Out In The Street In Rural Maine. You Don’t Have To Buy Your Parking Spot In Maine And Have Lots Of Options For Stop And Go.
Plenty of parking, not wall to wall living or pushing, shoving, road rage out of control.
You don’t dish it out like you receive it. Not grazing another’s vehicle bumper to open up a car parking space. Can you imagine being sardined in and hopping into your car, removing the car jack wedged into the steering wheel. And accelerating to ramming speed to push the car in front and behind you hard. A couple of times to open up some room. To back off jack “nulldozer”. To create space back and forth whittle your way and blast off into the high speed stream of traffic.
Paying for a parking spot.
That’s not living, that’s not Maine. Save your money for other more important things. The high cost and stress of parking is missing in Maine. One more reason to consider hanging it up, bailing out, taking your real estate poker chip winnings and high tailing it Maine, the way life should be.
You know the feeling when you crowd into a large, noisy expensive restaurant. Now, compare that experience with what happens when just a few people dine around you. The mom and pop owners go out of their way with home cooked food and personal service.
Maine Small Towns, More Like One Big Family Then Just A Community.
Their Maine small town establishment with the owner in the store is not a franchise outlet like all the rest across the land.
No no, one of a kind and personal, intimate, connected, genuine. No cheesy smiles or poor attempts to act like they were born to serve you. Plus you don’t have to sell a duplicate organ to pay the tab. You don’t just darken the eateries door when it’s your wedding anniversary or birthday celebration. You also leave full and content. Not thinking of hitting a drive through restaurant on the way home. Or peering into the refrigerator to track down a snack. Because your stomach feels short changed from tiny portions and high prices that made your skip considering anything from the dine out dessert menu.
Sharing The Bounty And Feeling Grateful For Where You Live In Maine.
The Maine small town business owner lives where you do and knows your struggles.
Shares the same goals for their small well knit Maine community. The circles we travel in small Maine towns are smaller and bumping into each other happens a lot. During the week you and the owners who put in long hours for lower pay are ready to serve. Their reward is the appreciation they feel by your continued patronage. The time and money they put into outside the business that benefits the entire community. In all the local productions of any type, it takes the village to pull them off. You don’t pay to just attend an event. Usually you have a hand working behind the scenes at whatever is going on in your Maine small town.
Small Maine Town Productions, Everyone Pitches In With Talent To Stretch The Budget.
Maine small towns, where everything done is not paid for with green currency.
Often you don’t know who dropped off the extra garden vegetables. Or the hot out of the oven fruit pie that someone knows just happens to be your favorite flavor. The local Amish settlement in Smyrna Maine makes Thursday “Community Day’. Each week, you leave your farmstead and band together at someone else’s spread. To get their barn raised, the leaking house roof shingled, their crop harvested, whatever is needed. You return the favor the next Thursday when someone else in the community gets a visit where many hands make light work.
“Rotary Auction, What Item You Looking At, To Bid On Tonight?”
When you live in a Maine small town, everyone bands together.
Sure, something that happens years ago might have ruffle your feathers. But the eye is on the bigger prize of what happens when we all work together. Because it won’t get done unless everyone steps up to do their part. The big thing is all of us are works in progress. No one is perfect and we all have flaws and lifelong struggles that shape and define us. Attack the problem, the need and not the person is discussed around the family dinner table at meal time.
Your Local Small Towns People, Family And Friends In The Local 4th Of July Celebration Parades.
In Maine small towns you really get to know the community members working on area projects of all kinds.
Everyone invests time, money, creative energy because of their fierce love of their community. When you hear at the corner convenience store picking up a pizza that one of your community members is in the hospital, what to do to show you care and to help out today. That’s what gets kicked into action as if a community air raid siren sounds and you kick into gear. Your neighbor down the road plows out the in need’s winter driveway and shovels the walk way and steps without being asked.
Barns In Maine, Some Store Bought From Sears And Roebuck. Others Hand Hewn Post And Beam Created On Site. With Help From Your Neighbors To Put Them Up And Keep Them Sturdy.
Others join in to share the same task to give you a break after a few days when a long illness or recovery is underway.
Everyone is busy but not too busy to extend a hand and show they care. Chances are they know the feeling of the ground swell of generosity personally or witnessed it extended to a family member or neighbor. All the small rural Maine community members think hard about what’s needed to create the slack for your small town member who is struggling. A benefit supper is organized to raise much needed funds.
Covered dishes are delivered like clockwork to free up the meal time planning. Because calls to doctors, setting up appointments and working the logistics of how to get the kids to school while away all needs to be coordinated. You don’t feel alone and everyone is needed in a Maine small town. We all treasure the natural beauty and unspoiled land and water in this place called Maine.
Preserving History, Protecting Maine Small Town Country Living Makes The Local Connection Strong.
The Maine small town community member probably is related to you somehow.
None of us wants to be a burden on others or put them out or ask for help. But when you and your family are on the receiving end of the much needed aid, you never forget the feeling that my Maine small town cares about me So step up and do your part for others when it is your turn to do a good deed or two. Less people makes the connection stronger in under populated Maine. You and others in the small Maine community attended most of the same weddings, funerals, graduation, church services or community events in some capacity. You vote together at the rec center, cheer for the same home team up in the bleachers.
The Watson Settlement Covered Bridge Spans The Meduxnekeag River In Littleton Maine
A church member or neighbor brings you breakfast and a sympathetic ear while you convalescence from surgery or to heal from a loss.
Three community members had a hand in creating a lap robe quilt so you won’t be chilly until you gain the strength to get up and move around like your old self. Someone from the local fish and game or snowmobile club stops in to see if you need anything or helps bank your house or to finish cutting, splitting, getting your winter wood in to the shed or basement. They quickly swing in and mow your lawn, pick up a prescription or deliver the local newspaper, a quart of milk and whatever you ran out of today.
The target of the attention squirms from the hubbub fuss. Feels there must be someone else more deserving and is just not used to being a recipient of the communal help when they need it most.
But stay tuned. They will be up and at ’em before you know it. Back on the chain gang to assist others which is the comfort of having a chance for pay back. Turn, turn, turn, it all comes around full circle.
Eating Outdoors, Not Jammed Between Four Walls Inside. Maine Is Outdoor Dining, Exploring, Everything.
You never feel alone in Maine small towns.
Too much to do and for years you have been part of the events that happen in your community. Many tasks handed down from other older family members who can not longer do them. Playing in the community band, helping decorate a float for a 4th of July parade entry. Raising money for project graduation by cash or food item donations of say home made pan of scotcheroo squares or a big pot of baked beans or loaf of just made bread. Everyone has a trademark talent.
Maybe it’s making cribbage boards out of local wood. The donator’s ability to weld and braze a specially designed trailer for say the local soap box derby race. Or to create a routered sign, to get your car running. Maybe talented at sewing a play or dance costume or knitting a pair of wool mittens.
Outdoors, Year Round. That’s Maine Four Seasons Simple Living.
When you see Maine small town members industriously pouring lots of effort into a task, there is no way to stay on the sidelines.
Pitching in and volunteering is a big part of the Maine small town experience. Planting and tending a vegetable garden way bigger than you need so you can share Nature’s bounty. Delivering extra eggs from hens to those who need them most. It is a take what you need and pass on the rest approach to everyday living in rural Maine. Easy does it. Tread lightly, respect and give what you are entrusted with to the next community or family member in as good or hopefully better condition. Think good thoughts and avoid stinking thinking as my Mom called it that does no good for anyone in a Maine small town living experience.
Living Off The Land, Simple Living In Maine. Our Population Is Low And Scattered. The Community Spirit Tight And Well Connected.
You don’t just live in a Maine small town, you are really a part of the big family of residents who create the community experience.
Everyone likes a helper, when they see you take on a duty that benefits the town without wanting any recognition. Advice for anyone moving to a Maine small town? Pitch in, work hard and help out to share skill set and your special talents. Since COVID gripped the globe, folks in crowded impersonal city population centers intensified the search for their plan “B”. Putting a lot of thought into where would I move and relocate to if the pressure becomes too much. For when quality of life is missed and it’s time for a new address like “up in Maine”.
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.
These one man or woman municipal rural Maine offices look after their small communities. You could get a call from Marge who reminds you the vehicle registration on your snow plow truck expired this week. But not to worry, because she’ll be in the local town office Saturday morning and will have all the paperwork ready for you. Or I’ve seen a small town office manager make a call that was overheard while I was studying tax maps or gleaning property information. Fran told the taxpayer on the other end of the phone that she would drop off the fishing hunting combination license on her way home tonight. That’s door to door service neighbor to neighbor grass roots style.
Farms, Horses, Barns In Maine. They Go Together For The Simple Small Town Rural Lifestyle.
Like a mother hen that keeps the chicks in line. Or a border collie who shepherds the lambs on a small Maine farmstead. The small town managers in Maine are a special breed. Fiercely dedicated to their small township that is just a dot on the Maine map. These unsung heroes single handedly struggle to keep up with the heavy paperwork load of new regulations. To keep it all straight and coach the revolving door of selectmen who step up to take their turn in community service.
Small Towns Make Their Own Music! Local Bands Entertain At Close To Home Events!
Small town office managers in Maine, some of them opt to raise and wave the white flag.
To surrender and come out into the daylight from small patched together office with raised hands in the air. Too much expense, too little revenue to keep the small Maine town identity alive and vibrant. More on deorganization of small Maine towns.
Small Towns In Maine Where The Locals Are The Entertainment! You Know The Musicians In Maine Communities.
If the small town in Maine can’t keep the municipality structure held together, instead of deorganization, joining forces with a larger community happens.
For example, take the small township of Hersey and Moro Plantation in Aroostook County. The communities hire the services of Patten Maine who is already open for business. And two more property taxation books get A to Z set up and any expenditures for raising or spending money are handled through the town of Patten.
The small Maine communities don’t lose their identity and duplication of municipal services costs are avoiding linking up in a regional approach to town government.
I remember Anna Schools, one neat small town office manager in Maine, in the community of Littleton. With Millie the cat soaking up the sun while napping, Anna with her hair in curlers and watering the Christmas cactus says hello. As I dropped by for a tax card copy or to check up on a building permit from the Littleton ME planning board. Often there was no need to look up an address for a property owner. Because Anna would smile, clear her throat and recite the address from her keen memory.
Trailside Dining In Small Maine Towns. Local Home Made Food Tastes Best At Church Suppers Or Local Eateries.
Single handedly, Anna kept the books, collected the real estate property taxes.
Wrote out the checks for school tuition, filling potholes and to keep the winter roads clear of snow. Bids put out for town services were handled by Anna and during weekend selectmen board meetings.
A discount on your property taxes for early payment was figured by Anna too.
To avoid tax anticipation loans taken out to keep things financially afloat. Small town office managers in Maine, Anna went asked when are you going to get a computer. Her pause, then clearing of her throat before speaking with a smile response? “I am the computer”. She was like the Mother Goose for entire six by six mile Maine township.
In Drew Plantation, one man, in his 80’s makes that community hum.
But Drew Plantation is one heart beat away from deorgnization. When all the towns around you are too small or already gone the deorgination route, you feel pretty much on your own with few options. Bancroft next door to Drew Plantation already let’s the County government run the numbers and bid out the services.
Drew Plantation has a population of around 45 souls last head count. So not exactly a long line of public servant community minded folks to pass the baton to and carry on town government traditions. Small Maine towns are your best sized communities to invest in, for the intimate connection and no disconnect.
The small town office managers in Maine.
There are over 400 of them and dwindling numbers of Maine town office. The town manager of Drew Plantation, the head selectmen keeps the home fires going… literally build a wood stove blaze to prepare for the office use. But most of what happens is right in a corner of his living room. His wife helps too and like a big family, the duties are shared. The animal control office is at this number if you spot a dog at large chasing a white tail deer.
You need a fire permit to get rid of that brush pile that is getting taller behind your home?
Call Snapper at this number but remember. All these auxiliary town leaders have full time jobs doing something else forty or more hours a week. Much of what happens in a small town in Maine is “managed” at night or on weekends. On the fly with quick calls, text messages or emails. Sent to wherever they have their real source of household income to pay the bills, their own small Maine town property taxed homesteads.
More Wildlife Than People In Small Rural Maine Towns. More Outdoors Happens.
In a city, you pay to attend an event. Small Maine towns are different because you step up to volunteer to put on the yearly event.
Everything is home grown and covered dish pot luck public supper like approached because money to hire it all done is just not an option. Plus it is so much more rewarding to be personally involved in a community happening. You miss all the fun planning and improving the event and you get the kids involved, the shut ins are not forgotten either in small rural Maine towns. The collective creative juices get poured into what’s going on through out the year. From the spring canoe race or the 4th of July celebration to the annual Christmas caroling.
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Often the small Maine town event is handled by several who wear many hats. The local churches all have a part and so do the school children, the little league team coach. Retired folks especially with the lifetime experience who may be seasonal snow birds but that have time to pitch in to add to the community events. In the small town office, the usually one person staff that’s me, myself, I … the town manager you sense how busy he or she is.
Fielding non stop ringing phone calls, with one ear on the police and fire scanner to see if a call comes in for a grass fire on the south end of town.
Licensing vehicles, issuing marriage licenses and copies of death certificates, tags for your dog and a stick for your boat or snowmobile. Fire burning permit for the old house torching on purpose Saturday or the EMS training in the school gym coordination.
Many small Maine towns have a one or two room office or use just a small corner of a large vacant former school house.
The local school building no longer needed due to consolidation when the educational census dropped too low to cover the education expenses.
In the Haynesville ME town office you see lots of boxes and sometimes smell everything from crayfish to produce odors. Free food to help subsidize the local grocery costs mean the small, cramped multi purpose town office is used for a community food pantry.
In small rural towns, folks pray and worry about the community members of all ages.
There is strong connection and sense of caring you just don’t feel in large urban population centers. Small groups on ZOOM meetings are much more rewarding and productive than large ones.. same dynamic. And because you work with Tom and Sue on so many local community events and serve on the same boards, the small group “knows” each other personally.
It is not uncommon to hear the small town manager asking Bob as he licenses his boat and trailer how his mom is doing after her surgery.
Maine Small Town Artists Crank Out One Of A Kind Items. Like This Maine Theme Handcrafted Window.
Or when is little league starting up so I can post it on the town’s social media channels Zeke? Zeke and his brother in law Stanley are the little league commissioners for the border league youth ball team. The one that needs uniforms, practice sessions and the dug outs painted this weekend heading into another baseball season. Nothing done for the money. Because the salary is purely the goodwill your volunteering provides the town and your own sense of purpose and inner well being.
Fundraisers are big to create the money raised locally at public suppers of community breakfasts.
From car washes to candy sales to raffles on a rifle. Or something like a snow sled or four wheeler or a tank of heating oil, a cord of seasoned fire wood. Somehow, the funds are raised writing grants. With well organized haunted hayrides or from Christmas tree sales to pull off funding another community event.
Veterans who served from the small town are remember dead or alive with monuments.
Fishing derbies, canoe races, hunter contests. Christmas parties down at the sled club or fish and game or American Legion or one of the local church worship flavor locations. There is much that goes on behind the small communities. The graveyards are kept mowed. The grounds maintained in respect of past community members buried in the small Maine town cemetery plots.
Small town office managers in Maine, they have a big responsibility.
They and all the volunteers that work hard behind the scenes are a special breed. Wanting no attention for themselves, but all about pride and respect for their home town of whatever else in Maine.
Carrying on tradition, enjoying growing up in the small Maine town pushes them into stepping up and performing a service.
Local Artist Cynthia Taylor Creates Greeting Cards, Maps, Local Maine Lifestyle Products.
Contributing, making the small Maine town the special place each one is because in main part because of the people who live, work, play there.
Taking turns at different roles in the Maine small town leadership of all the departments.
Holding down two, three or more “titles” because it’s efficient and not a lot of folks stepping up to replace them after their term ends. Setting up and running voting booths during election day.
Volunteering on the fire department and going out on calls to help their community. Creating the parks and recreational programs, setting up town signs, supporting the school children, veterans and elderly needs.
Just working together behind the scenes for the greater good. Time that most have no idea about how long it takes to pull it off consistently and often single handely.
The small town office managers in Maine are the cheerleaders to put the community on the map.
To educate property taxpayers about homestead, veterans or tree growth property tax reduction programs. Finding a community block grant for a failed septic system that the local taxpayer can not afford to replace.
To organize the locals to tackle the new roof the elderly widow needs to stay in her own home.
And avoid the forced move to an assisted living facility many townships away from her community.
The small town manager in Maine gets visits and phone calls or emails from folks doing ancestry searches and is a town historian.
She or he helps the school alumni plan reunion events or guides the who to call for what and where. Quickly reciting contact name and numbers as the local insider expert chamber of commerce welcome wagon operator.
They have a very big job and juggle many balls, wear many hats. Thank you for sticking around, reading this blog post on the very important role small town office managers in Maine play.
