Category: Maine Small Towns

Maine Maple Sunday

Maine Maple Sunday, a yearly event in Vacationland.

Heading to the maple grove woodlots to tap trees, run lines for the golden syrup. Or the Maine home owner digs out the spouts, the snowshoes. Who taps the stately maple shade trees using buckets out front their house.

Sugar Shacks Open House In Smyrna Maine.

Lots of Mainers own woodlots to heat their homes and for recreation camp getaways.

Many Maine home owners have maple tree lined driveways. Dotting, shading along the street or road out front of their houses. Maine Maple Sunday is a big deal and it’s the 40th event this weekend. Always remember, it’s the last Sunday in March when sugar shacks and maple syrup producer distilleries open up their operations for old and young alike.

Inviting you in to witness up close and personal the 40 to 1 boiling down evaporating process. Before that the trip to the Maine woodlot to collect what runs in the lines or fills the galvanized buckets. You will also see the finished products made with pride of Maine produced pure maple syrup. Not some watered down from who knows where and all those artificial additives and colors.

Watch A Maine Maple Sunday Weekend Open House Sugarhouse Video Tour!

Tap It In, Open Up The Faucet To Maine Maple Tree Sap. That’s The Easy Part.

Many Maine land owners have forest timber stands of maple hardwood trees that are idea for tapping the sap to make syrup.

The old fashion bucket collection system is slow and labor intensive but still fun to celebrate the approaching spring. Colder nights, warmer days and being outside collecting sap is a family tradition. I grew up doing it with my Dad who loved the woods. Creating home grown tap sap for your own Maine maple syrup! Ever done it? Would you like to?

It Costs More, But Maine Maple Syrup Is Pure And Natural. Not Loaded With Fructose, Additives, Preservatives.

Many trips to the Ludlow Maine woodlot to collect annual renewable firewood and the maple tree sap for syrup.

It’s all about just enjoying a Sunday afternoon picnic in your private woodlot loaded with wildlife. Just wildlife, nature to witness, no two legged critters to spoil the experience.

Maine Maple Syrup Sunday Weekend! Ever Toured A Sugarhouse In Maine? Watch Maine Maple Syrup Video.

Snow still on the ground, its is always the last one at the party to leave in wooded tracts of Maine land.

Hanging around in the Maine woodlots and when warmer day temperatures happen. Snow in Maine, always the last place to melt and disappear in woodlots. It’s why diehard snowmobiling continues longer on forest trails.

Maine Maple Sap Bucket Collects The Clear Watery Sap That Boils Down To Thick Amber Maple Syrup.

All those tall stately trees shading out the growing strong sun. That’s what extends winter snowscape a tad longer if you want a little more Maine snow sled trail riding time.

It’s more than the ritual of collecting maple tree sap to boil it down for the amber elixir that’s all natural.

Maple Sunday Weekend in Maine represents spring. One more sign that winter is waning, the long shadow of the low on the horizon sun is shifting its angle. Hope and faith that spring is ahead helps true Mainers dig out their garden and farm seed catalogs. It shows acceptance that winter is passing by and ready to fill the rear view mirror.

What you See On Maine Winter, Early Spring Recreation Trails. Wildlife, Scenery, A Bald Eagle, Moose.

Buds on the trees, early bulb flowers poking up through the ground around your Maine house foundation.

Snow banks receding, peppered with road sand and salt remains. Dusty, dirty. battle weary. Some lawns look like a bomb hit and a war was fought. Deep gouges with missing sod, thanks to the snow plow operator who did not lift the blade an inch or two when the ground is soft. Lots of gravel and road sand needing raking to remove. Spring run off from months of Maine snow increasing the smelting speed. The width of brooks, streams and rivers that grow exponentially this time of year.

Some places in rural Maine there is flooding that crosses back roadways for a few hours or a couple days.

Excitement about new flowers, the fragrant and colorful floral displays that happen on their own in Maine. It’s all ahead and exciting. Every Maine season offers it’s own special version of outdoor beauty. They work together. Like fall explosive colors are a second bloom of what happened over summer. There is overlap and tag team tug of war in the Maine season transition. It’s not snap your fingers quick and easy.

The Many Flowers You See On Your Orono ME Bog Walk. Bring Your Camera!

Dig out your kayak and canoe to ride the waves around the state of Maine canoe race circuit.

We’re Going In, Gonna Get Wet.

Potholes blooming along streets and frost heaves forming in the old familiar places on Maine highways. Smelts running to fish net.

Maine maple Sunday, it happens for the 40th year on March 26th, 2023.

Sap collection, it’s a form of farming. Just like harvesting fish off the coast of Maine is too. Not just rows of planted seeds or seedlings. More than just fence posts planted or straighten and lines run around Maine pasture fields for critter containment. And to keep the wildlife on the other side where they belong.

Homesteading in Maine.

It’s picked up a resurgence since COVID turned on the bright harsh last call lights indicating you have to go. We don’t care where you go but you can’t stay here. It’s plenty sobering when home does not feel so home sweet home anymore.

Pack up to move to Maine.

Lots are doing it and I have read the state of Maine is number two for where folks pick for their new home base. Maine Maple Weekend Sunday is one more fun thing to do. To get out and observe when you are lucky enough to spend more than just a long weekend or seven day string of rest and relaxation in Vacationland.

Agriculture, Farm Food Grown Close To Home, Locally Sourced Is The Best Tasting. Want To Homestead In Maine?

In Maine grocery stores, you have lots of choices for maple syrup.

You find your log cabin or lady with the head scarf brands of maple syrup to drizzle. Most from Vermont, some from Canada, more and more from Maine. But searching for the Maine made all natural maple syrup, the little jug of close to home grown oozing sweetness is not always there.

Or the $15 dollar sticker price can cause pause, temporary pain and suffering in the grocery aisles.

Until you remember how good, how natural and nothing artificial Maine maple syrup is. And you have a local farmer tending the Maine maple tree sap collecting operation. Support your Maine producer because no farmer, no food.

The Solitude, Peaceful Feeling Of The Maine Woods In Winter. Don’t Miss Maine Maple Sunday This 40th Year.

See the list of all the open houses for Maine Maple Sunday weekend outlets and visit one or two near you that dot the link map.

Maple syrup is not just for lathering up pancakes and waffles with melting butter as a playmate. Lubricating stacks of jacks at breakfast time wakey wakey is not the only time to enjoy maple syrup.

Maple syrup is a sweetener for anything from candy to cake to pies, for dressings, a companion to scoops of ice cream.

Coffee for many just tastes better with a shot or two of Maine maple syrup. Discovered long before the turbo this, double shot of that mist topping of caramel swirl.

Coffee Early In The Morning The Old Fashion Way! Get To Maine, Relax, Breathe.

Try a little maple syrup for the home brewed cup of Joe.

Instead of shelling out daily for the expensive red, blue, whatever exotic dye color addiction drive through fix. The reach for the gotta have the designer hot or cold coffee mainline or you will die right here and now. It’s an expensive daily ritual of hot and ready for many. You see the long long lines outside the drive thru of all the Maine coffee hound baristas locations.

The life or death sustenance of artificial life, fill it to the brim to win la-di dah latte.

The burn your hand even with a double sleeve, lava hot center of the sun blistering temperature money grab. The first thing on your mind when the eyelids go north.

The addiction that kept you awake half the night.

And Chummy, if you don’t get your special blend of foo foo coffee concoction with a triple pump of extra coconut oat almond milk shot please. Well now, life as you know it wired on caffeine is just not going to be as brightly colored orhalf the fun. Just sayin’.

Sorry for the rant. Don’t get me wrong. I love my basic black fresh brewed cup of coffee without all the Hollywood after affects. Missing the boat on all those extra expensive, time in line consuming ingredients to jazz up the coffee break experience.

Maybe I am missing something.

Just want a quick pit stop and not a coffee snob. Keep it simple. Make it black. Pitch black. Darker than the inside of a color black. (Pouring in a jigger of pure and natural Maine maple syrup) It’s always a good time for a cup of coffee and fellowship, communion in the great state of Maine outdoor landscape. Early morning parked next to a Maine lake is my happy place. Have another cup? Well, yes please if you’re up and pouring. Hit me with a little maple syrup, gotta give it a try.

Back on blog post topic for Maple syrup, the sugar shack open house weekend for local Maine producers.

Every maple syrup producer in Maine can claim to be the best and they are all right.

Fresh Hot Coffee, Whatever Meal Tastes Improves After Maine Farm Chores Complete. Try Some Maine Maple Syrup On The Flap Jacks, In Your Coffee.

These hard working Maine maple grove tree tapping sap collecting folks want to share an experience.

To show you how the process goes and all the many maple syrup by products out there to enjoy. Maple syrup, more than just a pancake or waffle meal pleasure experience.

Have you ever been to a Maine maple syrup open house Sunday? You know what all the ink spilling is all about then. If not, you should celebrate spring. Support your local Maine maple syrup producer.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

March 22, 2023
Houses In Small Maine Towns

Houses in small Maine towns.

You know the folks who called this, that place “home”. It’s not just a house painted a different color. Or one you walk by and remember when it was in better or worse condition. Small Maine houses are not found in 300 lot subdivisions with a sea of sameness. Or the need for GPS to find out which ones is your house after a long day at the office.

Home Town Proud Simple Living In Small Maine Communities.

Houses in small Maine towns have a connection.

The family that lives in each small town home is a big part of the community. The color, the changes over the years don’t go unnoticed. Son in that one was on your little league team. The same age as your oldest. His sister was in one class ahead of your youngest daughter. When the family grows up and moves away, the sound of laughter fades with the memories.

Trees around the not so highly maintained Maine homes take over quickly.

They grow in around the structure to make it disappear.

Slipping, Not As Well Maintained But With Good Bones, Straight Lines. Maine DIY House Projects Need TLC.

The father two home owner’s ago was a US border patrol agent.

His wife a nurse at the local hospital. She held brownie meetings for the girl scouts troop in the overhead garage attic rec room. Low population small Maine town houses are important “containers”.

When an older house is torn down in a small Maine town it hits me as a sad event to witness.

The Family Farm Owned And Enjoyed By Me In Maine Author Andrew Mooers.

Partly because housing units are in tight supply. We need all we can get for starter homes, to convert into apartments. The one after another home sewn together like boot laces up and down the tree lined street.

These houses, yards, the maintenance all represent part of the history of the small Maine town in small Maine communities.

The excavator with the claw or fire or whatever lead to the need to demolish the structure means part of the original neighborhood character disappeared. Gone but not forgotten if you remember the original house and the folks who grew up there.

Small Maine Towns. Walk To Everything,Not Uber Of Lyft Or Drive To Places.

As you walk a summer night around the neighborhoods of a small Maine town. You one by one recall what was in that “hole” or “gap”. Before many of these newer homes popped up one by one, these three blocks were a farm or heavily wooded.

The neighbors bordering each side of the house may split the newly created vacant lot.

When the place comes down and no more shared driveway hassles. Gone is the squabbles over the three pit bulls barking loudly long after the bedroom night stand light goes dark. No new home built to replace it and more yard space,plenty of parking, less shade happens. Or if the lot is lucky enough to have a replacement home added, it is not often the same character or style of the original.

Housing needs change and one floor gets the majority of votes for housing styles these days. Remove the stairs to broaden the house’s appeal to Maine home buyers.

A double wide or modular is not the same construction as the older, larger square footage Maine Victorian houses.

Grand Old Victorian Houses In Maine. Pretty Exciting When Maintained For All To Enjoy Dreaming About Yesteryear Life In Them.

Not double boarded, no back stairway, no attic, no sleeping porch or formal dining room, patterned hardwood floors or turret. Smaller lot, less square footage efficient. Easier to heat and loaded with new technology and no root cellars, no stained glass, no ball room size space.

Instead of a strip mall location or high exposure US highway spot for a business, many of the older Maine houses a blend of business and residential use.

Dr. Perkins the veterinarian lived on Court Street and I remember taking our farm tom cat Satie for medical attention. Many older houses in Maine near a court house become an apartment overhead for a traveling nurse. A law office with the scales of justice displayed on the ground floor.

Same thing happens with houses around a Maine hospital.

They become auxiliary facilities housing something medical related. Like a daycare near the elementary school, the location saves the busy World some precious time.

Kittery Maine, Can You Imagine Living In The State’s Southern Most Point On The Water Front?

On Bowdoin Street, the mint green New England style home on the right had a beauty salon in the cellar.

So did the brown cape next to it where both hair dressers built successful home hair care businesses. Other homes have cottage industries underway. The seamstress who can alter your clothing, put in a new hem or loosen up the tight fit.

The lady two doors down from your home caters parties, weddings, holiday get togethers. Across from her is a fellow who used his carriage house for repairing small engines. Everything from lawnmowers to snowmobiles and chainsaws.

Lots Of Buildings With A Maine Farmstead. Plenty Of Space, Inside And Out!

Working from home happened in Maine homes long before telecommute remote online jobs sprung up all over the state of Maine.

In small Maine towns, before the 1980’s, there were lots of corner groceries. More smaller neighborhood groceries and less big box outlets for everything. Homes added on and converted in several phases as their attached small grocery stores increased business. And tight parking lead to the removal of a house or two around it when the opportunity arose. Or a relocation to a commercial spot with more traffic, better in and out parking options.

That neighborhood of cape style homes created after WWII.

This one from the 1960’s with a ranch after 24’x40′ style ranch. Bought with a dollar down. A subsidized help you along from Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) attached 33 year mortgage lower rate. Only 396 payments if we don’t double up on the payments or replace it with a home sale for a new set of house keys. Everything is less expensive from houses to the cost for a plumber, electrician, carpenter.

Small town Mainers are pretty jack of all trades, highly skilled in lots of areas. Anything but helpless and always friendly, helpful, handy.

Small Town Houlton Maine, Walk To Everything Easy!

Protecting the character of the small Maine town housing stock.

Feeling pride when you see up and down a street the neighborhood being revitalized. You don’t want it to be “last guy out of town, turn off the lights” final. In parts of the country, you can’t just tear down an older heritage home. Have to gut and replace to renew it so available housing stock stays healthy.

Talked to a guy from Cape Cod last week who told me about his job jacking up and replacing foundations, moving homes in the Bay State.

Lots Of Homes Are Vacation Ones, Hidden And Tucked Away On Lakes All Over Maine.

Some homes have lots of children, lots of extended family coming and going around them.

Lights are on and folks are home. The open front porch and rear yard in constant use. Other houses in small town Maine owned by snow birds. That take off before the first snow flake and return when green grass appears.

A few neighborhood homes used as the hub of activity for the kids who live blocks around it. Others dark, not much activity because the owner does not get out much and drives a walker. Those are the ones the neighbors join forced to watch out and check in to make sure all is well.

Built From Another Time, When Your Home Was Your Castle. You Did Not Run The Roads.

The stately small downtown in a Maine community changes too.

The old blacksmith shop is now a parking lot. One downtown former grocery store converted into multi housing apartments. Another transformed into a community college a beehive of higher education.

A mill closing or just Internet and Interstate threatening the small town Maine way of life.

We have economic struggles to weather but those tight times only make the connection stronger, tighter. The larger, older housing stock Maine is famous for is ideal for taking in loved ones. Your relatives that need independence but someone keeping a closer watch as age happens to the best of us. Taking in foster kids, opening up a bed and breakfast, the small Maine town houses are hard working like the folks who own them.

Ornate, Unique, Highly Crafted Interiors In Grand Older Homes In Small Town Maine.

Year after year with your kids, tramping up the house steps to trick or treat.

Knock and wait for it. You remember who gave the best candy snacks and who decorated to the hilt at Christmas, the other holidays. Some houses looking abandoned because they are. Foreclosure can take years to figure out who made the loan, who insured it as a back up go to when the mortgage and property tax payments stop.

Those homes not stopped at during a magazine sales campaign school fund raisers. Or biking by on your early morning paper route job to earn some spending money.

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

The houses in small Maine towns, who lives in them is no secret to the locals who log year after year of living in the community.

Like pets needing a new home or that are just sadly neglected. You want to see them get energized, put back on their feet. The grand older Maine houses are the anchors of the community. With new neighborhoods popping up and the landscaping changing slow by sure. Thank yu for following our Me In Maine blog posts.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

March 13, 2023
Helpful, Handy, Humorous | Welcome To Maine

Helpful, handy, humorous, welcome to Maine !

When you spend time in Maine on vacation, you pick up on how the local population natives interact. You sense how connected a small Maine community is and witness first hand “home town ” pride in everything on the local level.

What Is It Like In Maine? Home Town Proud Simple Living In Small Maine Communities.

Mainers are helpful.

Lazy is not in the vocabulary and frowned on as not pulling your own weight. Maine families are raised to help out daily anyway they can. On the road, Maine motorists roll to a stop. Crank down the window and stop if your car is parked on a roadway to make sure you are okay. “Need me to jump start that dead battery for you or make a cell phone call?””Stuck in a snow bank and need a little tug to nudge you back on the highway?” “Run out of gas, need a lift, is everyone okay?” Or “lost, need directions?” It’s all about helpful, how can I help you living in small town Maine.

Hitting The Rec Trails In Maine All Four Seasons. That Is What It Is Like In Maine.

Maine local populations maybe small but provide large helpings of caring for others every day, any season.

You don’t have to know or be related to the person receiving the helpful attention either. I hear it all the time in my job as a Maine real estate broker that the local community members are so helpful and friendly. Yes they are but the question I ask “isn’t it like this where you live now?” More often than not, the response is no, no it is not.

Wide Open Space. More Farms, Wooded Land And Fewer People. That Is What It Is Like In Maine.

Less population is part of it. In crowded urban areas you keep to yourself, eyes forward, get from point A to B as quickly as possible without bother anyone. You hire everything done. In small Maine towns, people are concerned and worry about each other. Mainers are jack of all trades and pretty darn handy, helpful.

Your friends and neighbors get involved to give you a hand on projects in small town Maine.

Mainers know how to change their own oil, shingle a garage roof, replace the guts of a toilet to stop the waste of water. They mow their lawn and shovel their walkways, don’t hire it out. Independent, loaded with skills and a can do attitude. A group assembles quickly to help you get your winter wood cut, split, stored inside the shed or tucked away down in your Maine home cellar. Many hands do make light work in small town Maine.

Meet Neighbors, New Friends, See Family Members. Local Public Suppers That Kind Of Experience.

It’s also nice to know others care about you and check in if you were not at coffee at the local Maine diner this morning.

Or notice that they did not see you at the high school basketball game last night or at breakfast this morning at the local snowmobile club. We look for each other and come to the rescue when the burden gets too tough to carry in life. You give back because you have personally received over and over. You play it forward, you pay it back. That is what it is like in Maine.

Awareness of others in your area and a sense of volunteerism instilled in everyone raised in small town Maine.

Everyone pitches in and tries to help out to do what they can for the greater good. What is it like living in Maine? Simple, real, down to Earth.

Maine, Small Town Parades. Watching Them, In Them, Making Your Own Fun. Waving, Knowing Your Neighbors.

Common sense still used here and less games, more dedication to work hard through your troubles. Not blaming someone else or whining about how hard you have it. No time for feeling sorry for yourself. Pick yourself up by the bootstraps and taught early on to expect less from others and more from yourself really works. If it is to be, it is up to me.

Maine humor, not just the Downeast kind that can be dry and witty.

The “you can’t there from here” retort when asking directions and lost in Maine is well known. But the local expressions describing events unfolding around you. The woodlot for sale was cut so hard “a woodpecker would have to pack a lunch to make it across the acreage”. Colorful ways to converse in Maine keep it light and bright and cause a chuckle or smile.

What Is Is Like In Maine? Less Crowds, More Home Town Pride Common Sense Applied. Outdoors Every Day Of The Year Happens.

If the weather forecasts provides ten inches of new fresh white powdery snow, the native Mainer refers to it as “just a dusting”.

All of us living in Maine have a common task. To have a positive attitude and not be a wet blanket Debbie Downer. To try hard to see the humor in anything happening around you in life. It could always be worse. You and I are pretty lucky overall thinking. Hope, faith, keep at it and don’t give up or get discouraged.

Making less money but better use of managing it in Maine.

What Time Is It? Time To Get Outdoors On The Maine Lake!

Working hard and nothing for free and easy creates a deeper appreciation of gratitude in Maine. You respect other people’s property more. Feel lucky to be on a lake enjoying a sunrise with a fresh brewed hot coffee. Sitting out front on the deck of the humble but your built from scratch waterfront camp. What is it like in Maine?

These Me In Maine blog posts try to convey the lay of the land and what to expect for comparison to where you have been, where you are now. The community videos for Maine do too.

Little things like home cooked meals “uptah camp in Maine” make life enjoyable and not just nose to the grindstone drudgery.

Being outside everyday of the year in Maine provides the fresh air and enjoyment knowing you and I are some kind of lucky to live in Maine.

Collect Maine Lighthouse Experiences. Over 60 To Visit, Re-Visit. One Fun Thing To Do In Maine.

Less people, more natural unspoiled beauty and no traffic, little crime. Friendly, helpful, humorous, hand people.

What do you like best about Maine? In your short vacation visits or gleaned from living here for generations and everything in between. What has been your experience? And remember, don’t believe all you read and know that the best things about small town living in Maine are not so well documented online.

Please do a search on our Maine blog for topics that interest you or subjects you always wondered about to satisfy the curiosity.

Whitewater River Rafting In Maine, One Suggestion Answer For What’s It Like Living In Maine.

You have to experience Maine first hand and draw your own conclusions. Don’t let others do your thinking for you. Maine, come for a day, end up staying a lifetime. 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

March 4, 2023
Small Town Living In Maine

Small town living in Maine.

If you’re a life long native, you’ve known many of those in your daily small Maine town circles for life.

Had a classmate drop in who was looking for a piece of Maine waterfront lake property, land just land.

He and his wife think parked next to a Maine lake and watching the seasons change is direction he wants for quality of life. And in the course of sharing information on where he would like to build a waterfront retirement home on a small Maine lake property acreage, we started childhood flashback experiences.

He had roots in Calais, Downeast Maine and his family rounded up the kids and relocated north.

Downeast Coastal Lobster Boats In Maine.

His Dad worked on the border at a custom’s brokerage house business.

His friends called him Ace. I remember his mom working at Day’s Jewelry Store where I bought black and white Poloroid film in expensive packages of only eight exposures each. Small town living in Maine is like that. You don’t just know the person but everything, anything about his or her family connections. In small Maine towns, you bump into each other often several times a day.

Attending St Mary’s catholic school in Houlton ME until high school and said he was a cold lunch bagger.

Some in his Water Street school enjoyed hot lunch. Delivered via bus, created each day at Lambert School, the old high school brick building next to Central.

One day snowballs pummeled at a school lunch bus seemed entertaining for he and a group of his friends.

All fun and games until a sister wearing a habit learned about the activity. Hauling in the crew, using a thick wooden paddle with individual helpings of discipline. Designed to make sure the activity did not occur again.

Early Maine Potato Farm Machinery At Local Littleton ME Museum

Hands extended to receive the one by one down the line punishment.

Remember the spare the rod, spoil the child adage. The punishment dished out down the line leaving no snow ball throwing hand left out from the cure. My friend’s mother reminded him at home he and his crew got just what they deserved. Kids had a lot more responsibilities at school, at home and working to earn their keep.

We moved on to Maine fall harvest picking potato experiences, making your own spending money.

Kenny’s first day was almost his last picking potatoes.

The field boss on the Maine farm had assigned him an end section in the potato field. All by himself at the end of the row.

If you have never picked barrels of newly dug potatoes laid out in two rows by a mechanical digger pulled by a Maine farm tractor, you wonder what’s the big whoop?

Early Maine Farm Life At The Homestead, Surrounded With All The Wooded And Pasture Field Land To Scratch Out A Living.

An end section extends and contracts with the surrounding tree line defining the Maine land potato field shape.

Not only do you get behind as your potato picking field section grows larger. But you get discouraged with fewer potatoes and wrestling to find them under large dirt clods where they are hidden.

It truly is one potato, two potato pick ’em up and put them in the woven basket and your barrel production suffers greatly with an end row section.

It takes four big heaping baskets made of brown ash and dumped in a plywood or cedar stave wooded potato barrel for the 25, 60 cents or whatever unit payment. Mark that barrel with your ticket number for the daily count back in the farmer’s house kitchen tally.

Agriculture, Farm Food Grown Close To Home, Locally Sourced Is The Best Tasting.

If your end section shrinks row by row of unearthed potatoes to pick, low barrel count for you that day in the hot harvest fall sun or rain, maybe spitting snow.

Kenny had enough and slipped away, hiding in the woods to avoid detection on this way walking home.

Potato picking was not for me he surmised. The was a potato field MIA loose, sound the air raid alarm. His Dad got wind of the news, found him, put him in a car, delivering him back to the field with a stern warning. Don’t do it again.

Small Town Public Suppers! Great Meal, Friendly Servers, Good Causes. Win, Win, Win!

The beauty of potato picking besides making your own money to manage as a kid, no one leaves the field until everyone is picked up is a valuable lesson.

We are all in this together to clean up before we can go home. The money you make in the potato field used to buy your fall school clothes. Kids helped shoulder some of the household expenses and learned to shop wisely, develop spending impulse control. To take care of whatever they “earned” with their own money a potato barrel at a time.

Meet Neighbors, New Friends, See Family Members. Local Public Suppers That Kind Of Experience.

No one is abandoned and left behind alone in the Maine potato field.

No rows and rows behind discouragement howling at the moon for anyone on the potato picking crew.

Pick ’em clean. Helping the local Maine potato farmer get the crop out experience was part of growing up in Aroostook County.

Hard Work With The Right Tools Is The Most Productive, Rewarding In Small Town Living In Maine.

I think small town living in Maine makes your connection with others in it much stronger for lots of reasons.

One, knowing a person in your class or neighborhood growing up provides a wealth of experiences. We are more connected, have spent more time together through out life so we know each other better.

Second, working on local community events whether coaching a youth hockey team or raising money for a Rotary project just helps strengthen the connection. When you have personal experiences with someone, you understand them better. They accept you too. Each know where the other is coming from, their strengths and weaknesses and why or how they react to anything.

The many Maine small town experiences through out life help the community.

Oh sure, there can be differences and personality clashes. But first hand personal knowledge of all the skills and talents in a small Maine town can be a beautiful thing. Like a team that pulls together and knows what has to happen for success before the buzzer sounds.

Makes for a better working relationship, the quality of life too because nothing is surface or unknown about the others in your small Maine town.

The small town community members understand each other deeply because there are not strangers. Accepting, needing, proud of where we live. Knowing we all have an important role in creating and sustaining the small Maine town living experience.

Simple Survival And Quality Of Living In A Small Maine Town.

My advice for folks relocating to Maine, is get involved.

From day one and never let off the throttle. Be productive rather than petty. No time for personality attacks and everything about pitching in and combining talents.

And for locals to realize all these new fresh ideas from folks who did live somewhere else can be weaved into what we could do to help the small Maine town prosper.

Realize there are community members who have full, rich experiences and will adopt you as one of their own. But not so much if you bitch and complain and find fault constantly. Easy does it as we all get to know each other and divvy up who does what and when.

Outdoors, Do It Yourself More Independent! That’s Living In Small Towns In Maine!

Brand new to the area transplants need to know the lay of the land and for locals to show them the ropes. To explain traditions and the history lessons they missed.

Volunteering is what small Maine town living is all about.. has to be.

No money to hire it done and what would be the fun in that?

Sure there is room for improvement and change is inevitable in a small Maine town. But easy does it on the “back home we always did it this way, that way”. It can get tedious and make locals wonder then why did you leave?

Hard Honest Work, No One Lazy! Expecting Setbacks In Rural Maine.

Something in the where you lived before location exchange before the move to Maine must have made it worth it.

But sharing and comparing what works and why or why not is important in brainstorming. Remind yourself of those reasons you moved to Maine. All this four season drop dead gorgeous beauty.

Maine is smaller sparse spread out populations, vast unspoiled terrain.

Working Outdoors In The Fields. Amish Farmers Produce Quality Local Food.

You daily travel much smaller local circles really getting to know others living in the village size population. Maine is over 450 small towns, plantations and only a handful of cities.

Here’s some reasons why I know, what I love living in a small Maine town.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

February 9, 2023
Soap Box Derby Racing In Houlton ME

Soap box derby racing in Houlton ME.

June 24th, 2023 is the race date for the 27th running of the soap box derby race in Houlton ME. Today, if you want to derby race in Maine, “Derby Hill” in Houlton ME is the one state site for gravity racing. Once upon a time, there were five local derby racing site locals in Maine. The Northern Maine soap box derby built a two lane racing hill.

I think the big reason Houlton ME survived the one by one closure of the other four local Maine soap box derby programs.

The Road To Race In Akron Ohio’s All America Downhill Event. First You Have To Win A Local.

The Soap Box Derby youth car racing program began back in 1933. World Championship finals are held each July at Derby Downs in Akron, Ohio.

Un-powered cars bit from a kit compete using only gravity for fuel. Kids between 7 to 20 years of age are eligible to race in the All American soap box derby program.

Getting a car sponsor or buying a derby car to assemble is part of the education.

Workers to set up a hill, tear it down after a derby race is one of the biggest cost in manpower and logistics. Someone needs to be on the top of the hill to load cars into the gates. To launch each heat from “Topside”.

Other individuals at the bottom of the race course to help pull cotter pins, rotate wheels, load cars on trailers to head back to the top of the hill.

To keep racers with their cars for quick pairing.

So the day is no longer than it has to be to determine your winners in each division.

So we can move on to have the big soap box derby party and lots to eat. While watching the awards presentation after all the fun winds up in this year’s local Maine soap box derby race.

Timing the lane heats to determine who advances up the soap box derby racing brackets.

Lots of jobs for volunteers to fill year after year. Weather is always an unknown but heck, we live in Maine. Get lots of different types of weather to work around all year long.

Our Houlton Maine derby racing program trains drivers and their support teams to expect blistering hot, pouring rain, maybe even snow and gusty wind conditions on the track.

If you live in Maine, if you want to sponsor a soap box derby car, visit this link for the costs involved buying a stock racer. For larger, older racers, this is the link for buying a super stock derby car.

All Colors, Styles Of Graphics Make Each Soap Box Derby Car Unique Like Their Drivers.

There is a master division to keep the interest of the oldest derby racers.

I helped one of my four kids who all soap box derby raced and can attest from experience. It takes way more than 30 hours to build a masters kit car. Here’s the link to the newest version to buy a soap box derby master kit car.

We Have A Green Light On Derby Hill! Heat 109, Drivers Ready..

There are lots of existing soap box derby cars around the state of Maine.

You see them for free and wearing layers of thick dust and rust from laying around the back or up over head a Maine garage.

Sometimes you see them in sell swap trade guides. A Maine stock or super stock soap box derby car will be mingled in among the list of for sale item bargains. Most seem to be free to a good home.

The only problem with old derby race cars is having to update floor boards, making sure the axles or other parts are not outdated.

There is time, expense, dedication and a lot of gravity aerodynamic science that goes into building or maintaining a soap box derby car.

Kids grow up and learn to drive real cars out into the big wild World. But they never forget what an allen wrench is for or an lock washer. How to adjust weights, tighten a steering cable or change a brake pad.

The derby race cars that impress me the most are not the ones where one sponsor or someone’s parent bought the kit out of pocket.

But rather the derby race cars passed down with many sponsors each contributing the money to buy them, splitting the cost of paint, updates, helmets, new brake pads, graphics, etc.

Rather than read read read, let’s watch a couple Maine soap box derby race program videos.

It’s all downhill, gravity racing where weight, alignment is your “engine” with the trick to get from top to bottom quicker than the other lane driver.

Thank you for helping spread the word on the state of Maine soap box derby race held in Houlton ME’s on Derby Hill.

The Houlton Maine local derby race was the largest five years in a row. It takes 66 volunteers, around 200 derby race car drivers. Lots of car sponsors, program advertisers to pull off that kind of accomplishment! Kids are king and queen and the whole village raises the youngsters in rural small town Maine! That’s why year after year, Maine soap box derby has kept rolling in “The County”, in “Vacationland”.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

February 2, 2023
Shopping More Than One Grocery Store, Hiding Valuables In A Maine Home

Shopping more than one grocery store, hidden valuables in a Maine home.

First, the grocery store ad sale flyers in Northern Maine part of this blog post.

Coming To Town Thursday Or Friday Night, To Line The Square And Grocery Shop For Deals. To Watch Parades, To Socialize Before Facebook, Instagram.

Many thrifty Northern Maine grocery shoppers scan the ad food flyers inserts in the local newspapers.

And the week’s grocery shopping now or year’s ago still not done in a hurry or at one store only.

No no.

Carefully thought out slowly deciding what to buy on sale at this grocery, that one. Stocking up on the deals, the loss leaders designed to get you into these Maine stores.

One after another grocery store is the weekly, all pre-planned out attack for the lowest food prices.

To get the best deal that each grocery store in Maine offers this week. Today a local office supply vendor for printing supplies told me about his Aunt. She never was blessed with children and lived out her years in the Caribou area of Maine.

Simple Living, More Outdoors, Less People, Lots Of Wildlife, That’s Maine. Looking For Grocery Store Deals That Jump Out At You. Too Good To Pass Up.

The Aunt who this nephew would pick up and each week take to the five local grocery stores one by one. To shop for what each offered as their grocery store’s “loss leaders”. The bargain priced household and fresh produce, canned goods, dairy products and meat items offered at each area Maine grocery store to attract shoppers.

I asked him if she died with quite a bit of bank savings squirreled away and he said yes she did.

One heck of a grocery shopper and saver. But he also shared with a smile that she sewed money into an old winter coat. For safe keeping but that only her sister out west knew about this DIY savings program location. And one day she woke up dead.

The Aunt in Northern Maine died, her sister did not make it to the funeral.

Saving Your Hard Earned Dollars In A Lining Of A Coat Not A Maine Bank Safety Deposit Box.

The winter coat with the cash stashed inside the inner liner given away to Catholic Charities. No idea where the winter coat with the hidden cash ended up all those years ago.

Or if the carefully saved up and hidden sewed in the coat liner cash currency funds were ever discovered by the new garment owner. If not, it’s like holding the winning Power Ball lottery ticket and never claiming the windfall that changes your life forever.

Do you have family members who were not so trustful of banks or credit unions and did some behind the scenes savings at home schemes?

Old shoe or cigar box repositories that lacked FDIC insurance protection with your Maine relatives? If you remember the run on banks and failure of lending institutions during the Great Depression, it does not seem so foolhardy to hide away the cold hard currency.

These folks created their own safety deposit box locations scattered around their Maine home nooks and crannies hiding spots.

Every family has stories passed down that shape our actions to how we live life in Maine. Working hard, developing careful impulse control on the household spending. Money wrapped up in tinfoil and tucked in back of the freezer for safe keeping is one common method folks use to tuck away the funds.

Maybe where the “cold hard cash” term was er… was coined. (Blog post audience groan sound)

In the mattress of a bed is another common place to hide away savings at Maine home.

Under a loose floor boat or tucked away in a wall cavity. Hope there is no Maine house or apartment fire.

From Market Square, The Houlton Maine Apartment House Fire Smoke.

Banks nowadays when you are buying a Maine home want to know where the savings came from and documentation.

A paper trail and chain of custody to back it up asked for at the time of applying for a Maine home mortgage loan.

The lenders fear if borrowed earnest money deposit funds, there are hefty interest rates associated to pay back the mortgage with loan shark terms and conditions.

A paper trail for the last two months and evidence it has been on deposit at a Maine bank or savings institution is part of the pre-qualification these days to get a Maine home loan.

Top areas folks also use to hide savings money in their home include the back of the toilet tank in a waterproof container. In hollowed out books or behind the stacks of reading material. We’ve all watched enough James Bond movies to envision a variety of secret hiding places for jewels, other valuables that you and I would select as a safe spot.

Saving Money, Working Hard, Life Lessons Taught Early On. Generation To Maine Generation.

Big fire proof safes that someone got a hernia rolling into place. That’s why they are still where some family member left them. You see them all over old Maine homes. The safe number combination to dial in on the tumblers long lost when a family member passed on to his or her six feet down under grave.

The bottom of the flour bin from yesteryear kitchens that had the pull out features for bulk cooking supplies. Another hiding place for valuables in a Maine home.

My Mom had a writing desk with a lid that pulled toward you revealing a slew of special compartments.

False hidden ones to stow away the fine jewelry were in those old writing desk every lady at the time possessed. Money saved at home without anyone knowing also buried in the backyard. Inside a wall during construction, in hidden canning jars.

You used what you had and everyone lived frugally.

A simple Maine lifestyle working hard for what they earned with the sweat of their back. The savings in an envelope taped under a bedroom bureau, behind a mirror or some out of sight location no one talked about or would think of as safe. Where would you think valuable could safely be stored in your Maine home?

Older generations lived as thriftily as possible and most prone to save for hard times ahead and just

Every Mom, Lady In Her 80’s It Seems Has A Writing Desk For Family History Storage.

lurking around the next life corner.

Many when they passed away from living so modestly surprise you at how much was saved from a lifetime of being frugal with their spending and savings.

The calling ahead to make sure your purpose of a trip destination is open in rural Maine.

Or has the item or service you need. No wasted trips and running a tight ship to eliminate waste of gas or time.

Part of how they had money saved was because of lessons about living below your means and taking care of items purchased.

So you did not have to replace items from too much wear and tear. Also, impulse spending control was strong and research to make sure you got the best product or service for the lowest possible price.

Ask anyone who picked Maine potatoes or raked blueberries, worked on a fishing boat or in the woods growing up about how they spent their hard earned money. Carefully, slowly or not at all.

Do I need it or do I want it?

Do I have to have it and right now, this very moment? That sense of urgency can mean poor planning.

When you have to step out and spend hard earned money right this minute, you have no time to shop around and get the best deal.

It’s now or never, do or die clock ticking to make your expensive moves with no wiggle room or other options.

Saving money and stretching dollars using S&H green stamps and other sales promotions was a sport that most of the population played.

Collecting S&H Green Stamps Given By Stores That Could Be Redeemed For Camping Gear, Your Little League Baseball Glove Or Tennis Racket.

Shopping for groceries at Maine stores offering double or more S&H green stamp premiums. Returning bottles and cans to pocket the redemption fee and planning careful, well thought out purchases for needed items.

Get a deal or wait for one.

No materials thrown away that could be needed to do household repairs either. We did not live in a throw away society.

Some dealt only in cash and carry. No credit ever. And as you save money, if your trust in banks is low from past experience or hearing family stories about lost fortunes during the “Great Depression”, it’s easy to see. How some just avoid banks, credit and ATM cards. Too tempting, too easy, too expensive.

Hidden home cash valuables in special places in your Maine home.

It’s not hoarding, it’s survival. And you keep anything of value you might need to do household or vehicle repairs. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure when money is tight and hard earned.

The same kind of thinking, planning ahead meant your winter supply of firewood was all cut, seasoned, split and stacked for next year.

You were working on the year after that for piece of mind. Your exercise was not running on a treadmill at the local gym. It was processing the woodlot firewood from large hardwood trees.

Walks, Talks, Everyone Brings A Covered Dish To Enjoy For A Picnic. That’s Small Town Living In Outdoor Four Season Maine.

Chopped down, twitch dragging them to yards to process into smaller lengths. Then split down further to the length your wood heater would hold for a future winter ahead. Families getting together to jointly help each other create the firewood fuel needed to heat each of their Maine homes.

Everyone has done home remodeling and in Maine’s older housing stock you find hidden treasures from the past owner.

Inexpensive jewelry, money.. the coins or folding kind. Family heirlooms, old newspapers left like a time capsule. Those newspapers are fun to study the entire daily or weekly news, the ads and the prices for the times. Had a lady recently bring in one newspaper addition from the early 1980’s that showed me as president of the Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce.

Hidden in closets with wallpaper patches, tucked away in Maine home attics and forgotten.

Ever find treasure in your house hidden cavities? Pocket watches, old photos, stash from the past. You will find items in Maine’s older housing stock. Not if it’s a shoe box 5-3-1 ranch or simple cape built in the last twenty years in a 300 lot subdivision. Maine is full of older homes that carry lots of history. You lived in your Maine home. Did not spend more time running the roads, eating out and rarely home. Your home in Maine was your castle. Is your home treated that way where you live now?

Thank you for follow our Maine blog posts on the Me In Maine channel.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

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

December 14, 2022