With COVID19 pandemic adjustment to day to day living, the desire to find affordable land listings in Maine has increased. Maine was already the number one state in the nation for second home ownership. But the spike headed Coronavirus cell just increased the demand for Maine land for the sheer get away and be safe far from city population clusters.
More Wildlife Than People To Read The Local Small Town Newspaper In Maine.
Another cause of real estate buyers on the hunt for Maine land to build a smaller home on it is due to the shortage of existing housing supply.
Sellers in Maine have re-thought listing and letting go of their real estate due to COVID19 and assessing where they live. Most in Maine would agree why would you want to be anywhere but Vacationland with or without the Coronavirus? More on the Maine real estate market report now that the COVID19 effects can be tracked in listings and property sale statistics.
One more reason land, just Maine land is a big part of the local listing and selling is there is so much of it in Vacationland.
With lower populations in all the small communities dotting the Maine land map in Maine’s sixteen counties, the supply of land stays healthy and undervalued. Large supply, low prices, plenty of selection of Maine land is the perfect combination. COVID19 just increased the focus on Maine as the best scenario financially and for the sheer natural beauty.
Land listings in Maine sales always had a big following.
Cheap outdoor camping vacations on the small land acreages in Maine are fun and popular. Often the lower cost Maine land is bought with owner financing terms. The previous owner seller financed the land buyer and the property does not need to be replaced like a house with a mortgage. Which needs to be paid off to have a real estate closing. Maine land can be easily bought on affordable installments. And the next thing you know, the land is no longer mortgages, free and clear.That’s the best kind.
The Maine land for sale used for vacation fun is also a hedge investment if things get to hairy in the city living. If a land investor, you could use the land full time or at least half the year down the road. When you the owner retires and becomes a snow bird headed to the sunny south where no snow shovel is needed to handle the white stuff.
Camp built on the Maine land beside a lake or river or if you are really lucky the Maine coastal ocean location.
How’s that sound? Maine land becomes used for more than recreational once in a while past-time vacation place. Many camps, cabins, cottages evolve into the house that Jack built. Those study but misfit constructed shacks might be a little rough to undo, redo, make do. They were built on a limited or none existent budget or over simplified but the structure did the trick.
The camp or cabin slowly built and reconstructed over the years. To offer shelter and enjoyment up in Maine away from the city crowds and bumper to bumper traffic is a source of pride and entertainment location. But if not maintained, time and Mother Nature can cause them to go into disrepair and eventually collapse. The local wildlife can take up occupancy and further accelerate the structure’s decline. (more…)
Small towns in Maine, better coronavirus recovery chances.
Social distancing is easier in small towns in Maine because let’s face it. Just less people populated vast and sparsely inhabited Maine. Too many people that crowd together and no where to go is COVID19’s best scenario. It’s why cities are hardest hit and can not handle the high virus cases. Too many people makes it like living in a giant petri dish in populated areas. Maine is vast, uncrowded, more wildlife than people.
Can I Have A Little Privacy Please? I’m Bathing!
But survival, starting with meeting your basic needs and moving out from there.
Keep it simple living in small town Maine is already in place. Not wall to wall people to tip toe around or avoid. To begin with, living high on the hog and complicated or expensive lifestyles is not small town Maine. It is not regressive to strive for a cottage or farmstead existence but enriching and highly rewarding.
More People In Cities Make Social Distancing During COVID19 Harder.
Your kids benefit too from more chores and no other choice but pitching in to be a vital part of the family.
Learning new skills and responsibilities over just camp out on the couch. And then veg out on a device to deal with boredom of just not enough to do for the rest of the day and night.
What coronavirus does show in small towns in Maine is how much we all care about each other.
Because of the strong connection of small town Maine living, your concerns are much more on the local level.
We watch the news World wide and collected off the small towns in Maine local grapevine.
Feel badly for heavily hit coronavirus population centers and makes all of us sick to our stomachs, helpless for them.
But we spring into action and reach out to help those locally who we do know and care about daily. To help make a difference in their lives.
The disabled, elderly members of the small Maine town community are on our minds daily.
Meals on wheels providers check in to add the social interaction at a safe protected distance. The phone calls to see what they need and pitching it up for them at the local grocery store outlets happens. You would be surprised what happens behind the scenes in small towns in Maine with or without a COVID19 pandemic case swell.
I think the coronavirus reminds us of how lucky we really are living in small towns around Maine. Yes we struggle for economic independence and fight something fierce to protect local jobs. Keeping the money spent locally and turning over six to seven times is a beautiful thing. But when the small town provider of goods or services does not have enough volume to stay out of the red ink. Or there is not local provider and you are forced to go online if no other options exist in the region out of your small Maine town.
There is the challenge to retool and reinvent in the small Maine town’s economy.
Opportunities are opening up as small town Maine living is seen as a very viable option. Safe, easier to social distance and getting back to basics. First, everything that you need and then easy does it moving on to what you think you need. As people’s standard of living increases, their spending habits and the more more more gotta have this and that complicated their lives. Creating the need for even more of something they may or may not have really needed. When the money to fuel the complicated living dries up or gets interrupted, there’s the rub.
Farms, Horses, Barns In Maine. They Go Together For The Simple Rural Lifestyle.
Only in times like a coronavirus or an economic downturn is the necessary change going to happen because you have no other choice.
Can not continue on the same expensive course and that’s where what about if we relocated, moved to Maine thoughts intensify in the brain. Native local Mainers are masters at creative work arounds when bumps in the roadway of life show up and they do. A lot. Lessons learned from mistakes or coping with hardships early in life benefit the rest of how things play out in a Mainer’s life. Has COVID19 caused you to consider what if you lived in a small town in Maine?
A person’s opinion of small town living changes 180 degrees when instead of itching to leave, you long to return.
If you were raised in a small Maine town, you know what it is like. What is taken for granted and missing in a populated area living where you lose the small town living approach.
Have an oldest daughter, her husband, new grandson living in a “pod” next door on a Maine lake. I get her perspective on what living in Boston was like during the early stages and now during the coronavirus. Small town and city living are also part of the contrast because by nature just the number of people in an area dictates the way things are gonna roll or not.
Crossing The Big Green Bridge From Maine To The Rest Of New England.
What you need and what you want and the price you pay for anything in time, money, sacrifice.
In my job I hear the statement a lot. “Something is missing in my life”. Which could mean something is lacking in my life at this point. Maybe what you needed before you started a family is causing the hole of what’s missing for your kids. In a small Maine town, the village raises the kids, not just Mom and Dad.
Or the “been there, done that” could be I chased the American dollar and achieved an income to support this lifestyle that was too high a price to pay. Or took away time I should have been living life gleaning small pleasures and not the pie in the sky high life. What do you need in your life? You know the answer if you can stop and catch your breath long enough to reflect and ponder. Not what marketing says you need and can not live without.
Living your own life starts by not being so concerned how others live theirs. Social media look at me is not always accurate and who has time to live their life externally through others anyway ? Small town living in Maine, the way life should be.
All I know is small town country living creates the stage for everything you need. The real foundation and nothing artificial. As I hunt and peck this blog post this Sunday morning, I look out over a bottle like surface Maine lake. My daughter and I will enjoy a freshly ground coffee bean cup of Joe in a few minutes. Talking about the new grandson.
A pair of boys just cruised by with fishing rods and checking out the best deepest spots for angling for fish this morning. Six lake loons are about 200 feet off shore and circling, cooing, socializing closer than six feet spacing. It is sunny, comfortable, not hot and muggy. I feel lucky to live in Maine not where there are so many people to motor or walk around or any crime to worry about round the clock.
Living In Small Maine Towns.You See More Nature, Less People, Have The Space Needed For COVID19 Social Distancing.
The walk to the lake landing happens after sampling a hot coffee, some sliced mangos, two banana packages.
Along the way a stop to talk from one ditch to the other on Chickadee Lane. The couple live full time four lake lots down and the wife was my oldest daughter’s first grade teacher. We share where all the kids of each family are and what the grandchild count is up to now.
After the stop, we trudge on and it is learned Mrs. Austin thirty plus years ago was one of my daughter’s favorite teachers.
I ask why and she recalls her honor reward system. There was money involved, the fake in school kind. A store set up with items to purchase with the “money” earned for good behavior, academic excellence or just staying caught up with school work. Small towns in Maine educators have lots of common sense and make sure the students
My daughter remembers buying a book with her reward money and it was a book written from the big bad wolf’s perspective in the Little Red Riding Hood classic with a twist.
Mrs. Austin also let the classroom kids raise ducklings. Two of them when the school year was ending for summer break were relocated to her Grandfather’s farm out on US RT 2. A farm pond introduction ceremony was a big deal.
The Little Red Log Lake Camp Next Door In Maine. Ideal For Social Distancing During COVID19 Pandemic.
The two ducks, Chocolate and Butterscotch seemed happy paddling around the pond.
Then disappeared. We hope to more private surroundings away from US RT 2. But the fear the pair became a fox’s chicken dinner is hard to shake when you are a first grade school girl growing up in a small Maine town.
What’s All The Buzz? Eye Candy And Bee Honey Extraction In Nova Scotia Canada Cross Border Trip.
The walk resumes, the distinctive patented sound of a motorcycle chugging along becomes louder. The rider in leather slows, raises his left hand and smiles. It’s Jimmy Ritchie who lives up the lake. He and Lou Ann his wife used to live across from my parent’s Maine farm and were close to mom and dad. Helping them with new born Durham baby calf births during the coldest days of the year. Naming them, feeding them and part of the small population surrounding us in Northern Maine.
Living in Northern Maine means the perk of being close to Canada.
No, it is not dangerous being this close to New Brunswick or Quebec Canada. Taking trips to Atlantic Canada are common to PEI and Halifax, Nova Scotia for example when the International boundary opens up again. Maine residents are related to our Canadian neighbors and both sides feel lucky the other is there for cross border travel. The dollar and loonie difference helps the trade too.
It is cheaper to live in small towns in Maine in many ways beyond the just price of real estate.
And if you learn the joy of raising some or most of your own food. If you heat with wood or twist the dial when oil prices are low to the ground and stay frugal. Maine can be a wonderful backdrop for your life. Living careful rewarding lives communing with nature that is everywhere you look. Awareness increases, protection of the environment around us becomes more important and that good stewardship attitude is passed down to the next generation. The Maine real estate prices are cheaper and you can own not mortgage your low cost properties.
Sheltering In Place, Small Towns In Maine And Country Settings Are Ideal For Sheltering In Place. To Increase Your COVID19 Avoidance Chances.
Cities are great because they have lots of people to support many endeavors.
More variety of food, sports, entertainment… the paid for kind. That’s why native full time Mainers love to head down to Bean Town for a Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics game or theater show, music concert, etc. But can not wait to cross back over the big green bridge on the southern end of Maine. Our locals can create lots of home grown food, fun and social distant fellowship.
More second homes than any other state … (ripping envelope opens sound) Survey says “Maine”.
That’s Maine. And lots of those cottage owners on a Maine lake are tooling up with insulation, Internet connections and make the slide from city to waterfront vacation cottage. Telecommuting from a Maine lake instead of the city setting is underway with a fire in their belly. Thanks for reading our small towns in Maine blog post highlighting better coronavirus survival chances. Lots of activity from folks jammed in a city trying to trade it all in for a safe spaced place like Maine.
Happy And Content Because You Live In Maine. That’s More Than Enough!
This blog post about how Maine is ideally suited to a minimalist in search of a setting to practice this approach to living well.
Where you decide to set up shop for minimalist living is huge. Maine is already ideally suited for simple living. But for this blog post on minimalist living in Maine, we need a foundation to build on. For starters you and I need to make sure we are on the same page on the term “minimalist”. I looked it up for the two of us and here what I found.
Minimalist.
Noun
1) a person who advocated or practices minimalism in art of music
2) a person advocating minor or moderate reform in politics.
Adjective
1) relating to minimalism in art or music.
2) advocating moderate political policies.
That sure helps doesn’t it? Not.
I never thought of minimalism as mostly applied to music, politics.
Instead I thought of it as being highly efficient. Frugal, wasting little and running a tight ship with little slack. Living below your means, keeping your perspective always “keep it simple” without the stupid tacked on. De-cluttering and not juggling too many irons in the fire that creates stress and robs joy. That’s part of the reduce, reuse, repeat practically life template to build on daily. And mentally to avoid “stinking thinking”. Teaching those around you that positive is the only way to sail your ship.
This is a blog post on minimalist living in Maine, should it be shorter than most too to show conservation?
De-cluttered and not long and windy or showy? Short and sweet and complete. All the electrons used to craft this Maine blog post were recycled and no trees harmed to create it.
Meet Your Neighbors In Rural Small Town Maine. Kinda Shy, Have Four Legs, Not Chatty Cathy’s Or Obnoxious.
Living with only what you need is one definition of a minimalist lifestyle.
Like going on a diet if you are used to adding more and more that interferes with the what is really important to your quality of life. “Easy does it” advice for someone used to no limits and binge drinking. A suggestion to rein it in and think long and hard about everything you do, buy, how you live.
Living simply the life decision.
Not adding something new without pulling back in some other area to make room for it. Buying more is not the go to approach to a true minimalist. Accumulate more is not the pathway to the relationship happiness experience. You don’t buy it, you build it. The contrast like fast food wolfed down vs slow cooked and savored. Keep it simple. Making it minimal, limited is going throw a wrench into things for the person with the galloping gimmees. Seeking anything new that is guaranteed to improve your happiness (for a short time). Is the piling it on and adding more and more to fill a hole? Is it like applying a band aid to a gunshot wound? Self medication to compensate for something missing like so much we do in desperation?
Roll Your Own, Raise What You And Your Livestock Eat. That’s Maine Simple Living Farm To Table.
Like most things in life style approaches, it’s a buffet style choice.
Little of this, a lot of that and no thank you helpings of many other samplings. As you push the tray along the bar to create what’s up next for the meal ahead. Eating the wrong stuff, not even hungry or the food so so satisfying. But something to do to fill the time. All the modern conveniences have freed us up in some ways only to add more idle time activities to seek fulfillment using the wrong methods.
Minimalist living, when it is a healthy decision and not a sentence.
It helps when someone overwhelmed with no end in sight develops a plan for their own survival and health. When something has to give. The search for improved quality of life starts with what is important and should it be in the short and long run. Your kids are watching and learning from you so why living with more than you need is the goal? To impress someone? To show everyone the fruits of your labor and acting as a measurement? If you were poor as a church mouse growing up and many rubbed your nose in it, climbing out of poverty becomes life and death important. But sometimes for the wrong reasons and to enjoy dishing it out to blanket the pain from receiving the ridicule or shame.
Our Waterfront Friends Entertain For Free. The Kids Part Of The Family Act That Float By During Evening Pan Handling For Bread.
Rich is not bought with money. Gratitude is riches that is mined in your thoughts.
Being happy with what you have that is more than enough. Right thinking and being frugal, practical and in balance. Taking care of things so they don’t need constant replacement. Respecting others and their opinions to maintain healthy relationships. To learn something from the exchange of new ideas that keep you and I from being outdated or stagnant. That will help build a joyful savings account to draw from and for peaceful inner contentment. Happy starts and ends with removal of fear and worry. High anxiety levels do not improve the quality of the air in your surroundings. It robs and distracts and keeps you from your passionate best performance. Watching others and being a copy cat is not writing your own sheet music and performing your own tunes.
Can I Have A Little Privacy Please? I’m Saturday Night Bathing!
Minimalist living, getting centered to apply a simple template to how you begin and end your day.
Experiences more than world possessions is the biggest shift. Replacing hap hazard spending and living seat of the pants with no plan for a systematic approach to squeeze out more rich experiences. Frugal travel, vacationing instate and camping. The less you spend, the more you get from the experience thinking. Because you can take more trips if done on a careful budget. Not worried about how much this five star accommodations set you back that you could not really afford.
It’s easier to budget when you have less expenses. But minimalist living is not a fad.
Not going to work if you feel deprived like a diet without dessert or second helpings of what you love to eat. Minimalist living is more than economizing and reducing the stuff you pack up and move around in your travels. It is clearing the deck to create time and space for something you never tried or thought could enrich your life. If you had no money or very little, practicing minimalist living would be easier. Not many other options to side track you.
Funding over spending means more work than play hours for most.
Reaching for the credit card constantly and watching the monthly balances spike skyward. Hiring out things you could do yourself if you had the time and putting in a little study is highly rewarding. Makes you independent, more skilled, less tied to others to perform tasks you could do yourself if you just had the time. Too little time. The only way to make more time is to manage what you have better. To take an eagle eye at how you spend your time now and what could be different with some rearranging.
Simple Maine Fun, Collecting Lighthouses. Over 60 To Capture And Experience. Return Visits Enrich The Experience Like Reconnecting With An Old Friend.
McMansions, the place with more bathrooms than bedrooms.
Why would you need six bathrooms for a three bedroom home? Are there double bunk beds and several pull down murphy beds in those bedrooms to increase the capacity? Did the home owners all grow up in houses without running water and trotted in any weather or season to an outhouse out back? And now more bathrooms is a back lash recoil to make up for lack of plumbing earlier in life? Is it because of highly effective marketing by Kohler and other makers of all those toilets, vanities, showers and tubs manufacturers? Is it look at me, I am a success based on my home’s bathroom count? One more example of I have more than you and don’t you forget it?
The corporate ladder climb and stripes earned as you head north in your career. That focus makes what you should be investing time in a little blurry.
The price of career success in your upward advancement and what it robs. Is this life pursuit healthy in the present day or long run?
What does it do to a person, their family, relationships with kids and your partner and the bottom line sum of life experiences? Have we been taught as a society that money fixes everything? Throw enough green stuff or swipe that credit card magnetic strip more times and everything will be just fine. A video on minimalist.
All the right junk in all the right places.
From a song about being well proportioned and pleasant on the eyes. Like the Brick House song from the Commodores. But a three car or more garage, needed to warehouse the junk. Really? A true minimalist says if you have not used a possession in 90 days, you don’t need it. Non-essential and needs to be deep sixed. Because it’s dragging you down man. But what about Christmas decorations? Leave them up to enjoy and don’t take them down? If you live in a tiny home, you limit the space and it’s like packing for the trip to the moon. Only so much will fit and priority of what is needed to stay alive not just entertained becomes important in the family tin can space capsule.
Maine is ideal for minimalist living.
We already practice minimalist living and know what “green” meant for a lifestyle before people started hash tagging it. Being good stewards, protecting Mother Earth and carry in, carry out to leave a small or better yet no footprint. Mainers are all over that approach to protecting this neat vast, sparsely populated state. Natural resource rich Maine, where we had less of a time adjusting to “social distancing” than most during the COVID19 pandemic. With all this drop dead gorgeous pure and natural beauty around us, how can you not help but feel very fortunate? Less concerned about what material objects you don’t own or need. More grateful to be in a place like Maine that is the way life should be with fresh air, clean water and not a gazillion people to share or deal with that get in the way.
Out For a Drive, A Log Truck Slows The Ride.
Living in a small cabin off grid is not the same as owning a 1000 square foot ranch or living in a farmstead with power and all the creature comforts.
But Mainers are happy with what they have. Industrious too in improving their lot in life without waiting for someone else to make the changes for them. We don’t point fingers or blame and instead make the most with what we have that is always more than enough. Make it work, adjusting our attitudes and patience all taught early on as life survival skills. When it’s a lot cheaper to live here, that helps too. You worry less about being up against it or making ends meet when the dollar bill stretches further.
Less income but no debt.
The rural way of living in small town Maine communities prepares you with a ceiling, a boundary, financial limits. Free and clear the goal. When fun is no or low cost and we are already in Vacationland, that does not hurt minimalist living experience. Clutter, debt, no plan is not the norm in rural Maine. Way more resourceful than that to stay clear of what can pull your under or steal your joy in Maine.
Maine Lobster, We Get It Fresh Off The Boat At The Dock. No Waiting, No Jacked Up Middle Men Prices.
Is fast food part of the consumption problem?
For just one more buck you can have score pies. You and I can super size and heft an even larger large soft drink we don’t need and can barely carry. To guzzle and wash down the happy meal. Who needs a refill and more waste thrown in the trash of unused food or drink and colorful packaging. In third world countries, give a kid a happy meal toy and they carefully open the plastic wrapper. Play longer, slide it back into the original container and put it up on a shelf for safe keeping. Learned that observation from an adoption agency that works worldwide. When you have less you appreciate more what you do have. I get it, can cherry pick lots of the platform plank talking points on why lean toward a minimalist approach to simple living.
If you have what you need and that is more than enough.
You spend less time on the prowl, hunting for more. I’m good, all set happens. That is living life in moderation. But when life is upside down and out of control like someone shoved you out of a plane and no parachute strapped to your back. Something has to give and will with or without your help. It is way harder to rein in how you live and add discipline when bloated happens. The young grasshopper without pockets of money to fuel the excess. Those folks are better off because ramping up the gotta have everything going is just not going to happen with the financial cards you hold that won’t support it. But are they left with discontent because they can’t shop til you drop and not just at Christmas but year round? And see lots of others around them spending like drunken sailors that leads to lamenting on why can’t I do the same? Dare to be different. Try something 180 degree and glean what you can to shake up your life.
Making Music, Your Friends, Family And Neighbors Play The Tunes!
You can not get enough of what you don’t really want.
The mad dash to have it all and then some of life’s goodies. You are not happy for long but on the hunt for something always missing. Good enough never is. What is content? The kind not temporary or contingent upon having more to maintain that peaceful easy feeling. Not sure why all this stuff is so important but keep shoveling it in, bring it all your way please. Don’t stop, can’t stop. Not just bigger is better but more is the goal. Of EVERYTHING and let’s rent enough storage units to tuck it away for years. The kids can sort through it and might find some of the gadgets useful or decide to slide it into a garage sale.
Doing more with less living space, could you be happy with 420 S/F and one space saver bathroom, a galley kitchen and no wasted hall space?
Move the walls, no halls. Live with one open living area that has lots of sunshine. Deciding to dress accordingly for the season, to head outside for most of your living space. Out in your close knit rural Maine community volunteering. pitching in for the greater good. Not hiding out in home. Have lots of cheap Maine land to build a minimalist house to fit your budget and provide the perfect container to practice the less is more.
Don’t you lose family members in McMansions?
Is GPS needed to find one of the many paths to the kitchen for breakfast? When was the last time you used a formal dining room or exercise area? Places for purposes that never get occupied like lots of bathrooms to clean but never use. In Maine, we don’t feel like one of the biggest purposes in life is to burn cash. We are fulfilled by how we live and where we spend our life even keel and considerately simpler. Putting family, community and nature experiences on the top of the list, not shelf item stuff.
Maine Simple. Not Used, So Park It For The Winter Practical.
Minimalist living goes against mass consumption and highly effective marketing planting the seed you need this NOW.
It does not play well with a big part of your day put into achieving and maintaining status. The recipe for happiness should be you are healthy, you enjoy the little things like a sunrise or sunset. Everything in between too because you have an attitude of gratitude. Full of joy and not needing anything else that is missing in large supply.
I had a lake cottage owned by a hoarder who wanted to know what the value was. I could size up the outside and the waterfront lot.
But no space to tour the inside. Wall to wall and floor to ceiling stuffed to the gills. His red Buick station wagon almost eye level with paper of all kinds. The car slowly groaned and moaned as it inched around my small Maine town. Under a heavy strain and overloaded. Like a four wheel rolling paper dumpster with lots of ballast. Too much paper is not thrifty or frugal or minimalist living in Maine. It’s another subject for a future Maine blog post.
Cool Off On The Waterfront In Maine!
They say depression children raised during a time when there was not much to eat or for work were forged into survival mode.
Throw nothing away, not because you wanted to impress anyone with all you possess. But because you might need this and that down the road and had no money to go out and pick it off the shelf.
Wearing blinders and so caught up in the American culture that you forget what life should look like.
Replacing it with an imagined life, how things would be if you could just own one or more of something. Like a security blanket that eases a fear. Worried about running out, what if you could not have anything you suddenly thought you needed. The shift is to building more meaningful relationship, to strengthen the connection to other humans, our belongings, the housing space we call home.
Useful, solid, simple things that work and are timeless are opted for over trending cheaply mass produced disposable junk.
Functional, solid and not just pretty to the eye is what filters our purchasing choices. There is impulse control in whatever we do buy and plenty of thought put into what we research and then decide on as best for us.
Minimalist living in Maine.
Getting rid of the antsy feeling waiting for stuff living pay check to pay check. On the hunt and looking, needing for better. Never happy with what you do have and wanting something different. The endless search for what ever is missing or not giving you comfort. How can you be so happy as a minimalist is you are alone with so little many would wonder. Why would you deprive yourself of the temporary joy of something new just delivered by the Fed Ex or UPS delivery carrier? Minimalist living in Maine, it’s not restrictive but viewed as disciplined and common sense when money does not grow on trees. And when what’s important is the beautiful surroundings you share with your family, friends, small well connected communities in Maine.
Maine! Fishing, Listening To The Water, Having A Lunch Next To A Stream.
In Maine, we use our open porches.
Go up to camp for some simple living and friendly conversation or alone time. We commune with nature. The great outdoors and wildlife teach us much and provide valuable perspective on what is important and why. We don’t need more options, more stuff, a better way of life funded by product makers or service providers. What is missing is what the marketing seed planted makes us think is lacking and highly needed. Minimalist living, less is more is what helps reset everything to the original factory settings to begin again. To establish an equilibrium and balance. We don’t build in rooms or features we won’t use. Functional is highly sought after to simply and improve our daily tasks and the toil of living. The work life balance living in Maine, the natives learn how to handle the two best.
Our boredom, anticipation, rumination and worry is too much free time to spend in expensive ways that benefit others, not us.
We are sheep told what we need. How we should feel. Is that part of how this all happens? Keep it simple, back to basics. Somehow considered square and old school out dated Daddio? Too little void to fill with calm is what happens when you are shopping online into the early morning hours and scanning catalogs for something you don’t have but know you really need. That you can post on Facebook and other social media channels to gloat or seeking approval from the “look what I have that you don’t”. Minimalist living in Maine. There are lots of perks relocating, moving to a small town in Maine.
Has technology advancing leaps and bounds caused the try to keep up collecting the latest greatest?
Chasing new models that promise to out perform the last one you purchased. That hurry scurry spending may help the economy but not the minimalist way of living simple without constant change. Look around your junk drawers and attic storage or closets and what do you see? An electronic graveyard of cords, devices, outdated and antique E waste.
Fresh Watered Maine Wildflowers. The Natural Beauty Of What’s Around Us Enjoyed Daily! We Take Time To Literally Smell The Flowers.
Much of what we buy was because the previous purchase was cheap and wore out.
Or could not keep up and replaced in a throw away society. Minimalist living in Maine or anywhere. Often the older radio. televisions and appliances were made to last and did but technology not a break down caused it shut down and parked. Get out of the way for something new designed to make our life easier and to free up time. Time to think about what else we need to carve our a quality of life.
Minimalist living, do you do it and why?
How come you do not and what have you learned from previous attempts? Thank you for following our Me In Maine blog posts. This one about minimalist living in Maine, one fine state to keep it simple and enjoy what is really important.
Most people I know enjoy food cooked outside over an open fire or sizzling on the gas grill. Munching on whatever gets served up and slide onto the plate is way way tastier combined with Maine outdoor scenery too. One exception, if there is no breeze, it’s early summer. And the black flies and mosquitoes dive in like Stuka bombers without the high pitched whistle signaling the attack.
Eating Outdoors, Not Jammed Between Four Walls Inside. Maine Is Outdoor Dining, Exploring, Everything.
This blog posts is about the pleasure and practical aspects of picnicking in Maine.
For starters, what does the word picnic mean, where did it come from any way? The French get the credit for the word picnic. The word pique-nique which means “pick, peck, nab” a small morsel of food. Combined with the second half meaning “of little importance, trifle”. That sounds like nibbling and snacking to me.
Grazing on nuts and berries is what comes to mind like climbing Mt Katahdin with the four kids taking trail side mini picnic stops.
Paddling Out To An Island, An Offshore Lighthouse For A Picnic Lunch. Food Prepared And Enjoyed Outdoors IN Maine. Nothing Like That Simple Experience!
Reaching into a bag of gorp. Which is a trail mix snack of nuts, dried fruit, granola, nuts, maybe chocolate for some quick energy without the bulk of carrying a picnic basket full of goodies. Or I think of wagon trains of pioneers and horse riders headed West in search of free farm land to homestead on or suffering from Gold or Silver Fever lust. Picnics would be quick pit stops to stop the possession and refuel and to avoid saddle sores. Take care of nature calls out in the privacy of the brush. To open up a can of beans. Again. (more…)
Marbles in Maine, the glass ones started showing up in the 1890’s.
But marbles made of well, marble… and alabaster around two hundred years before that. Winning, losing, coming out even in marble games is no new trending fad. Marble games played since the 13th century. That’s all long long before Maine became a state. Marbles made out of wood, clay, stone not the pretty hot molten glass with us for thousands of years.
I had not thought of marbles in Maine much until this week when a real estate buyer of a waterfront camp on East Grand told me about the owner.
She was a Crocker from Danforth Maine and the lake property owner grew up in the same northern most Washington County town. In admiration and without spite or malice, the buyer dubbed the seller as one heck of a marble player. In small Maine towns, your brother or sister often in a class with most of your friend’s family members. The connection is second, third tier but still there. If you go back far enough in the DNA, someone’s grandmother married your second cousin happens. In small Maine towns, people are more aware of the connection to others in it. When the circle of people is smaller, the connection is stronger.
Like Kittens In A Farm Yard Barn Delivery Of New Cats, The Colors Are Varied. Like Marbles In Maine.
He was the small Maine town version of a pin ball wizard except we’re talking marbles.
Kenny the seller was not and still is not blind, deaf and dumb. All the marbles, winner takes all. That’s what he was known for in these parts. Winning big and often reported Simone the lake property buyer. He sure played a mean game of marbles.
I asked the seller during property price negotiations back and forth this week about his marble playing prowess.
Like most things in life, it boils down to a matter of sheer practice and time put into the endeavor. He laughed and asked what did she tell you? I said only that he was Mr. Marble King. His legend preceded him. That her brothers, all the young lads in her same small Maine town would gather somewhere to play marbles.
Not just during school recess at the East Grand Elementary, but traipsing over for the off hours marble games.
In the evenings, on the weekends, marble playing tournaments were underway somewhere but she could not remember where in town. Just recalling her brothers and his friends disappeared to play marble games.
Kenny, the seller, added to the local story on marbles in Maine games.
He said everyone gathered at his house on Weatherbee Street because there was a dirt floor basement. Ideal conditions for the kind of marble games played down cellar in privacy. Unlike the ones I remember played out in the open during school recess. Nothing elaborate but every kid had a marble bag or metal coffee can with a hole in the plastic lid.
The Wytopitlock, a small town near Danforth but in the County of Aroostook not Washington was heavy on horse shoes.
Under the lights at night, up to 200 horse show players would compete in games to hit the stakes. To land the leaners and ringers at the Wytopitlock Maine Fish and Game. Card games like cribbage “uptah camp in Maine” are an excellent way to pass the time while conversations take place during the 15-2 and more pegging. Simple living in Maine with a cozy wood fire, good company and something ahead for home cooked dining. That’s more than enough to make you feel very lucky to be alive and living in Maine.
Playing odd or even and the other person tried to guess to win or lose whatever was in your hand for the Maine marble wager.
Another marble game called simply Dropsies. Where the player stood over the can placed on the ground or just a lone marble out in the open and waiting. For whoever’s turn it was to with one eye closed and the other lining up the marble dropped with precision from waist high. To hopefully hit the can lid hole or strike the marble on the ground. The video below shows how serious the marble players are in and out of the circle aiming and shooting strategizing. (more…)
Did I eat a lot of rice growing up you ask? (Smiling) Ah no. The Maine potato was king for the entire country back in the 1940’s. Maine grew more potatoes than any other state in the nation. Aroostook County soil is ideally suited for raising spuds with grain and other ground cover crops put into the growing rotation. Be kind to your soil and the production yield increases while the soil lost to erosion is kept to a minimum.
Preparing The Farm Field Soil To Plant The Potatoes, Whatever Other Seed Or Transplant Needs To Be Place Carefully Into The Dirt Hill Rows.
What kind of Maine potatoes are find the eye, cut into seed to put back into the ground for another crop has changed with the appetite shift of the consumer.
Our family table enjoyed home grown farm raised baked potatoes on many nights to go with the meatloaf, pork chops, steak or baked chicken, whatever was on today’s meal time menu. Baked potatoes, a sliced open hot and steamy Burbank Russet scooped out to add a pad of melting butter to what you mash with your fork hard to beat. But think about all the other ways to enjoy your Maine potato.
The shift from table stock potatoes into specialty brands was the only source of agricultural viability available.
My Dad was president of the Maine Potato Council and we heard lots of table time discussions about the need to get away from monoculture farming. When you put your er… all your eggs in one big potato basket, it’s like betting the farm on only one lucky horse to win, place, show in the farming trifecta.
Today about a quarter of the Maine potatoes raised ear marked for seed use for the eastern seaboard growers.
A little under half of what’s left get sliced, diced and readied to hop in the fryolator or to ride on the large flat tin pan slide into the oven to bake and come out when the bell or buzzer announces “DINNNERRRrrrrrr” time boys and girls.
Wash your hands, Jimmy pour the milk or water please and thank you. Let’s count our blessings. Give praise to for the cook that prepared this wonderful farm to table spread. Susan, it was your turn to set the table tonight. So Jimmy and Rod can wash and stack the dishes. While the younger ones help clear the table.
The appetite is always good and the food never disappoints when you are hungry. When you earned that hunger. The Maine fresh air, wind, sun and rain or snow all help give a person valuable perspective. A constant appreciation for what’s really important in life. We keep the needs small, the list short living on a family farm in Maine.
Let’s check in with a Northern Maine potato farming video.
Nearly a quarter of the spuds raised in Maine are headed the end of their life in dark, protective potato chip bags.
That leaves only about ten percent of the Maine potatoes grown and harvested for use as fresh use in homes, served up in restaurants, for other raw product purposes. Value added, already peeled and prepared, mostly cooked and just needing a rip open the box, pull it out of the refrigerator or freezer. For the finish warming it up in the oven or quick like a bunny pop into the microwave meal time ritual. Fast food for busy lives has over taken the more satisfying slow cooked, take your time and unwind after a hectic but productive day.
Early Mornings. Already Worked 40 Or More Hours By Tuesday Noon. That’s Maine Potato Farming. Never Stops. Runs Around The Clock On Family Farms.
The COVID19 pandemic has shaken the meal time razzle dazzle.
More people rediscovering the joy of home cooked meals that are creative, revisited from old family recipe traditions. Do you have copies of relatives known for their potato or other kinds of dishes? You know the killer recipes that everyone in the family wants them to whip up and bring to family reunions, the end of life after the funeral celebration of life exercise.
Farming Maine potatoes, anything involving crops or agriculture with live animals is a big gamble.
Maine potato farming. The weather is your biggest unknown to do your best to prepare for all that can go wrong. The markets can open or dry up with the same 180 degree reversal. Potatoes are not like dry beans that you can hold onto and peddle the next year. Like strawberries, blueberries unless frozen, go bad like cut flowers that dry out and fade away in the table top vase.
Old Farm Tractors. The Tried And Tested But Without All The High Tech Gadgets. These Are My Favorites. All The Tractors Hooked To Different Farm Attachments.
Boiled, scalloped, twice bake potatoes just a couple meal time variations to keep it anything but same old baked potato.
Each variety shines in new ways for however you approach meal time with the star attraction the Maine potato. Chowders, crock pots and shepherd pies can be in the eenie meenie miney moe along with whipped, the mix with cabbage, the rest of the New England boiled dinner creation. Corn chowder is about as simple but tasty meal time entree to consider and your potato cubes swimming around it the stove top pot just do the heavy lifting in the medley marination of flavors. More Maine potato recipe ideas. https://www.mainepotatoes.com/recipes/
With folks rediscovering the comfort of home during the COVID19 adjustment to control the spread and protect your family and community, cooking from scratch is gaining popularity.
Extra time freed up not running the roads and staying in your castle more makes slow cooked dishes even tastier. Working on the catch up with all the projects around the house as you drain the job jar, a person in Maine gets hungry. Savoring life often starts with slowing it down. The nose in the flowers to sample the scent and look around to see what the rest of the World is up to these days. You have lots of time to think on the back of a Maine farm field potato harvester.
Rock In The Conveyor Belt Tread Jammed Again. Where’s The Crow Bar? Trying Not To Waste Sunshine During Breakdowns.
Any true Mainer prepares and rises to the occasion whenever setbacks knock appear on your door step and you hear the knock on your door.
Maybe it’s the ever changing weather extremes or how we are raised to prepare for and expect setbacks. To not just get through them but to make them define you by actions to help out anyway you can in your small rural Maine town. Life on a farm raising potatoes, critters, other crops gives everyone valuable training for life.
The Maine potato growing up on a farm that raised them for generations is a solid staple, something comfortable for folks where I live.
The potato picking experience and worth ethic brand it leaves deep inside any one that worked in the fields or on the truck or in the spud storage house is priceless. That education and appreciation for Mother Earth and being on the potato farming chain gang with others wearing field dirt clothing over sun burnt and wind reddened skin exposure get it.
Start Them Young, Train Them Well. Potato Farm Harvest Or All The Other Seasons Are Special Times.
Pass the Maine potato please.
Yes, I do believe I will have another spud scoop helping or two. It’s awfully lonely sitting all by itself without that green bean casserole to keep it company. Pass that big bowl of cabbage and banana salad too could you Bub? Everything served country style where take what you need and come back for more until your hunger is gone from work on the Maine potato farm.
Looking out over the hillside landscape standing, bent over a potato basket or filling one by dragging it down on your knees.
The good Earth and it’s bounty creates a lasting appreciation for the simple agricultural way of life on a farm in Maine. Raw, windy, but the kids keep pushing along to help the farmer get the crop out of the ground by hand. Watch a potato picking field operation video underway in Sherman Maine.
Looking for a song to help the one potato, two or more put them in the basket then dump four of those into the empty barrel? To slide a ticket in the stave groove on the top to claim it with your number. Maine potato humming song for just that outdoor labor exercise.
Watch, listen the Tater Raisin’ Man video song.
Potatoes, lots of spuds, ate more than my fair share raised on a Maine farm growing up and over the years since childhood. How do you like your potato served up best and which varieties are what you ask for at the Piggly Wiggly or farm stand?
