Fall harvest, picking potatoes, packing a lunch, heading to the fields early in the morning in Northern Maine.
Picking potatoes was every kid’s entry level job. The one where the kid buys his own winter jacket. Takes better care of it because he does.
Maine potato harvest means getting up in the dark. Listening to the local radio station to see if Farmer Bass, Smith, Fitzpatrick, Winship is picking today. When the harvester crew is suppose to show up ar Corey Farms. Studying the weather forecast. Putting on long underwear because you can see your breath as the sun rises. But by early afternoon, you’ll be peeled down to a t-shirt.
A Maine potato digger squealing by. Heck watch the video, head to the field.
Listen as the big brother calls his little brother, reminding him, inviting him to help him pick.
Maine, work ethic learned early on. During cool, breezy fall harvest of golden potatoes. Or raking blueberries, digging for Maine clams. The kids are better for it. The local farmers need their help too. Win, win situation.
Size in a Maine home matters when you have a growing family, a quivver of kids or gram, gramp living under the same house roof.
But when the children grow up, move out of the nest and you are not excited about heating, maintainting, paying insurance and Maine property taxes on a big massive multi story place, small is better. All you need.
Land in Maine is low cost, affordable and there are lots of smaller footprint, floorplan building plans to consider. A Mother Earth News home building article I read today outlines the benefits and considerations. Cathedral ceilings add sense of more space without a lot of added cost of Maine home construction.
More and more folks leaving the city, concrete urban jungles of crime, traffic, high cost of living are considering a Maine relocation, retirement, move. Maine is wonderful clean four season living.
With 6000 lakes, thousands of acres of unspoiled woods to roam, coastline to explore, trails to hike, snowsled, bike or atv. And all that Maine wildlife.
But you will love the long laundry list of what Maine does NOT have. Like 4th lowest crime, no traffic, very cheap low cost Maine real estate. Friendly but way way fewer in number people that care about you, their families, jobs, communities.
We’re Under Attack, Retreat, More Pre Made Snowballs Over Here Stat.
There is nothing like seeing kids in Maine outdoors, not planted in front of a television screen, video game.
Using their imagination, filling their lungs with fresh air. Being neighborly, social. Here is a picture of a backyard winter scene behind my Houlton Maine home.
The boy, Luke was a neighbor who enjoyed our tree, first Maine snow, my older four kids.
Wonder what he is thinking? You can learn a lot from a kid. One of the biggest lessons is the importance of having fun, playing. And how it is done in case you forgot in the transition to being adult, off at work, building a career, making mortgage payments.
The International Super M Farmall Tractor Keeps The Maine Farm Groomed, Worked, Up To Snuff.
Less oomph, barely able to get out of her own way and knowing something was wrong.
She was born in 1953. Most of her years spent working hard on the same Maine potato farm. Laboring, straining out in the fields, no matter what the weather, any season. Dependable, not asking for much. Giving her all. No whining, complaining. Until now.
The Super M tractor pulling the bush hog on a Maine farm was operating mostly on three cylinders. Power loss. The noticable pop in the air breather signalling something inside the engine, the valves were not working like when she was shiny new. When she first arrive at the farm in “Vacationland” from out west on a flat bed railroad car destined for Houlton Maine.
Motor job. Not tractor engine replacement. But an appointment with Dr Rairdon, er I mean mechanic Bob Rairdon in this business of tractor repair most of his 76 years. I remember the last motor job done by Elmer Snell who worked on the farm and who kept everything mechanical purring, whirring. He is gone now and another mechanic needs to perform the update to the engine. While internal, replacing the fly wheel ring too that caused issues during routine farm operations when the starter stuck on, draining the battery. Interferring with the planned farm operations under sunny blue skies signalling time to make hay while the weather cooperated.
New sleeves, the valve head reground, new rings, bearings and stem to stern part upgrade, replacement where wear and tear shows on an internal exam.
Some asked me why not just buy a new, bigger tractor and store, keep the old girl, the super M Farmall International iron horse hidden away in a corner of the farm.
Out of sight in the machine shed under cover, put out to pasture so to speak. Too much history, time spent on this old girl to park her. I need her to keep the farm intact, groomed and she knows her way around the lay of the land in Maine.
The International Farmall super M tractor is scheduled for surgery soon and I finished up the bush hogging with less power, a little lower gearing. But like an athelete playing hurt, sick, injured thru the playoffs, she declared she did not have time for as Carly Simon sung, “the pain”.
You Can Run, You Can No Longer Hide Or Not Being Found On Line With Droid Phones.
On the run, crossing state lines, moving and shaking to get to Maine, anywhere.
We live in a mobile society. On a recent trip to Colorado I drove out with the youngest son to deliver him and a jeep to his second year of college. And climbed on a silver bird to return home.
At the airport, no need for a lap top to log on and check emails, post, stay connected with the new droid 3 and 4 G phones. Mini computers with slide out keyboard all fitting in the palm of your hands.
You can argue life is a blur, moving too fast and we are over connected. Or you can think of it as not missing a beat, being aware of others around us way way beyond the town limits.
Our lives are transparent, 24/7 live and in living color, full fluid motion tapping in to all our senses for a total experience.
The way it is or have an itch to go back in time. To resist and keep it simple, unconnected to others many zip codes away. With a mobile society, texting, emails are a way to track, stay in touch that fits, works. I really like my new Motorola Devour cell phone. It’s a toy that works fine and dandy. Until something better comes along, that technology allows, unlocks.
Droids, new cell phones and other devices to keep you mobile, wirelesss, untethered. Are you on board, in the swing of things?
More Space, Less People, Fresh Air, Lots Of Land, Trees, Nature.My dad grew up on a Maine potato and dairy farm and had a Saint Bernard. Duke was a gentle natured dog, not anything resembling Stephen King’s Cujo movie of an animal of the same breed that gets rabies and wreaks havoc on a Maine town. Duke was big, but not usually aggressive. My dad had never seen him reprimanded for any barn yard infraction growing up. Until one day.
A German sheperd, a neighbors dog use to come in to the dooryard and tease Duke. Nipping at him but not just in a playful way.
(Disclaimer: My family had several German sheperd dogs growing up and like the breed.)
Never learned the name of this visiting dog that stirred up trouble but over time it became more and more aggressive. Duke taking it all calmly as it happened and to the point that the family, field hands wondered how much he would stand for.
One day the German sheperd a third the size of Duke had the Saint Bernard backed in to a tight corner between a barn and connecting, angled machine shed. Everything changed as if a switch was thrown. Duke reared up, practically ripped the throat out of the German Sheperd.
It took three men to seperate the dogs even though the German Sheperd was trying to get away.
I’ve thought about that story, situation and wondered how it applies to people, to areas of over population. Maine is a place of elbow room, we don’t lock doors. Folks respect each other’s property, opinions, feelings. But if we were “in a corner”, our personal space invaded day in and out, with a twist of traffic, noise, crime, and continuous hurry hurry, well, the mild mannered help you out nature would change.
In my job I hear the line over and over in emails, communications on the phone or in person with Maine real estate buyers coming home to Maine.
“I just want to get away from all those people”.
It’s not being anti-social. More of an attitude of “what now” with neighbors too close, on top of each other down country and bothering others without trying. While the relocating, retiring moving to Maine people can, they just want to be able to wake up, have a day without drama of you did this, you should not have done that. The tension when you live between a rock and a hard place day in, day out takes it toll. Made them irritable, jumpy, not their true selves. Maine, whole different way of life here.
