MeInMaine Blog

Category: Uncategorized

  • Ever Hear A Kid Whine There’s Nothing To Do? Not A Maine Kid.

    Spring Means Little Leaguers, Like The MOOERS REALTY Team Is Training, Dreaming, Learning.
    Spring Means Little Leaguers, Like The MOOERS REALTY Team Is Training, Dreaming, Learning.

    Boredom, not having fun, there’s nothing to do is not a condition Maine kids have for long.

    Growing up if I had ever been bored, looking for something or anything to do, and my parents heard it…well on a farm, there is ALWAYS something to do. Time to do this, this or this.

    Being idle and knowing how to relax is something folks that are “vacation” oriented are good at. Happy doing not much and leaning back, recharging, catching their wind. Smelling the flowers so to speak. Vocation oriented people, like most Mainers are, industrious and working harder for less but content, making ends meet. Keeping it simple. But relaxing does not come until the chores are done.

    If you can teach a child how to be self sufficient, to not expect a hand out or free lunch, that is a major ingredient toward a happier life as an adult.

    In Maine it’s if you want something, anything, work for it.

    Concentrate, dream, work toward that goal is pretty simple. We learn it early, never deviate or get off that parh that is black and white, not hard to swallow when it’s been that way all your life. And your parents practice what they preach so to speak.

    When the country is in turmoil over having to cut back on material things, having to have more and more “stuff” to be happy, Mainers watching that on television, reading about it in the news, on line in blogs, stratch their heads in disbelief. The happiness from hearing a cash register bell ring, carrying cargo you don’t really need to the mini-van from the mall is a habit less money just does not afford. And the ideal of whipping out plastic to make the purchases happen, one card after another during a drunken tour of store after store is ludicrous, foreign, unnecessary. During that spending spree and then realizing bills are coming with a high interest in 30 days…well it takes the fun out of shopping. Spending money you don’t have, paying the price with interest to get the creditors off your back is not how we roll, our idea of fun.

    Making your life simpler and reducing what you spend, being careful with your purchases is how any Mainer was raised. From the time a child was ‘knee high to a grasshopper”, he or she saw parents working long hours for what they had. Taught to take care of what was bought. Shopping long, far and wide before letting go of any hard earned money. And our “fun” growing up, as adults was getting out in to the outdoors of Maine. Our “backyards” bordered wilderness unspoiled by man. Crystal clean Maine lakes, streams, rivers to be next to. Hiking places like Cadillac, Katahdin and using our many state parks like Baxter, Acadia. And never really thinking about how “spoiled” we were because of where we were. Picnics, little league games, bean suppers, working on local school, community events. Trips to the Maine ocean for fresh native lobsters, steamed class, a piece of blueberry pie. Making our own home made low budget, high value “fun” sparks creativity. Makes local populations feel more involved in their Maine communities. Because they are.

    Maine. Hear a whisper, calling your name? That ringing in your ears is not a medical condition. It’s the need to get to Maine as often as you can. To get back to simple living, outdoor beauty, friendlier but way way fewer people. I can hook you up with someone I know that sells Maine real estate. (Smiling). No crime, no pollution, no taser, keys left in the car. Low cost Maine real estate with far less zero places. I am glad grew up here and had the chance to raise four super kids in Maine.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

    207.532.6573

    info@mooersrealty.com

  • Busy As A Bee… In Maine.

    Bees Just Want To Be Left Alone To Do Their Job, Honey Collection, Pollenation.
    Bees Just Want To Be Left Alone To Do Their Job, Honey Collection, Pollenation.

    The pollen spreaders, the busy bees that pollenate the Maine blueberries, apple trees and sample potato plants, gardens.

    Mother Earth News honeybee story spells out the problems, the situation.
    Growing up on a Maine potato farm, we saw lots of bees. The honey bee variety and the wooly, fuzzy bumble bee models. Mom would always says, you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. That they don’t want to sting you as it kills them in the process of the barbed stinger coming out (Ralph Nader..poor design flaw alert bell going off, sirens, whirling blue / red lights) Here is a CBS “Where Have All The Honey Bees Gone” Story. Maine..it’s waiting for your arrival. Maine, you can relax here, dream with your eyes open.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

    207.532.6573

    info@mooersrealty.com

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  • Your 200 Mile Per Hour Life, Take The Next Exit, It’s Maine.

    Making Our Own Fun In Maine Is a Local Volunteer Operation..Like ME Soap Box Derby Car Racing.
    Making Our Own Fun In Maine Is a Local Volunteer Operation..Like ME Soap Box Derby Car Racing.

    Living in Maine, when you move here full time or have a second home for part time enjoyment of “Vacationland”, your whole outlook changes to a simpler platform.

    For starters, moving to Maine is not to make giant salaries, to wine and dine and to impress anyone. Maine is for folks that don’t want to bother anyone, or to be bothered by a sea of people. Northern Maine, Aroostook County is 11 people per square mile. That is elbow room. Means we don’t lock doors, don’t have to take the keys out of the vehicle, the car or truck in the door yard.

    When you are in Maine, your fun is not tied to how much you spend on it. It does not propotionately translate in to how memorable the event, the entertainment is. Pick any of the four seasons in Maine. And the fun is being outdoors, seeing wildlife up close and personal, being on a Maine lake, river, something water related. The experience is a fire, cooking on it, with the back drop unspoiled Maine. Or your free time is spent hiking a hill, trail, mountain and just being humbled by the vastness of Maine.

    Hate to say it but man here has not messed the place up. Maine is less people and the ones we have respect the place, give the real estate, property to their kids in as good or better shape then they got it.

    Good stewardship and not a scorch earth policy of eat, drink and be merry. Easy, down to earth, lower key.

    This pace could drive someone from an urban area nuts. Not stuck in traffic, not overwhelmed with noise. The smells of a city replaced with pine trees, the roar of horns, engines racing, people hollering sounds with lake loons singing. Sometimes all you hear is quiet. Maybe a cricket, the breeze in the leaves..a slight rustle but nothing highway related, man created.

    Maine, it’s an adjustment but you start living again in a way you had forgotten existed. Simple. Getting back to basics of what is important. What you need in your day to day, what has been missing you had gotten away from. Healthy, not heavily mortgaged or loaned on at all. Free and clear. Owned outright. No worries. Maine, get the smile you had back on your face and relax. Get back to the land, become more self sufficient, happier within yourself here in Maine.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

    207.532.6573

    info@mooersrealty.com

  • Alcohol Consumption Growing Up On A Maine Farm…Wasn’t Really There.

    Where Author Of MeInMaine Blog Andrew Mooers Grew Up In Houlton Maine.
    Where Author Of MeInMaine Blog Andrew Mooers Grew Up In Houlton Maine.

    As a kid helping out, growing up on a Maine farm, alcohol was not preached as evil. Wasn’t prevalent or part of the childhood.

    Maybe it was because my Dad’s brother, Uncle Bud was a professional alcoholic. Had eight wonderful kids, but only stopped drinking when he stopped breathing, was dead.

    Maybe that is why I do not remember much involving alcohol in Maine on the farm. This is the highlight of what I can recall. On a blistering hot summer day, when it came around to 5 oclock quitting time, my dad might hop in the pickup. Head to Paul Drew’s store on Smyrna Street to pick up 2 16 oz Narragansett bottles of beer. “Nasty Gansett’s” another name for this flavor, octane of beer in Maine. And the kind that had a game in the bottle caps, a brain teaser to figure out as they were opened, put down the hatch I suppose.

    Dad would sit under a lilac with mom, enjoying the sunset, savoring a hard day of work but great sense of accomplishment. Slowly drinking, savoring that one lone beer as the motivating carrot for the day, the reward for all that hard work.

    It’s mate, the other beer twin staying in the refrigerator for months or longer. Beer was not evil, twisted, the ruination of all…just was not present, utilized. Missing from my childhood.

    And once a year, Everett Curry, long gone like both my parents would drop in to the farm around Christmas, the holiday season. Dad would reach under a kitchen cabinet for a little sweetener with that egg nog or ginger ale.

    Gurgle a splash of whiskey in his and the company’s drink. One drink sipped while conversing with the annual visitor.

    No seconds, hollering, brawls, fights, commotion to spoil the Christmas season.

    And that whiskey bottle like the Narragansett in our household lasted a long, long time. Add with a glass of wine once in a while, very very infrequently with Sunday dinner. That’s the small, thin family album of snapshots of alcohol appearances growing up. That’s it. The short list of images of any alcoholic beverage, or use of it in the Maine farm household I grew up in.

    I also as I type, tap, hunt and peck vaguely recall, remember dad saying an Aunt Beatrice was a smart business woman, a peach of a lady who loved kids. But he and mom rented from here on Watson Avenue in Houlton in the early years of their marriage. And when Aunt Bea got a snootful of rum or whatever her spirit of choice was for the “recipe”, she would threaten eviction if my dad did not trot to the liquor store and bring her back a new “jug”. Aunt Bea was to be avoided when she was hoisting multiple glasses of ice and liquor, drinking it seems.

    Oh sure, I think in their 20’s mom and dad would attend and have parties with more than soda, coffee, tea in that glass folks were holding, sampling, refreshing.

    Let their hair down so to speak. Maybe my older brothers have more of a recollection to add to the little I just provided on the subject here in the blog post. But whatever it was, the alcohol usage seemed to run its course. And then they settled down to work on the farm, raising four boys.

    There was not much of a place for the alcohol in the operation of farm life as I knew it on the County Road. Too much to do and sitting still for long knowing the farming operation was not whispering, but hollering your name to do this, this and this. Before those black clouds over head opened up and made that task completion a “wash out” for the day. Or cost a crop being planted, cultivated, hoed, sprayed or harvested if you did not tend to chores, business. That’s survival, not just living day to day and staying on a Maine farm.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers
    207.532.6573
    Email info@mooersrealty.com

  • You Run In To A Northern Maine Post Office, Car Left Running, Unlocked And Knowing It’ll Be In The Same Place When You Come Back Out.

    Maine, Proud Of Our Heritage, Aware Of The World Around Us, With Farming Roots, Respect For Outdoors, Weather, Nature, Our Surroundings.
    Maine, Proud Of Our Heritage, Aware Of The World Around Us, With Farming Roots, Respect For Outdoors, Weather, Nature, Our Surroundings.

    Life In Northern Maine means there are many things day to day we just don’t worry about..like stolen cars.

    Or crime for that matter with Maine the fourth lowest state for the events that happen daily. That you notice on out of state television in a motel room while waiting for someone in the bathroom showering. And the nightly news reports none stop, horendous reports of drive by shootings, kidnaps, rapes, arsons, gang violence, drug busts.

    Because we have a lower population, the terrain is unspoiled by man. The lakes are clean, wooded sections just inhabitated by wildlife. And you can leave your keys in a car, or leave it running while zipping in to the post office, in and out of a local store in the winter. No one is going to take it. Anyone looking to steal a car is not going to drive this far north to do it.

    And if you are looking for something exotic like a Porsche, a 1967 Shelby GT Mustang…well, there are more of those in areas that are crowded to the south. Thieves are lazy, look for the low hanging, easy fruit by human nature right?

    And in small Maine towns, if I see someone messing with your car, pickup, house, camp or cabin that looks suspicious, acts nervous, I get involved. Take a plate number, ask some questions and know my neighbor would do the same thing for me in return. That’s the way we roll when you live in Maine. Work hard for everything you have. Teaching your kids to respect other people’s property. To take care of their own too. We go to camp, spend time in the words, to figure out life, without the noise, distractions. Keeping it basic. As Anthony Bourdain learns, finds out about Maine when his Milo ME native camera man Zach Zamboni coaxes his boss, the traveling food critic in to the family wilderness hidden Maine lake retreat. What is the differences in a big state like Maine in what each area offers?

    You’ll like the lakes, loons, sunsets, and less people aspect of Northern Maine, rural parts of the state. But you will equally like what we don’t have. Little crime, no traffic, no pollution and you can see the star filled sky at night. And daily overhead cobalt blue skies are a change from a population center like a city with smog, noise, too much activity. Maine, it’s way way different here. This video explains the differences a state this big offers..or at least the locals perspective on what it is like based on where they live in Maine.

    Kids raised in Maine families can walk to the local movie theatre, to public skating, little league practice, home from school and nothing dangerous, awful happens to them. It is not like that everywhere in the country. Less people is one reason for little crime. And the people here get involved if they see something amiss, out of place. The entire “village” raises those kids, looks out for them, helps shape them. There is a connection here that big impersonal city living can not come close to, if at all. Volunteering and working on local Maine projects give the local residents part of that closeness, a pride that is powerful. More involvement and a home grown aspect develops, cements, mortars small rural Maine communities. That is the local flavor of a Maine small town loaded with tradition, family values, work ethic and desire to respect other peoples property, feelings, lifestyle.
    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

    207.532.6573

    info@mooersrealty.com