Category: Uncategorized

Slow Money Maine, Focused On Local Sustainable Food Systems.

Anything in a Maine community or one of the sixteen county regions is stronger with grass roots collaboration.

Locally sourced Maine farm or fisheries produced quality food hands down strengthens the economy. Creating a diverse income stream to support all the other livelihoods needed to make the burg or village. To fund the intrastructure. To create wealth, keeping the dollars in the small Maine communities turning over, flowing strongly.
Slow Money Maine Meeting In Gardiner ME Held At The Episcopal Church.

From highly creative, tightly run micro, close to home Maine food enterprises.

Maine farming that entices our young to stay in Maine. Not cross the big green bridge on the southern end. To do more than carve out a meager living. To enhance the uniqueness of the small Maine community in other ways. And assure there is always that small Maine town on the map. Not a last guy or gal out, remember to turn out the lights situation.

There is a shift from just you are what you eat, to how, where it is produced agriculture wildfire going on in Maine.

A storm of not just about sitting down to eat. But “feeding” yourself with all the other experiences your body, family, community needs in this short lifetime on this blue and green marble. Pitching in to create home grown not store bought to dine on in Maine. That like hunger improves the taste because your farm neighbor grew it, your fisherman raised it.
Bringing The Investor, The Maine Micro Agriculture Producers, Co Op Vendors Together, Slow Money Of Maine Organization Meeting.

The small Maine town is not just a collection of houses, a selection of government buildings and downtown commercial outlets. It is the people. Each bringing talents in their skill set to create the buzz. To differentiate the small Maine community, to make it truly all it can be.

It is not just about for you quality food you toss down the gullet either.

Not fast cheap who knows where it comes from food, but slowly raised and cooked healthy local Maine food. Way more than just setting the table with healthy fuel to keep you and the family going too. It is an attitude, a philosophy, an approach to everything you do and teach your kids in Maine life.

I traveled to Gardiner Maine yesterday to hear several speakers showcase their local food operations.

To highlight where a little help in financing. Could take it to the next step in expansion to extend the market.

Slow Money Maine is one of the Maine partners that gets the discussion started, keeps it going. Breaking down barriers. By bringing investors behind the desk to make the connection with the small farm or fisheries producer out in the field or sea.
MOFGA Representatives Mingle, Network With The Micro Producers, Co Op Vendors At Slow Money Maine Meeting.

The dialogue created by this group’s tie in with MOFGA, a slew of foundations pushing, promoting the same thing.

To find ways to compete with the big cheap food policy of the nation.

From bread baskets out west. Out of the country too. Where the national focus has been a cheap food policy. Less concern for the healthy quality of the food. Just make sure there is lots of it.

For years small local farming trumped, squashed by the almighty dollar bottom line. Everything about just in time inventory, volume sales like other industry business models.

Food from outside Maine’s collection of mostly small towns with shrinking populations. With fewer farms until the resurgence of local growing to feed the populace.

Eight out of ten people live in an urban area. Not by choice, but for survival.

Have A Maine Maine Oysters…Their Reputation Is Catching On!

But you have to do more than eat.

Feeding the mind, spirit, and in the process of putting the best locally sourced Maine food on the family table working together. That leads to everyone in the small Maine community to step up.

To know if it is to be, it is up to you and me.

You and I are the “they” in the Maine community. Don’t bitch or complain, wait for someone else to do it. What is needed to enhance. Expand the unique flavor of our many Maine small towns, the handful of cities.

Yesterday in the Episcopal church in Gardiner my partner and I heard presentations from the Brunswick Food Shed. A group converting slow but sure a set of derelict train storage sheds, to develop the old right of way track pathways to create a food hub and more. And from None Such Oysters talk about their coastal 6.5 acres operation. That enterprises tourist/fisheries production tale and needs.
Peakes Island Micro Farm Producers, Lana and Sara Cannon Talk About Their Micro Maine Enterprise.

Also a set of sisters, Noon Family Sheep Farm, creating Peakes Island farming off Portland Maine on a small scale. Growing slowly. Same themes. Almost below radar compared to what you and I think of traditional farming. All the mountains of overhead debt, giant equipment payments, etc that come with the typical agriculture operation.

But the pair now supplying a school kitchen and growing by inches not yards or acres. I was there at the Slow Money of Maine meeting to help out with a pair of presentations from Aroostook County. From both ends of “The County” the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. Up here in the “Crown Of Maine”.

First the County Co Op in Houlton Maine. Check out their Facebook page. Along with co-presenters, located two hours further north Market Street in Fort Kent Maine.

Keep it simple. Let’s grow it here in Maine and feed ourselves.

And attract tourists to sample the delicacies of carefully grown, all healthy food. To create sustainable agriculture systems for right here in Maine. The space I call all natural, unfiltered, always pure. The place to unplug, recharge. Where if we all roll up the sleeves, pick ourselves up by the bootstraps in a shifting economy great things happen. The awareness shift back to local food happens. Leads to other home grown endeavors. All started by the back to the land thinking about everything.
Presentations By County Co Op Of Houlton, Market Street Co Op In Fort Kent Maine At Slow Money Of ME Gardiner Meeting.

We can create more locally sourced farm to table Maine food.

Making us depend less on outside Maine forces that cripple. Siphoning the money in a state not flush with it which weakens. The farmer’s markets, pop up tent outlets, food co ops, acoustic soup, Taste Of Winter suppers all helps out the famous Maine tourist industry too.

It is way more than just creating health food systems from wholesome organic food in Maine. But making healthy communities in the Pine Tree State that starts creating the richness. The real wealth locally out in the local not out of state farm fields.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

March 20, 2015
I Was Raised On A Potato Farm In Maine.

I can remember moving from in town Franklin Avenue to the country and a Maine farm setting when three years old.

That is not my earliest memory. Another in the video slide show as a little shaver was clear as a bell too. Coming down the stairs of the home in town as the sun rises. Sliding in sideways. Riding on long late summer bright hot beams from the east facing windows.
Home Made, Real, All Natural. That’s Maine.

Wearing the one piece PJ’s with the front long zipper, the built in, attached slippers. Everyone was still asleep in the roost. It was an early Sunday morning. As I played I spy with my little brown eyes.

On the living room coffee table I saw a big glass bowl of potato chips. Parked on the rim with a metal holder perched a smaller glass condiment bowl. With a little french onion dip left in the bottom. Not all destroyed. I dipped a chip.

My parents had had some party, social gathering after I was tucked away on Saturday night.

To get ready for the Sandman’s visit, the sleepy seed planting.

But back to the other mental video loop in the head. Of the ride, the move from the first home to the country one. A neat Maine farm. An early 1950’s International pickup, dark green with the house cat, a total black one answering to the name Satan on board.

Held in Mom’s lap along with me. That got a little squirrelly. Darting out of her reach, squeezing out of her hold of only one arm. While the other held me in place. The not so social Tom cat was nervous, not a traveller. Hid in the floor under the pick up’s heater vent. I was not worried. I trusted my parents to keep me from harm’s way. They always made it better when things got dark or unknown entered the room.

Rounding the last turn on US Rt 2, The County Road outside Houlton Maine in Aroostook County the white set of farm buildings came into view.

And me glancing back at the oval glass window of the pickup truck. Taking in the sea of floor lamps, living room and bedroom furniture on the back stacked just so. For the short 1.5 mile jaunt to move the household belongings. From A to B. And help my Aunt Hettie on the return trip loaded with her things in the swap places.
Collect Sunsets On Maine Lakes. Start Your Collection.

Why move to a Maine farm, to embrace country living?

Best move my parents ever made. My three older brothers and I turned out happy, grateful, positive spirited due to it. We were not lazy, could not be. Everyone works hard on a Maine farm, any agricultural enterprise on the planet. Happy, grateful, industrious. Simple living in Maine not like other places.

Because if you are stuck in a city, you know all too well about the high cost, no space of urban living. The price of crime, lack of trust your neighbor, high insurance and property taxes. If you can afford the sticks and bricks. That sit on zero lot lines, with dead bolts, window bars. No back, side, front lawns. But only a couple strips of what a lawnmower could crew cut in fifteen minutes tops.

The all the way around the expensive home sweet home.

Or apartment, cooperative unit in a high rise with no lawn. No garden, garage, back yard to play, unwind, kick back and relax. 10 reasons kids should spend time on a farm.

Lots of folks enjoy the out of Maine home, area they started out in. Until the population explodes. And the “where the frig did all these people come from” occurs. How do you turn off the tap, or kink the hose?

Feeling like when you’re lost in thee woods.

. Stumbling around in the dark. And you don’t know you are lost at first. It takes a while for that reality to sink in. And years go by, but the lost feeling grows. Becomes the unhealthy normal. And you fool yourself into believing everything will return to the small town friendly fuzzy that it was. (Loud buzzer sound) Wrong.

Run away. How about a Maine farm, something on the water, an in town Victorian in a small Maine town? To own a mom and pop grocery, small business to put your family to work? Want to?
See What You Are Missing In Maine? Sample ME.

Are you bewildered, feeling like you have lost your way along the life path you thought you were on?

Wishing the good old days, where you were being raised would return? Consider Maine. And realize maybe you are a tad battle weary, shell shocked, depressed. And like being disoriented out in the woods, you don’t even know which direction the sun shows up, goes to bed anymore. Have a seat.

“The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud — the obstacles of life and its suffering. … The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. …

Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one.”
― Goldie Hawn

But space helps, less people too make the ones around you more special. The connection strong and the urge to pitch in, be a regular volunteer in a small Maine town. People grieve together in small Maine towns. They celebrate together and everything is richer, stronger.
Maine Is Music. The Outdoor Loon On A Lake Kind. The Small Community Band Flavor.

Hunger improves the taste.

Everything earned, waited for, not a hand out and quick or easy. But the best things in life are appreciated more right?

The Pine Tree State, want a patch of dirt to raise good wholesome organic farmed Maine food. That you know where it all came from, how it was raised. That you peddle at a local Maine farmers market to generate some cash.

To heat with wood from your own back forty acres.

Not have to pay dearly for it from some mostly sand, far away country.

Bartering for goods and services. Fixing most of the vehicles, equipment in your yard, the buildings on your Maine land yourself. Slow but sure and feeling more empowered, self satisfied. In control of your destiny.

Which comes first, happiness or gratitude? Simple living, feeling normal, in balance, in synch with your surroundings in all natural Maine. Looking for some of that?

Create it on your own Maine farm. Not pushing and shoving to get around or away from the wall to wall, not so happy people. That become that way when life is moving too fast, costing too much in all ways. And the littlest pleasures are missed. That usually happen outdoors, any of the four seasons on Maine farm land you own, tend, improve, pass on.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

March 18, 2015
Community Theatre In Maine, Home Grown Small Town Entertainment.

The end of the month a small Northern Maine community theatre group I am part of travels to see another Penobscot Theatre stage presentation.

Visit the Penobscot Theatre website and learn more about their mission statement.

“To produce high-quality, professional works of theatre that inspire the imagination and cultivate a lifelong passion for the art form.”
Everything Changes In A Blink Of The Eye. Like The Seasons. The Two Masks At Theatre Productions. Small Maine Towns Pull Together To Get Through The Good, Sad Times.

Community theatre in Maine is alive and well.

There is nothing like seeing familiar faces you know in the audience, on stage. The set staging, lighting, sound and costume crew revealed from behind the velvet curtain.

Holding hands, coming out for bows and curtain calls at the finish of a theatre production in Maine. All that hard work spotlighted, choreographed, presented on the big open stage down front. Sample a simple Maine community play production.

More at what is going on at this link. The appreciation for fine arts, the side trips to larger theatre venues with package city weekend trips to take in a couple plays enriches life. Helps pass the time during a Maine winter too.

Here is a calendar of theatre in Maine events. Learn more about Maine Community Theatre.

In high school was lucky to be part of a one act play competition where we ended up winning the Maine top spot, going on to Rhode Island. For New England competition at the University of Rhode Island in Cranston.

Host homes took in the players and another school from Leominster Massachusetts performed the same play, Interview. But from a completely different approach which is the fun of play production competitions. The interpretation not similar at all but refreshing and memorable to enrich the experience for performers and audience alike.
Maine, A Fun Place Inside And Out.

Our play director, Virginia Osgood from Easton Maine was outstanding.

Small in stature, fiery, dogged. She poured so much passion into our preparation, practices. Had a day job of teaching high school English.

In community theatre practices I attend for a play centered around life in the nursing home, a great escape, it is fun to see it all come together. Lines learned, props collected. Then the character flushed out, developed in the delivery of the script.

As meat is added to the skeleton of the black and white type.

All up to, limited only by the imagination of each of the actors, actresses.

Combined with what actions on set are performed during speaking parts. The times when reacting to others on stage is part of the performance too. When you are in a developing character fed by the audience’s reaction good or bad.

Do they have community theatre where you live?

Have you participated in a play production before and why not now in your life? Children’s theatre in Maine is active and available too.

Get involved, out in the audience to take in a play production in Maine. Or to work to create one. Maybe even get a degree in theatre, play production in Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

March 15, 2015
Spring In Maine, Need Help With Your Relocation, The Move?

Spring is a time of hope, restored faith and a perfect season to relocate, move to Maine.

Are you happy where you live now? Has the thought of Maine relocation, moving to Vacationland land been bouncing around in your brain cells from time to time? Far too often?
Maine Outdoor Living, We Keep It Real, Simple, Honest.

Often all we don’t have in Maine is just as splendid as the long as your arm list of what we do.

Space is the number one concern of many because it is severely lacking where they are now. And then right after that is crime. No thank you please chimes the room. Then low cost property and hopefully something I can call home without mortgage strings attached.

Wouldn’t life be easily, more normal is debt was not dragging you down? If the cost of living was lower and you were more hands on in the way your day unfolds? In Maine you don’t find as much highly specialized in one area and short suited in the rest of the skill set.

More empowered, broad sets of talents are developed out of necessity.

Because it all ties into the spend less, get more in life living in Maine simplicity. Frugal is not cheap.
Maine Is Simple Living, Outdoors, Family Based In All We Do!

Being sure not to waste, protect, to savor and stretch a resource is just good stewardship, solid business approach to living grandly in gentile poverty. Horse trading is a reflex, second nature in Maine.

Heck they have made a reality show out of Uncle Henry’s Buy, Sell, Swap Guide remember? Check it out on the History Channel.

The eye candy of Maine, all the wildlife, the waterfront of every kind make the lub dub pick up in anyone’s heart. But there is so much more to the Pine Tree State. To learn, discover in your move, relocation to Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

March 11, 2015
Clap Your Hands, Stomp Your Feet | Happy And You Know It In Maine.

Where you live has a big bearing on how rich your life plays out.

The enjoyment, fulfillment and personal satisfaction squeezed from the way things roll in your surroundings. It is different for everyone because no one is an identical snow flake right?
Sitting Pretty, Living In Maine. Knowing, Liking, Needing Your Neighbor. Pitching In Back And Forth In The Barter.

But consider you live in a city not Maine with a stressful job.

And it takes it toll. You gobble handfuls of the RX from the child proof containers. Are on lots of anxiety medicines. Trying to find the right combination to create the cocktail that helps you cope. And it does. For awhile.

Or spending too much time listening to Piano Man. Elbows sore leaning on a bar with stale peanuts. Other pawed through salty debris in front of you. Touched by many, who knows who just returning from the bathroom. Or blowing into the joint for a shot of gas. One bourbon, one scotch, one beer as the Destroyers and George crooned along with the lead guitar chords. Bottoms up.

Or you are a woman, noticing hair loss. The four walls closing in stress creates the vise grip. Causing the shedding of Clairol #26 shade of hair. Weight loss too. Dropping to the point of the clothes are wearing the woman, not the other way around. City urban living, pressures of the job and where you hang your hat taking their toll. When you are just not in your right place under the sun grasshopper.

A prison, that’s what it feels like. Except the key thrown away at the crow bar Hotel California. Pass the bread and water please. How do I look in black and white vertical stripes or a government issue bright orange jump suit? Bust out, time for a great escape before you are an old fogey. In that nursing home rocking chair screaming for your meds, more cream style corn.

Sometimes the bright lights, big city are what is preached around the kitchen table.

Teachers, not just parents encourage the youngsters in the nest. To spread those new wings and see the sights.

Figure out what you like, what is missing. Sampling life and all the choices that must be made just so can make life purrs heavenly. Or runs ragged, pure hell. For you. Not maybe someone else. But me, myself, I.
Small Maine Farm Sustainable Agriculture. Hard Work, A Highly Rewarding Lifestyle.

Are you happy?

Have a laundry list of regrets? Can you be content, at peace and build inner joy easily? Or is something missing in your life? No matter where you live? Or just where you are now? You think?

Peel back the onion layers, see the problems needing to be out in the daylight, fresh air. Don’t just medicate the symptoms with band aid solutions. Those scabs never heal over. Keep opening up.

Explore Maine. Just imagine, consider the what if if it was here in Maine. And it all starts, ends with taking out the thrash. Lightening the load if you are an Eeyore with stinking thinking.

I remember a fellow from New Jersey that when he moved here wore a neck brace. The big padded collar reminded me of the grill on a 1959 Edsel. Or one hanging off a pair of work horses with traces, harnesses to slide cut trees to the yard for trimming, racking, stacking.

But the demeanor of the man blossomed, as he opened up where he was wilted and reserved. The collar got tossed. He was in his right place but had been treading water much of his life being in the wrong end of the pool. He told me when he had to go back to New Jersey, he felt his body, mind tightening up.
Relax, Unplug, Recharge In Maine. There Is No Bad Time To Vacation, Visit ME.

Bob felt his former life and the pace of it was toxic for his body.

He would just forget how much. Right up until he had to make the trip south for a family wedding, funeral. Something that could not be put off and avoided.

Like visits to elderly parents where everyone in the room knows the days are numbered. Enjoy them while they are on Earth, not below it.

Self medication to cope, just get by comes in many forms.

Hitting the sauce, too many trips to the medicine cabinet or opening the three door refrigerator. Or retail therapy to peacock proud all the stuff you had collected. Temporary fixes but long term solutions can mean time to move, relocate to Maine. Small, rural, friendly and crime free compared to other places with crowded conditions and high price living attached to it.

Explore the World, travel and work where your heart’s desires lead you. But doubling back, come to Maine for a day. End up staying for a life time happens a lot in Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

March 8, 2015
Tiny Homes In Maine, How Small Is Strait-Jacket Living?

Could you live comfortably in 300 square feet or even less in your Maine home?

Here are some plans, designs for tiny homes, houses. Less space for living could mean easier to heat, clean, maintained.

But cabin fever is a dangerous condition. Even with a cribbage board, deck of cards. Although most Mainers spend most of their waking hours outside. Enjoying the four season Maine recreation. Or working the dirt on a farm. Logging a forest or guiding groups, the good sports who vacation in Maine somehow.

Looking at old smasher Victorian Maine homes. You see butler’s pantries, summer kitchens, glass. Lots of open porches, rear stairways and attached rambling sheds.

Your home is your castle and often three generations were housed under one roof. Large families happened to parents for some reason.

No cable TV or malls, movies, texting distractions part of increased stork deliveries?

People not home much and running the roads is what happens today with overbooked family living. With the 1.6 kid sized ones of today.

Watch one video of a Maine tiny home.

I ran into one man from Boston MA who bought in our area of Maine.

But indicated for over a year he lived in his car in the Bay State. And described what life was like with four doors, leather seats in a Cadillac. Not a Yugo, Mini Cooper or VW bug. Where leg room to stretch out and relax after a hard day in the neighborhood was wraps up.

And night falls, rolled over with the sparkle of stars obscured by light. The smog pollution of city living. The fun and games. To be a minimalists in housing and highly efficient in your living space.

Mother Earth News weighs in on tiny houses in Maine.

Maybe you want to roam, travel with your tiny home?

And you thought your 5-3-1 Maine shoe box ranch with just hovering over 1000 square feet of living space was confining, stifling.

The walls, roof and floor all heading inward like a Hitchcock black and white movie nightmare. And rolled up your sleeves. Finished the basement for a rec room, to tap into more space to enjoy under that family roof of growing kiddos. Or robbed a bay of the double garage to create a den, a man cave.

Instead of rooms, areas. And the best room of the house is outside the tiny home. Outdoor living happens more when inside is not the focus like a McMansion.

Where the eight baths in a four bedroom home, the spa, glass covered pool, exercise and media rooms top the gotta have list of how to live. Over the top, opulent and palatial please with that Gray Poupon works best when luxury living is the only kind to wine and dine on. With tiny homes, the focus is outside living. The all you need living space inside efficiency frees you up for that approach to life. Making it a basic, practical, functional just barely enough home for you please and thank you very much.

Okay, not a fan of a tiny house, mini home? How do you feel about yurts? (Smile)

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

March 2, 2015