Tag: living in maine

Maine, Maybe That’s The Ringing You Hear In Your Head.

Bail Of Where You Live Now, Relocate To Northern Maine, And Watch Your Health, Attitude Improve.

Time to move from where you live now to Maine.

If you have a ringing in your head that is not going away, and is getting louder, maybe if you listen closely you hear the distinct word “Maine”. If you can not sleep and the high pitch humming, ringing, buzzing, headaches and depression, mood swings, testiness, increasing state of anxiety is beyond a concern, maybe where you live is the reason for it all.

Maybe nothing medically is wrong, but geographical you are experiencing urban sprawl, over development. Or just live in fear of gangs, numbed by the news of non stop stories each night about kidnapping, drive by shootings, crime on the upswing.

Maine is the 4th lowest crime state. Aroostook County where I live is half of that pretty stellar crime statistic again.

Why? Simple. Way way less people, more open space and all around elbow room. You jam rats in a small area and step back, watch how they behave. Same dynamic. Or it’s like you become a bear living with one, or two many in tight quarters. Man, the machine was not designed for cities, tight spaces, a corosive or hostile environment.

Second reason for low crime, keys left in the vehicles parked in the yards is local Mainers work hard for all they have. They are proud of, brought up to respect the value of that hard work. The items you, anyone buy with that hard earned money and sacrifice. Don’t waste resources..yours, mine, anyone’s. Period. Basic, black and white pride of ownership, the way we roll. And not wanting to have someone trash your personal property and returning the same favor of leaving something not yours alone. Or even protecting it and getting involved if something does not look quite right at your neighbor’s down the road. Get a plate number, make a call. Even go up to the property, confronting the out of state vehicle at Mr Jone’s hunting camp with 100 acres to the south of you. We ask the guy what’s up, are you a friend of Mr Jone’s and hear the story, the yarn spun. See if his breathing increases, his eyes avoid contact with our own. Decide whether a call to the Maine state police or local sheriff, police department is in order. We have the neighbor out of state on cellular speed dial and the property owner appreciates the keeping a look out for something strange, out of place at their property.

Pretty hard to beat the natural four season beauty of Maine, the sense of personal safety and that your property won’t get tampered with, anything stolen after a break in.

So back to the ringing, the just not feeling your self these days. Get pure, real relief in Maine. Less noise of traffic, industry, more sounds of nature. Wind in the pines. Birds chirping happily on a sunshine rich day. Loons singing or crying depending on your perspective or their mood at the time on a Maine lake under a brilliant, intensed dotted black velvet fabric with more stars than you ever knew were overhead. What you have been missing due to all that light and air pollution where you call home now. The place that no longer is the neat little burg you moved to twenty years or more ago. Time to move, relocate.

Maine, that’s the voice in your head, the sound being made inside. The volume increasing between your ears because you body is unhappy you are just not taking the cue to vamoos.

Ask me about low cost Maine real estate on a lake, river for full or part time recreational use. Get healthy, get to Maine, the way life should be. Watch the Maine videos of local events and see what you are missing out on in so many ways, so many levels of your life.

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

April 28, 2010
You Meet Someone Who’s Never Been To Maine.. Describe The Place.

Cultures, Nationalities Make Maine Unique, Special, One Of A Kind.

Mainers Know Who They Are, Where They Live And Feel Like The Luckiest, Blessed People On Earth. And They Are.

You’re on a game show, at a local diner out of state, filling your car with gas on a trip, and the question get raised..”Maine, what’s it like?”

In this blog post to hit all the highlights is hard. But still as a Maine blogger proud of my state, and ready to toot the horn about it’s people and the way of life and four season outdoor beauty. Here goes anyway.

One reason I have to make a stab at being in the “spotlight on Maine” is because so little about the state is out there on line or very accurate.

If someone moves to the southern tip of Maine and is from the west coast. And suddenly put on camera as a talking head for the place called Maine. More often than not, other than the coast, the rest of Maine is left out is the sound bite.

Like Columbus felt when talk of the world being flat came up at card games, the local livery stable or on board a ship sailing to the unknown corners of the new world. Maine’s like that. Pretty much a secret.

Maine for starters is one big state, and here is a quick ME geography, history, facts, figures house keeping run down from A-Z for up here in the right hand corner of the country.

And for images, rather than worlds scope out this eyeball candy Maine photo, image site. Ok, Ok, Here is a splash on Maine lighthouses too. Happy? Maine is so much more than lobsters, lighthouses, blueberries and potatoes.

Maine people are resilent, know who they are, don’t need life coaches or extensive couch therapy or mood elevators to enjoy life. Mainers are responsible, family oriented, friendly, neighborly, community proud with a ferocity. The outdoor four seasons of Maine is where the answers to life’s mysteries, complexities, pressures are found. The Maine forests, Baxter’s Mt Katahdin and 6000 lakes, rivers know the meaning of patience, time. We Mainers protect what God gave us to be good stewards with, to pass on to our kids.

Like To Kayak Or Want A Big Motor On Your Boat Or Jet Ski?

Maine is coming to terms with lower wages, smaller population centers.

But that makes us more resourceful, stronger volunteers, closer local citizens. Home grown, helping each other, more aware of the priorieties in life. No chip on our shoulder, or entitlement attitude or trying to short cut on any road to riches in Maine. Money to impress people? You won’t find that “look who I am attitude, what I have” attitude game played here. No pecking order, no steerage mentality of anyone being any better or worse than anyone else. We accept people, want the same done in return.

It’s how we roll in Maine.

Grange Hall In Maine Repurposed Into A Home.

Keep it simple, be helpful, make it real. Maine.

We don’t la-de-da as the Van Morrison song croones. Who we are is who you see. Whether talking one on one playing horseshoes or cribbage or at a large municipal town hall, grange bean supper or at a sporting event.

Jumper cables ready in the car or pickup and ready to stop, give you a hand. Make sure you are okay or need a lift somewhere, to call someone. To help you out. Mainer’s need each other but are self contained at the same time.

This small town Houlton Maine Meduxnekeag Canoe race video shows you how we interact with mutual respect, courtesy, friendliness, a mixture of gratitude in this case that spring is here. That means getting out on the water, a Maine river. This year’s canoe kayak race by the way is May 1st, so spread the word will you?

Canoe River Race In Maine, Been Paddling Down One Of The Many River Races On The Circuit?

Growing Without Sprays, Chemicals. Organic Maine Homesteading Happens Around Maine!

Or this Maine winter ski video shows you winter snow is not a dirty word.

Evidence that we thrive on cobalt blue skies, carving down a hill under a bright sun gaining strength signaling that spring is approaching. So when someone asks “what’s Maine like?” if you can only use one word answers, you could do it. If you had lived for awhile to see how different it is from most places.

To describe Maine one word at a time, I would pick “grateful”, “family”, “industrious,” “hardworking,” “resourceful,” “aware,” “outdoors,” “recreation,” “simple,” “grounded,” “clean,” “healthy,” “friendly”, “neighborly”,”unique.”

Fish Fresh From The Maine Coastal Sea. Barnacle Billy’s Crew Ham It Up For Tourists.

Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservation Season 6, Episode 12 television food/travel show covered Maine in broad brush fashion on a recent installment.

But at least with the help of a Milo Maine camera man, Zach Zamboni for a local perspective. Scope out a Maine Bourdain show video clip. It is so refreshing to have more than the Maine coastal areas highlighted, “pressed” by someone as the local talking head who not even raised here. With no childhood, family, local community perspective to really draw from. No real history, or life long experience with this place, state of mind we call Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

April 18, 2010
Getting Off An Interstate Ramp, The Condition Is Called Velocitized.

As cars got quieter, roads improved, speeds on interstate highway systems kept a steady increase as the years zoomed by. Where you live and your day to day hubbub can be like that.

Much of the blur, the faster pace of life involved getting around the growing population of where you live and chasing the American dollar. If money was not an object, what would you do with your time, your day to day filled with what else? Trying to find something to do you love that does not feel like work. And much of what we do, how we do it revolves around the weather. In Maine we get lots of weather.

If the car you are driving faster and faster on those better built roads and to get to more and more over booked life events were suddenly not on roads with much traffic, think how much nicer the drive would be. You could look around and enjoy the ride. See the cows grazing to the right, the sunlight dancing off the lake to the left as the sense of being in the moment is allowed to shine thru. To be felt and replace the condition, side effects of hurriedness, or the numbness and anxiety.
For fun, what do you do to relax? Without a drug, or a drink of tonic, what natural surroundings make you happier? Maine’s four seasons scenery is intoxicating, like a drug.

As our life gets busier, more cluttered and less organized, it is a constant struggle to keep pulling the throttle back, to maintain a sane speed. To avoid becoming velocitized.

Impatience is a decision and can become a lifestyle. Over-reacting to this person who rubs you the wrong way, or does not move as fast of you. That person is following a different metronome beat or rhythm and not doing it to bother you. They have found their speed or balance or moderation…and maybe you have not. Yet. Most Mainers who live here full time have. Or are recovering velocitized “transplants” hungry for a slower pace of living in Maine.

In our job, we hear the common refrain over and over that the caller or emailers life is out of control. Steadli going faster faster with no let up in sight. Much of that self inflicted blur is due to adding on more and more tasks, goals, obligations. That can steal your joy, make you tired and not so much fun to be around. Maine is simpler living, family oriented recreation right here in our own backyard in “Vacationland”. Maine, get here just as quick as you can (smile)…within the speed limit, and your own personal pace of course.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers 207.532.6573

February 8, 2010
(Rubbing Chin) How Well Do You Know The Person In The Bathroom Mirror?

Maine Moose Family Crosses Road

Each morning, day in and day out, you meet and greet the fellow in the mirror who stares back, waiting for the second cup of coffee to kick in just like you.

As you saddle up, strap on the utility belt, get ready to ride out in to another day. But how well do you really know, understand this reflection? Why do we want what we want, need what we need and in the degree unique to each and every one of us?

My dad had a college commencement speaker who stated he hopes the graduating class got to have set backs, to know advertsity early in life so as to benefit from it. I saw an ad on television yesterday indicating failure is the road to success. The same road paved with good intentions. But the character, the make up, the crank factor of you, yourself and I is modeled after your parents, shaped by life events, the people in your day to day.

As a Maine real estate broker for 30 years, this is a people business. When a property buyer is upset, there is a reason. Listening to hear what the issue is, how I can help is key. Many times, it is not a case of the broker taking responsibility for a screw up. It is frustration in the life of the buyer who on top of this stressful move he is trying to orchestrate on time for his family, he also is having work issues, etc. Too much on his emotional plate and he is human. No antennae.

It is said life is 10 percent the events, the people you bump in to and get to know along the way. And 90 percent the way we react to those same events, people.

If there are too many people jammed in where you live now, that crowd is not helping you stay loose, focused and a fun guy or gal. If the sea of people is too many per square mile, that just adds to the mental pressure cooker inside your head.

That is where Maine comes in. Lower population gives you the space you need, less hubbub to process. Less noise. Add to it the four seasons, the outdoor recreational options to renew your spirit, adjust your attitude, and Maine is the RX supplement you need in your system.

If you can unwind, have down time and get some exercise at the same time, consider hiking one of Maine’s mountains. They come in all sizes The wildlife, unspoiled vista you see along the way is almost spiritual. You suddenly are humbled, stripped away of any self importance and able to think with a clear head. The fresh air in the your lungs part of it, the lack of people in your face way way too close is another component. But you are making time, running away to a setting that is conducive to figuring things out. Learning what makes you tick because you have time left over from maybe a place you live that crime consumes some of your personal energy. Worrying about a huge mortgage and wondering how in the world you are going to make the payment. That makes you old real quick. Hurry, scurry, detail rich busy. But no time to sit down and figure out your life. It is your life and you have choices right? Get to Maine as quick as you can.

In Maine our real estate is so low, we don’t struggle with giant crushing payments from mortgages with too many zero places in them. We own our homes, and material things is not the way we keep score on how are we doing. The simple things are front and center. Spending money to feel good does not work here. Consumer product purchasing therapy is dead. We help each other out and do it ourselves on projects. We take care of what we worked hard for to keep. Our kids grow up with work ethic learning to earn what they buy. This kind of respect is easily in a rural state with values like Maine. Come find out more about who you are.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers – 207.532.6573

January 25, 2010
The Litte Voice Inside Your Head, How Many Do You Have To Guide You?

     Mentors…they say you should have more than just one.

The thinking or logic being if that mentor dies, there goes the guidance. You lose your only GPS of wisdom, fountain of experience, conduit of common sense. Also, no matter how gifted or learned someone is, there are limits to the sheer volume, scope, depth of this mentor’s contribution to helping you shape your life. All of this begs the question. Do I take direction, will I listen, do I need to improve my thinking on the building blocks of human relations and how to not just survive but flourish joyfully in a world less than perfect?

     If I was taught responsibility for my actions by caring parents. And if I sincerely want self improvement or realize others have puzzle pieces I need and that I carry pieces that will unlock life mysteries for them too, this is a beginning. The premise that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom brings up another question. Is God in your life? And do you fear anything, anyone? And if you further am humble, not so self absorbed that you blame others when things go wrong as a given, a certainity, you have maturity to know your role in the good, the bad, the ugly in the landscape around you.

     Today, with more of a “me me me mentality” and “want it now” poor impulse control that is a big part to blame for the current economy, the mental health of this nation in priorities and “wants” versus “needs”, we have to get back to the it being about others premise that puts your happiness or sense of peace coming from others.

If a mentor is able to show you thru living example how to practice counting your blessings, being grateful, what joy looks like, feels like, that is a huge boost to life long contentment.

     Knowing others out there have a much harder row to hoe gives us a whole new perspective and outlook. If a mentor is able to show us we need to dig in, work harder, pull ourselves up by the book straps with personal responsibility in life, we no longer expect others to meet our every need. We gain a self satisfaction of a job well done, over coming adversity with an active role from within. Searching, questioning, learning. It is a life long habit or should be. Not who do I blame, life’s not fair, a poor me personal habit of retreat serves no constructive purpose.

     The voices inside your head.

There’s the one from your mom gently but constantly reminding you of basics you apply day to day like, everything in moderation, plan your work and work your plan, gratitude for what you do have being way way more constructive and settling than I wished I had this, could do that, had not done that. Another voice of your dad telling you to hang loose, get your sleep, stay in touch with your brothers and sisters. Getting your chores done before playing. Your teachers, professors, employers all adding another voice to the guidance stream and then your own voice of reason, experience that grows. It is like a healthy garden planted with the right variety, the correct spacing, the degree of nurturing, cultivating, watering to lead to a successful harvest and then do it all over again.

How many voices do you have in your head? Do you follow and learn from them or is there a struggle between a void

Early Voices Inside My Head From Parents Growing Up On A Maine Farm.

of missing installments, lack of players, or a personal dose of “don’t tell me what to do” that hinders maturity, growth and the ultimate passing down of life lessons to the next generation? Practice makes perfect is the addage. To play better golf, better anything you need to interact with better talent. But it all starts by turning up the volume of those information mentors, listening and applying what you hear and being able to harness, shape and create what is a unique you in your life. The variables change to make your life more of a Rubic’s Cube and interesting or challenging. You also have the past, present, future dimensions to consider to be in your right place for fullfilment, contentment, peace. Maine is a good place to enjoy less traffic, no crime, an awareness of the beautiful space around you. Neighbors who pitch in to help with a true sense of belonging, of local community pride live in Maine. Those are the voices I listen to inside my head. That’s why you might consider retiring here, relocating to Maine too.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

May 16, 2009
Picking Maine Potatoes, My First Entry Level Job As A Kid.

Everything I apply to life I learned in the Maine potato field. Sort of.

The 300 acre Maine farm I grew up on and now own.

Maine youth help area potato farmers get the spuds into winter storage during school fall break.

Seriously, you start each morning, listening to the radio to see what time the Maine potato farmer is going to dig today.

A little frost or rain over night means a delay, or no picking. A reprieve from above in the food chain. But when you do get to the spud field after a big breakfast and carrying your lunch and water jug, you have to pick out a section.

A section is basically, how long a responsibility in the field can you handle?

If the rows are long, and one digger proceeds at a slow pace back and forth uncovering spuds to pick, you have to judge what is doable. To still stay caught up. You don’t want to be waiting for the digger. You need to avoid being hopeless behind, rows and rows out of uncovered potatoes waiting to be picked. That is discouraging but so is life sometimes. The best lessons are mistakes or miscalculations. Taking ownership, responsibility and stopping them from happening over and over. And wondering why.

Four baskets fill a 165 pound Maine farm potato barrel.

You put your ticket on the barrel and it gets plucked. Placed in a can as the barrel is hoisted onto a flatbed farm truck. The potatoes head to storage, your ticket to be counted that night. Sixty cents a barrel was the pay when my four kids picked a few years back. Before graduating to work in the potato house or on the harvester for an hourly wage. Where they thought now we are cooking. Have really arrived.

Kids spend the money if they think the item is worth six barrels of potatoes or whatever the exchange is as they contemplate a purchase. I have seen my kids pick something up, put it back on the store shelf and utter the word’s “Dad, that’s not worth six barrels of potatoes”. They worked too hard to part with their hard earned proceeds for something deemed an unfair exchange or quality for the work required to buy it. Maine potato picking video I posted.

No one leaves the Maine potato field until everyone is picked up.

No one left high and dry. If you find yourself behind due to poor section selection or the hot sun slowing down your production, others will show up to pick up your section. To add to their daily barrel tally. If you run out of barrels, you pick tops off the rows you get behind so when you get barrels, you can pick your section faster.

Digger pulled by the tractor breaks down? You head to the woods to do your business, make a nature call. Or have a snack and enjoy the break. Put it to good use to rest up. Or if hustling for a new bike, you trot down to a section that is behind that has barrels. You pick one or two barrels to tag with your ticket. You stay busy. You make good use of your time.

Another Generation Of Farmers In Maine. Remember, No Farmer, No Food!

Being outside in the Maine fall scenic foliage is exciting and beautiful. Blue skies, cold mornings, blistering hot afternoons. That’s a lesson in picking potatoes, my entry level job that was the blue print for every other job after that.

Growing up on a Maine farm was a valuable experience. And you are needed by the grower, shipper. You and he both are at the mercy of the biggest unknown, the Maine weather. Your section may grow or shorten too depending on the division marker of your neighboring picker. Who may be an ambitious little red hen or become lazy in the afternoon sun like a slug.

The field section markers may mysteriously re-adjust between where you end and your neighbor starts too.

End rows also can grow as the field lengthens. You find grass, tough picking, sods on the ends as a rule. Those are the picking ABC’s of mastering a Maine potato field. Watch the operation first hand with this Maine potato picking video .

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

March 19, 2009