Maine is outdoors, four seasons, all natural.
And as you travel the side roads, or hike up trails, you see “volunteers”.
Not the two legged kind. That pitch in and many almost have personal ministries run behind the scenes. I know of three ladies that all they do year round is knit.
Really neat hand made mittens, warm hats for winter use. And they deliver the year long fruit of their labors. To local schools and ask the teachers to make sure they get to where they belong.
On the hands, heads of kids that come to school with neither. Neat habit to pearl one and knit two when making wool hand and head coverings of all colors. To match the multitude of personalities of the new owners these born to knit ladies never get to meet.
No, the volunteers today Me In Maine blog post fans are the ones that spring up, grow in the oddest places.
Or are like kids that lose both parents, have no brothers, sisters, grand parents or aunts, uncles. On their own. To raise themselves.
Beyond the tree line of easier growing conditions. The kind you see climbing Mt Katahdin. In a nook and cranny of rock, not so hospitable growing conditions. Blueberries happen. Scrub pines, firs too. But all very hardy, resilient, determined. Weathering the harsh growing, weather surroundings and standing out because they are armies of one. Lone wolf plants, trees for hikers to enjoy. But that live here through wind chills of winter, rains of the spring, all that can come at you for weather in Maine. 
In Maine potato lingo, “volunteers” are spuds that grow up next year in a neglected field. That were not planted new, visited by the equipment that always annually shows up in spring with new seed.
But that just show up. Seemingly on their own, raised by themselves. In a rag tag collection of other regenerated seed, left overs from something hanging around from last fall’s harvest. That froze, sunburned, was not field gleaned. Eaten by man or beast. That made it to plant itself after a blanket of frost, white fluffy ground covering.
There is a life lesson sermon in that pick yourself up by the bootstraps for another blog post.
Today coming in from the lake getaway, preparing to fuel up on black fresh hot coffee at Cameron’s Market (that Bangor Metro says has the best pizza in all of Northern Maine), something caught the corner of the eye. I thought of the kid’s educational game “One Of These Things”. That is not like the others. See the sea of green? Spot it Bert, Ernie, Prairie Dawn in the audience? 
The corn stalk that BOINNNG.
Sprung up taller and towering over the Maine potato plants that are inching closer and nearer to a fall spud harvest.
Did Lilley Farms in Smyrna Maine who run a spread of black and white milkers plant the fodder corn seedling? As a fellow grower playful joke, diversion?
Or looking closely, hey wait a minute. Looks organic, like Nature’s Circle…Dick, Sue, Meg, Lowell and the neighborhood farm gang have a hand in this. Or was the single corn seed air lifted by a pair of feather wings?
Drilled in the fertile, tilled soil by a bird? Who air dropped the kernel on the way by overhead? When bomb bay rear doors opened, surrounded by some natural fertilizer to give it a start occurred?
Brought in from a neighboring field where the black bird stopped for a snack. That went from stem to stern. Through his system naturally. In a place where all you could see in any direction was corn planted. No potatoes trespassed. Just long ears, darkening white to brown silk. Spilling, sprewing out the tops corners of each green covering of yellow rows protected inside.
The single corn stalk.
That a raccoon or black bear already sampled it’s production. In a late night snack. The corn that somehow drifted into this New Limerick potato field of Buzzy and Andrea Nightingale. All fertilized by what the potato plants dine on for a 3 number cocktail side dressing. Or bringing covered dish, it’s own wrapped container of nutrients. To assure success out of the gate last spring?
Or was subject matter, topic selection for this blog post pretty meager today? It happens. You decide and thank you for following our Maine blog post collection faithful reader.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com
