MeInMaine Blog

Tag: maine work ethic

  • Picking Potatoes On A Northern Maine Aroostook County Farm

    Picking Potatoes On A Northern Maine Aroostook County Farm

    One spud, two spuds, picking potatoes on a Northern Maine Aroostook County farm.

    Was it hard for kids to head out into the early morning darkness to the Maine potato farm field? What work ethic lessons were learned for youth relied on to get the potatoes basket picked, poured into barrels, trucked from the Maine farm field for winter storage?

    kids picking maine potatoes
    One Basket At A Time! Picking Maine Potatoes A Skill Learned By The Lucky Youth Growing Up In A Fall Harvest Potato Farm Field.

    Have you ever picked potatoes along with your family and friends to earn money for school clothing?

    The valuable list of skills and attitudes learned picking Northern Maine potatoes.

    Toiling in the farm field under all kinds of weather over school harvest recess is a worthwhile entry level job. But from the outside looking in, today’s youth and parents not exposed to the fall harvest potato picking tradition, it is easy to overlook the learning experience.

    So what was it like and why were area Maine youth relied on as an vital component for the fall harvest of potatoes?

    My Dad and mom, northern Maine potato farmers said kids did a better job handling the potato harvest picking the crop. Less damage to the valuable farm field potato harvest crop than from fast moving mechanized machinery like harvesters caused. Better for Mother Nature too with less erosion from air harvesters harnessing kid power to pick this year’s crop.

    Your family household goes to bed the night before to prepare for the early rise and shine during potato harvest.

    By 5AM, you are finishing  a hearty breakfast for the day ahead in the Maine potato farm field.

    picnics picking potatoes with maine fall colors scenery
    Picnic Food Just Tastes Better Looking At This When Munching What Gets Fished Out Of The Basket. Potato Pickers Move Field To Field In Fall Harvest Colors.

    The fresh air during fall potato harvest improves the taste of your lunch, all the the snacks. What you munched on carefully packed to lug to the field.

    Along with your water jug, extra warm clothes, back up pairs of fresh brown jersey work gloves.

    You learned early to be careful with your lunch box, extra clothes, water jug to keep them from being run over by the barrel truck.

    The Maine area potato farmer that hired you for the fall harvest will be at your address with a covered pickup soon.

    Barely sunrise, rounding up and delivering the young potato pickers to the new field to dig today. Or to finish up the one from yesterday that was not completed due to sheer size, too much rain, frost or or mechanical breakdowns. You arrive in the field layered with long underwear, extra clothing layers because you can see your breath in the crisp, frosty early morning air.

    One by one you hop out of the back of a pickup or van used to collect your fellow potato pickers for this year’s harvest.

    Before heading to your “section” in the row after row of un-earthed, not dug potato field, your field boss hands you a fresh pack of tickets. You have an assigned number, usually 50 up to 100 tickets wrapped in an elastic band. A barrel of potatoes weighs 165 pounds.

    Yesterday’s barrel tickets tallied the night before. How many barrels did you pick? Count the tickets you get back or the ones missing from your original stack.

    maine farm potato fields
    Rolling Farm Fields Planted To A New Crop Of Potatoes. Next Year This Will Be Grain. See The Snow White And Yellow Plants?

    It takes at least four filled to the brim and over baskets of fresh dug potatoes to fill a barrel. And to earn the right to slide one of your numbered tickets out of the pack to wedge into the groove, on the top of the barrel stave.

    That ticket with your number announces to the World that you claim this full barrel for 25, 60 cents or whatever the farmer is paying you this season.

    Piece work not an hourly wage. If you don’t produce, you don’t make much or anything.

    Clear a spot. You put the new empty barrel on it’s side, carefully using two hands to fill it with potatoes. The ones exposed by the squeaking potato digger that back and forth passes your section over and over through out the day of outdoor labor. As you and your fellow potato pickers advance across the wide open farm field one harvested row at a time.

    maine potato farm field picking
    Pick Them Clean, Get Them All Into The Potato Basket. Do These Kids Look Abused, Picked On Out In The Maine Organic Farm Potato Field?

    Your section is how long a portion of the farm field you think you can manage through out the day or until you move to a new one.

    The trick to be just getting the last potato picked up and deposited in your basket before moving into the next row. Hopefully the one that was just freshly dug that only good timing and planning causes. Pick a schedule that matches the digger speed to keep caught up. Work steady.

    maine potato picking
    Lessons earnred young piicking maine potatoes in th farm field!

    But like life, things happen and you can find yourself getting behind in the Maine potato field.

    One of the many observations taught early in the Maine potato field. To learn something that sticks with you for life.

    If you took too big a potato field section, you will run out of steam and get behind.

    potato barrel ticket
    Claim The Barrel, Potato Picking Ticket With Your Number On It.

    Some potato fields are grassier than others and have sods to wrestle with to make sure you “pick them clean”.

    In the Maine potato field, it is no quality spud left behind. And remember that “bruisers are losers”.

    Be careful handling the potatoes.

    Slowly dump the basket into the empty farm field barrels. Before placing the next empty barrel upright every other row. So the farm truck can have a lane to retrieve the full ones headed to the potato house storage. You clear any spuds under the barrel first and place it there. In a spot in your section where it a short trip to avoid wasted steps, needless lugging.

    No rotten potatoes and leave the green ones or rocks in the field not dumped in the barrels please.

    Don’t over fill those barrels lifted up with a boom that lands them on the platform. You don’t want the barrel hoist tong to smash or slice any spuds. Each filled potato barrel is hoisted up from the ground to the truck body using tongs.

    Thrown with position to land on the top of the barrel like a lasso. Then tightened up by lifting, using electrical or hydraulically piston pump that grips the barrel tight and secure. To swing up and onto the empty stake truck.

    Not the easiest job either to roll full potato barrels to the back of that truck lumbering up a side hill.

    Moving those barrels like a game of Tetris, to fill the space quickly. To create a full load to bee line to the potato house.

    Then to hurry back with the empties to throw off to each field section of pickers for the repeat the pick, fill, slide on a ticket barrel number filling process.

    The further away from the potato house in Houlton Maine the barrel or bulk body trucks have to haul, the more apt a shortage of empties is going to happen.

    Nothing hurts production like running out of barrels and trying to make good use of the down time waiting for empties. Picking the tops off the rows you get behind so you can cover your section faster when the fresh empty barrels get tossed onto your section from the truck.

    Eating lunch early, doing your business in the woods for a nature call. All part of potato picking field operations. Hopefully your water jug was put in the freezer, slowly un-thawing as the day unfolds.

    planting maine potatoes to harvest
    It Starts With Planting Potatoes In The Maine Farm Field Back In Spring. Cultivating The Hills, The Potato Rows Over The Summer, Harvesting In Fall.

    Potato tops need to be removed, shaken as pickers advance across the Northern Maine farm field.

    When do you eat? When the tractor pulling potato digger is turned off signally the lunch break. Or sometimes early than noon time because of tractor or digger break down.

    There are digger lags hooked together to create the bed with spaces to filter out the potato field dirt.

    To lay out the two or more field rows into a flat shaped table of new golden or whatever color spuds to fill a basket to add to the barrel.

    maine potato farm field
    Blossoms On Houlton Maine Potato Farm Field.

    More on picking Maine potatoes explained by someone who grew up on a farm and picked from age five and on like my three older brothers.

    You start out picking.

    Graduate to the farm truck or maybe a harvester work shift where you stand and pick out the rocks, the rot and debris.

    So it won’t end up taking up space in the potato storage bins.

    Over the winter months, the same Northern Maine farmer can use the field tested pickers to pack.

    Put up potatoes trailer truck loads shipped to southern markets for distribution.

    So what is the occasional cry that picking potatoes is child abuse?

    It is hard for someone that never picked potatoes or missed out on the fall harvest tradition to grasp the experience.

    You never did it, how could you know without spending time out in the Maine potato field?

    School students spending the three to four weeks out in the Maine potato field are social, talk and laugh as they pick, move from to a new harvest section of the farm.

    The Red Sox are in a pennant race that fall. Someone has a radio next to your section. It’s one for all and all for one to get those spuds out of the ground before a killing frost. Before snow or dodging rain drops that can interfere with the potato picking process. May work later tonight, or Sunday depending on how’s the weather been this fall in Maine.

    red sox game
    Parking Near Fenway. It’s A Trick And Usually Costs A Few Coins. If The Rex Sox Make The Play Offs, Maine Potato Field Workers Tune In, Listen In To Games.

    The potato pickers see the outdoor beauty of the early morning fog, the brilliant fall leave color change and fill their lungs with fresh air.

    Worked muscles bending over filling potato baskets and lugging them to fill the empty barrels gets students into shape for soccer or other school sports ahead. The field dirt and dust will wash off in the tub or shower tonight when they get home. They tell Mom and Dad about the wildlife they saw out in the field today.

    Heading to the small downtown of a Maine community to shop for a new winter jacket is part of the Saturday night learning experience.

    Shopping with your own earned money sharpens your spending skills. And if you don’t perceive a value, you keep looking. Impulse spending control is easier to master when it’s your hard earned money. Not twenty dollar bills spit out, handed to you from the mom and dad ATM.

    locally sourced maine farm vegetables and produce
    Locally Sourced, Farm To Table Maine Produce, Vegetables Like Potatoes. Priceless. Know Your Local Grower! Maine Is The 5th Largest Potato Producing State.

    Learning how to save not just spending is money management.

    But what if you never had an entry level job? Did not work for a wage and have to do a good job or you are not asked back the next Maine fall potato harvest? What’s that? Life’s not fair? Life is what you make it. Life is entry level jobs and responsibility to accepting without griping or weaseling out of it. That you have to show up and perform to be an asset not liability.

    You stick with it because your family needs the money, the help buying your clothes.

    You in turn take better care of clothes you purchase with your own money that is real World right?

    The farmer depends on your to help his family get the crop out and into storage. Grit, determination and dealing with colder weather and days when maybe you are not handstand happy about heading to the field. But you do go and eventually less bothers you as your realize the value of this exercise.

    maine potato field
    Northern Maine Aroostook County Potato Field. A Very Valuable Work Ethic Experience. This Is One Of Your First Entry Level Manual Labor Field Experiences.

    Kids that pick and work the fall Maine potato harvest look around and realize I did something worthwhile during the harvest break.

    They feel good about themselves and part of something outside their home four walls and a roof. Independent, responsible and dreaming about what part of their picking check they get to spend as they see fit. What they would like to buy with their own money.

    And whatever is purchased does not get broken or discarded after the newness is gone. Instead being respected, cared for and put away to protect it because they earned it. Worked too hard not to take care of whatever they bought with their own hard earned money.

    Ask anyone who grew up picking Maine potatoes what they thought about the experience.

    Some become farmers from the experience digging in the dirt. Remember “No farmer, no food”. You gotta eat at least three times a day.

    The harvest workers are part of a proud, capable bunch and learn their value, developing their work ethic. It makes them proud to be from “The County” and that work ethic, dependability to show up and do a good days work is a rural Maine thing.

    four or more baskets of maine potatoes fill a barrel
    Four Or More Baskets Of Fresh Picked Maine Potatoes Fill A Barrel. The Barrel Weighs 165 Pounds. Don’t Forget Your Ticket.

    Striving to do your part, to keep your potato field section picked clean and caught up and get along with the others on the potato chain gang.

    You start to realize that you are not lazy, that you can stick with something that is not for pure entertainment value. Glad my kids learned from the experience of picking Maine potatoes.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

    207.532.6573  |  info@mooersrealty.com  | 

    MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

     

  • Maine, Who’s From Vacationland, Raise Your Hands?

    Hard Work Learned On Farms, In The Maine Woods, In Fishing Villages.
    Maine, Solid Well Know Work Ethic Reputation.

    It is no secret that job discrimination happens in favor of folks from Maine.

    You hear stories about a parking lot full of people looking for a job after World War Two in say Hartford CT. People making aircraft parts like jet turbines, or in shipyards needing laborers that know how to work. Want to be employed and pitch in, get the chores done.

    Without crying about not being paid enough or considering striking, unionizing. And the question being raised to the crowd, who is from Maine? Which became just another way of filtering out the many faces, meaning if you are from Maine you have a job. And do you have a brother or sister in the same boat that needs work? Tell them to call, stop in.

    Why?

    Work ethic, pride of doing a good job and being hungry, dependable, consistent and just plain needing employment.

    To send part or most of the check back to parents at home or some family member depending on you. To cause you to go south looking for a job and being a hard worker from days on the farm, in the Maine woods, or along the coast fishing.

    Maine, not a bad place to be from especially when you find yourself in Florida and the eyes light up when they learn where you are from when looking for a job. In Houlton Maine there is a Smith and Wesson factory for handcuffs, gun production. And I have heard that the 140 or so employees here in Aroostook County crank out over half of the production when combining a 600 person Springfield MA work force.

    That work ethic reputation is the best advertising for a company wanting an employment force that produces. Day in and out. 365 days a year. Find it in Maine where pride of doing a job job, earning a hard earned day’s pay still applies. And where Maine real estate is so much cheaper, the crime non-existent in the 4th lowest state in the union for all that mischief. No gangs here either.

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

  • What Makes Maine Great, Special, Different?

    Land…there is lots of it in the world, in North America, in Maine. But what makes an area stand out from others beside just rolling land, woods, fields and the local terrain? The people. Folks raised on Maine farms, fish along the Maine coasts or that own their own small business struggle against life’s forces . But they are determined to make a living for their families and provide jobs for area neighbors.  It is not for the money, they live here for the quality of live.

    I recently blogged about Smith and Wesson’s Houlton Maine plants news of producing the six millionth handcuff.  There are many Maine success stories. Ward Log Homes is located in Houlton Maine too and is the oldest

    Six Million Handcuffs Made So Far At Houlton Maine S and W Plant

    log home / cabin manufacturer in the country! 

         Why the success? Quality products or services provided by hard workers that have pride in their area, their jobs, themselves. Putting your all into an effort. Lazy is not a Maine tradition and these people want to live here, raise kids here and have very very low or no job turn over. Mainer’s are content, happy, where they are suppose to be. In the “Pine Tree State” or “Vacationland ” up here in the left hand corner of the country called Maine.

    Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

  • Hopping Off The Bus, Remember Walking Up The Driveway As Kid Smelling Doughnuts Cooking.

         Hard day at school, and after hopping of the bus,  I enter the Maine farm house met by  the smell of mom cooking fresh chocolate donuts.

    Maine Youth Work On The Local Maine Farms Growing Up.
     

     

    Maine Youth Work On The Local Farms Growing Up.


       This is one of many fond childhood memories. No doubt your mom made some dishes like no other since. Potato salad, baked beans we grew, and home made bread was another family crowd pleaser. To dine on after working hard on the Maine farm land. Or repairing buildings or working in the potato house loading trailer trucks.The spud loads headed to produce centers in the winter destined for markets in Boston, Hartford or New York City.

        

    Growing up on a Maine farm meant I saw my parents a lot thru the day, and worked hand in hand with my three older brothers.

      In addition to raising potatoes, grain, dry bean and sugar beets, we planted a very large truck garden and sold produce at a farm stand. This income helped get us thru the summer when most of the household dollars are planted in the ground, waiting on fall harvest to get the crop into potato storage. Now local Aroostook County farmers also grow peas and broccoli. Lots of grains.

    We were never hungry, had mittens /hats knit by mom, used our imaginations and had fun as a Maine farm family.

     We learned about mechanics, carpentry, work ethic in addition to farming. Back in the 1800’s, 96 percent of us were living on family farms. Now less than 3% of the population raises food or critters.  Northern Maine is well know for spud production, Washington County and Down East for blueberries. We sold lots of corn, squash and strawberries at the farm stand too. With Canada roughly two miles away, we crossed the border to pick apples and strawberries to resell too. 
    Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers – Selling Small Rural Maine Properties Especially Farms and Land Listings.