Tag: simple living in maine

Pot Luck Suppers, Covered Dish Meal Dining

Potluck suppers, covered dish meal dining!

In rural Maine, it’s go easy on the host. Everyone brings a covered dish that is known community wide as their piece de resistance that gets rave reviews. Look at that long row of covered dish surprises at a potluck supper in Maine. It’s never take you chances or settle for “potluck”. No no, only the finest from each chef, cook, household prepared with love from the many Maine kitchens.

Early Maine Farm Life At The Homestead, Surrounded With All The Land. Pot Luck Suppers At The Church Or Grange Hall.

At Maine potluck suppers, it’s remarkable how the selection of items is perfectly balanced too.

Not three bake bean pots and no potato salads. From past experiences and because everyone has a signature dish to create and bring, everything rounds out on it’s own. Plus you have several dining variations on a theme. More than one of everything for a true home made hot and ready buffet.

Grange Hall pot luck covered dish suppers also required your BYO silverware and plates.

When done, slide them all in a bag. Return them to your home to wash and put back in the drawer and up in the kitchen cupboard. Nothing lost and way way less wear and tear on the pot luck supper host.

Fresh Farm To Table Locally Sourced Meals Prepared At Home Not A Maine Restaurant. What Dish Would You Bring To The Potluck Covered Dish Supper?

The potluck covered dish come and get it delivered to the venue carried in with pot holders and oven mitts.

Zipped into insulated warmers. Maybe tucked away in a picnic basket. These pot luck suppers not a once a year tradition but held on a regular routine. It’s social too, more than another just meal to brain storm create and put together all by your lonesome.

It is a lot of work to host a party at your home in Maine. House cleaning, grocery shopping, decorating. The tidy up and set the stage, tear down the extra tables and folding chairs is a lot of work.

Maine. Small Word, Big Place, Lots Of Unspoiled Space. Folks Are Neighborly, Friendly, Socialize. Community Pot Luck Suppers Happen Around Small Town Rural Maine .

Attending a potluck supper, toting a covered dish with serving utensils is one efficient buffet variety meal to enjoy.

The lots of people who come together at the pot luck supper makes the meal memorable. Not just a table for two tucked away in the corner of your favorite restaurant haunt experience.

Some cooks excel at pastries, breads, your pasta salad, their artichoke dips. Others are grillers, their skill set is for casseroles, soups and chowder. Crock pot jack pot slowly simmered and ready to serve at the community meal. Who brought the smoked salmon or toasted crab cakes or brook trout?

Small Towns, Food Vendors Working Community Events. MMmmmm Good. Sometimes The Dining Is Pot Luck Covered Dish Home Made!

Maine garden home grown farm to table platters of vegetables, fresh fruit with a floral center piece completes the menu.

Dig in but leave room for the buffet array of desserts of all kinds. Carefully created by many that migrate one by one, two by two and more to land in a small Maine community or family pot luck supper location.

Add a couple local Maine musicians for background music and the setting is complete.

Tap Your Toe, Sing Along. Music Made Locally And Live Is Huge In Maine Communities. Some Potluck Suppers Offer Live Local Background Music.

The lack of shelling out a hundred dollars or more to settle up the bill only improves the take away taste from the potluck supper, covered dish experience. Maine is 450 small town communities and villages, plantations and only a handful of cities.

Small towns in Maine are masters at simple living, keep it friendly and neighborly. “Excuse me, can you pass the sweet potato casserole? Did you make it Marge?”

If you are moving, relocating to Maine, get ready for an invite for the potluck supper in Maine. The more the merrier.

Attending Local Sporting Events, Alumni Games Are Popular. For Fans Of All Ages. Potluck Suppers Happen With Covered Dishes In Small Maine Towns.

Would you be ready for a potluck supper where everyone totes a hot or cold covered dish to your home in Maine?

All take a turn and today, many might say no way. Not at my house.

I’ll contribute something good to eat homemade or store bought and gladly ring you up at your place. Just not mine. My house is a wreck, has been for quite sometime really.

Maybe a potluck supper, opening up your place to take a turn would be just the fire lit under you to make it ship shape. Clean as a whistle and the housework done for the week or spring cleaning now complete. The potluck supper can be a holiday tradition with decorations to make it festive.

Finding Your Way Home In Maine. Is A Victorian House The Goal? Would You Invite People In For Easy Potluck Covered Dish Suppers?

Growing up, my Mom from a family of 11 living on a Northern Maine farm who stayed close for life.

Each Sunday noon after church, each family member took a turn. This week Uncle Frank and Aunt Charlotte hosted the event at their Benn Hill in Hodgdon farm location. Or opened up their Nickerson Lake summer camp for the family meal time tradition. Kids splashing, boats plying by and the folks inside waving. Outdoor fire pits at night for the talks after the potluck covered dish supper time meal. Like group therapy!

The cousins socialize just like the parents.

Every Sunday it was a different family venue and we all stayed in touch growing up in a small Maine town. Each and every one of us in the family got to know each other better. In part due to the pot luck supper covered dish tradition and the variety of food it offered us.

Check The Locally Sourced Maine Farm Produce At Whole Foods Portland ME For Your Potluck Supper Contribution. What’s Your Covered Dish Contribution?

The ease and simplicity of the bring your own plate, cup, silverware and covered dish contribution.

Not a small group, but the best way to handle a large one. So one cook is not overwhelmed with the meal time task.

Public or private, the take away is the same. Too much home cooked food. Lots of people grouping together for a family event meal or a public fund raising supper. We did not go to a restaurant to open up the menu and dine with a few people.

Simpler Living In Maine. Slow Down, Live More Pitching Into The Community Lifestyle. What Can You Bring To The Covered Dish, Pot Luck Supper To Eat?

You opened up the Grange hall and arranged the tables and chairs.

Turned the heat up a little higher in the winter. Or opened up the place in early morning to bring in the cooler air. For lower temperatures that noon or by supper time when we used fans, took a dip in a Maine lake to cool off. Not just cranked up the AC when the weather was hot in our cars, office, homes.

Grange Hall In Maine Repurposed Into A Home. Hosted Lots Of Covered Dish, Potluck Suppers.

Maybe too many cooks in their own familiar kitchens creating what’s for dinner or supper is a good thing.

When they wrap the dish in a towel or slide it in an insulated cozy. Bring it hot out of the oven wearing mitts or chilled to perfection right out of the refrigerator. To beeline to the pot luck supper. Families in Maine had the standing invitation. This week’s pot luck supper is at this Aunt and Uncle’s home. Next week, we trek to Aunt June and Uncle Cecil’s camp or home depending on the season.

Bigger homes, larger families, more people living nearby in small Maine towns.

The pot luck or potluck suppers help families stay in touch. To not just break the bread and dine together. But to exchange what’s new in each and every family members life and to help each other share joys, endure setbacks. You don’t feel alone living in a friendly, neighborly tight knit Maine small town.

Wild Blueberries From Maine. More Delicious Than Bigger Ones Not From Maine. Ideal Potluck Supper Dessert Item To Bring.

These covered dish meals were like group therapy sessions in some ways.

They avoided isolation and created regular contact with family members and anyone else invited to come along. Card tables set up, crock pots plugged, lots of potato, pasta, green, three bean salads.

Coleslaw, fresh from the garden platters, relishes, dips. Home made rolls and breads. Casseroles, trays of finger food. Samplings of small portions to fit on your plate. Better double up that plate if it’s paper to carry the load. Too much good food. Way way too much variety makes it like holiday dining. Large, 2nd and 3rd size helpings expected from the local cooks who “super size” everything.

Pot Luck Suppers In Maine, Using Natural Ingredients. Get Them At Your Farmers Market In Maine.

Do you eat too much at a covered dish, potluck supper?

It’s tempting, hard not to over indulge. Those paper plates are pretty flimsy when overloaded like a Maine trucker’s trailer load of Aroostook County potatoes. Who brought the home made lemonade or iced tea? Is that gluten free? You eat plenty and can say because you don’t want the cook to think it was not the best you ever had. Often it is and you hunt down that same meal selection for the potluck supper because you are addicted to their style of cooking.

Save room for the hand churned ice cream.

I think it’s grape nut and chocolate for choices. To ride high a top that warm, hot out of the oven slices of blueberry, raspberry, strawberry rhubarb pie. Is that cheesecake? Gotta get her recipe and print it out to share on the Maine cooking blog I follow.

The Beauty Of Maine. Some Have Trouble, Can’t Find Their Way Home To Maine So Easily. Get Below Radar In Maine. Unplug, Recharge In Vacationland.

Oh look, are those date crumble squares? Home made pumpkin, chocolate chip cookies, whoopie pies.

Picnics along the road traveling. Had to before the Interstate and those canopied table rest stops to munch on a chicken salad sandwich. Maybe grill a hot dog, burger, some chicken.Marsh mellows on top of the sweet potatoes. More of a Christmas dish but might as well let me try a small scoop.

Jello with carrots suspended inside. Lemon squares. Everyone contributed to the potluck supper. 2nds? Heck 3rds. It’s all cook and makes the covered dish cook smile ear to ear.

Lucky To Live In Small Town Maine! Me In Blog Author Andy Mooers, ME REALTOR.

The pot luck or potluck covered dish tradition applied to weddings, funerals, graduation, reunion, anniversary event too in a small Maine town.

Or maybe to celebrate one of the four seasons, a successful harvest or holiday as a community. When is the last time you brought something home cooked to a potluck supper, covered dish event?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730

July 17, 2023
Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) | Simple Living In Maine

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a term I just heard about today.

These Me In Maine blog posts have common themes about using common sense and distilling down into what it really important in life.

FOMO, learning more about a topic can be turned into a blog post as we explore the condition together.

So here we go exploring the anxiety called FOMO or fear of missing out. Crafted and created from a native Mainer’s perspective.

Bored, Wishing They Had Some Wire Cutters To Take A Vacation From The Pen. Do You Have FOMO? The Anxiety Called Fear Of Missing Out? Are You In A Herd Of Sheep Watching Others Every Move?

(Cracking of knuckles sound in preparation.) FOMO is a social anxiety.

Fear of missing out, believing others could be having fun while you are not present. If you are a stranger to social media circles, FOMO might be hard to grasp as so life and death important. But if you post lots of selfies. If you make your social media channels designed to create envy in others in look at me and all the exotic places I go that you don’t. You my friend are stoking the FOMO fires burning from within the followers you try to make envious.

FOMO is regret, that you missed a once in a life time opportunity that will scar or limit you down the road forever.

FOMO is worry about missing a social event or consciously opting out that may be the wrong choice to take for your perfect life ahead. Pressure, guilt, and frankly too much time watching or coveting others. Comparing yourself to others based on their social media feed. Simple living in Maine is not consumed by watching others. And for starters, life is not always as it appears from the outside looking in on a social media channel.

More Space, Always Outdoors, Less People In Small Maine Town Living. You Spend More Time With Yourself Finding Ways To Entertain And For Fulfillment.

Spin, giving a different perception, a slanted agenda hidden from view fuels FOMO.

That’s what highly effective marketing is all about.. to create a call to action. To spark a desired need for something being sold. To improve your life that is seemingly only available for a limited time. That you suddenly think you can not live without and better get on the stick to order before midnight tonight. Something is missing. You need something, you want something you don’t have and can’t quite put your finger on it as a consumer. Others will tell you exactly what you need and where your life is going astray. Lots of opinions out there and they are getting louder.

But like Tom Petty crooned “You don’t know how it feels to be me”.

People come, people go
Some grow young, some grow cold
I woke up in between
A memory and a dream.

Miss you Tom. Now there’s a guy that would not back down if you are looking for musical inspiration.

Small Maine Town Productions, Everyone Pitches In With Talent To Stretch The Budget. These Home Grown Experiences Build Creative Confidence.

To delve into FOMO, you have to back it up a step to anxiety itself.

Anxiety is dread, a feeling of fear or uneasiness that can keep you up at night. Make you feel restless or tense and affect your eating or drinking habits or the lub dub pace of your heart. Anxiety is not taking it easy. Not just doing the best you can and knowing things usually work out for the best in the long run. Anxiety is not confidence, not believing in yourself. Or maybe it is knowing you did not study enough for the test tomorrow crammed for tonight.

Preparing yourself for failure ahead is suppose to lessen the pain and suffering. Knowing that you are ill prepared and somehow not deserving a good grade because you did not work for it. That is what ignites a spark to create the blaze due to a swell of insecurities that sinks your boat over and over. There is a better, more prepared way to live.

Maine Home Offices, Working Online From Home Sweet Home Up In Maine. No Worry About FOMO Because We Are Grateful To Have Beauty & Space.

I think FOMO is boredom, not enough to do or poor use of your time management.

We have an expression in Rotary that if you want something done, give it to a busy person. They size up the situation, attack a problem not a person and git it dunn’ as Larry the Cable guy advises. These people’s life is full and productive. Sitting around swiping social media screens up, down, sideways. To study others to learn what everyone else is up to is a waste of time if hours of every day are consumed. Something else is suffering if that is happening. Like retail therapy, the buying stuff to fill a hunger hole is temporary and artificial and does not last.

This is where a place like Maine comes in.

The way life should be. Less people, more wildlife, a greater sense of your natural surroundings. Hiking up Mt Katahdin, a day trip to the Maine coast, on your knees in the flower or vegetable garden. Working on your house to get it painted or DIY projects completed is satisfying. You learn to entertain yourself, to work hard and create a life you enjoy based on what makes you tick inside. Not by watching what seems to satisfy others that you are told you need to adopt. You are not one of those sheep pictured above right? Right?

Farming News, Part Of The Local Beat For Coverage In The Garden Of Maine, Aroostook County! Lucky To Live In Maine And Don’t Suffer From FOMO Surrounded By All This Natural Beauty!

There is no YOU in that habit of watching others.

Maybe that what the younger generation in the turbulent 1960’s described as being lost, trying to find myself. Far out. Right on. Anyone know how to get to Woodstock? Let’s hitch hike in that direction together, want to? Turn up the CSN&Y.

When you have regular chores around the home growing up, you develop a skill set.

You gain confidence. Taking care of yourself happens and not being dependent on others. Maybe it’s not glamorous that you know how to mow a lawn or do laundry, cook and clean. But you learn to care more and more on your own. That prepares you for life. To fend for yourself. You don’t expect others to do these tasks. No one waits on you. You learn the feeling of accomplishment from a job well done. It defines you and you gain a source of pride.

The Snug As a Bug In The Little Red Log Maine Lake Camp. Telecommuting From Maine. Not Suffering From FOMO. Happy Where We Live.

Maine simple living is the cure for FOMO. Having far less free idle time to watch others and wishing your life looked differently.

Social media channels are programing, not so “real” reality in most cases. Rehearsed, photo shopped, practiced with a teleprompter. Marketing is the desire to get folks receiving the signal to buy a product or purchase a service. Or groove on you for attention. Something you need that you can not live without or that will somehow improve your life is what is being sold and are you buying it?

Time and money, how you spend it when you live in rural Maine is much more practically approached.

That wood pile for next year’s house heating that is worked on slow and sure whenever you can return to the splitter. It is energy independence and good exercise to be boy scout prepared. Not just writing a check to the fuel oil supplier for whatever they want to charge per gallon. You could but you don’t. The climbing up a ladder to strip a garage roof and re-shingle it is confidence. You gain self satisfaction because you know how and were taught not to hire everything out in life.

What’s Happening Around You In Uncrowded Maine. That Kind Of News Is Home Grown, Spread More By Locals Than Media Outlets. We Suffer Less From FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

The youngest in a Maine family and right on through up the line have a role to play in the daily chores.

Set the table, your turn to do the supper dishes. Help pick up. Don’t hog the bathroom. Please, thank you, be considerate. Remove your shoes, don’t leave a mess. No one sits out or is carried and the responsibility increases the older they get. Because the parents prepare them for life flapping their wings outside the nest.

In small town rural Maine, money is not handed to you and if it is to be, it is up to me.

But the sky is the limit if I am willing to work hard and make good decisions. Get my sleep, eat good nutritious food, exercise, volunteer to help others. Those basic but to some boring life ingredients can provide rich real lasting results from the no pain, no gain learning lessons.

When You Live In Maine, No Fear Of Missing Out. You Are One Of The Lucky Ones To Just Be In Vacationland.

Patience, respect for property to take care of what you buy with impulse control shopping to make sure to get quality.

People pay Dave Ramsey to learn this stuff that was missed because no one else showed them the ropes to healthy rewarding simple living. Your parents, family, teacher, your boss because you have a job for spending money are all your mentors and life coaches for free.

FOMO has already been around to a small degree.

Keeping up with The Jones meant awareness of a few successful people around you. But social media channels amplified the watching just a few to hundreds, thousands as you make lots of new “friends”. The needing to fit in, to have more friends than others means conformity to the sea of faces. Letting others make decisions for you to fit in and be hip is not living your life. It is mirroring around others that are not you. More on how FOMO does not help your self esteem.

Lots Of Lobster Fishing, Tourist Boat Rides, Other Industry In The Maine Harbors Of Vacationland. When You Live In Maine, All This Is In Your Backyard And Less FOMO Anxiety Levels Drop.

Embrace JOMO (joy of missing out) because you started making your own unique set of choices.

That’s when you start living your own life and stop the habit of shaping it modeling only others perceived day to day based on social media insertions. Remember the mirror mirror on the wall habit of one aging queen? The need for attention, to be envied or coveted by others is not healthy. No time for it in small town rural Maine where happiness is not found on a glowing eerie blue screen but in the drop dead gorgeous full color outdoor landscape.

Sheltering In Place, Small Towns In Maine Are Ideal For Sheltering In Place. We Are Happy, Self Contained!

True Mainers are outdoors everyday, just dressed a little bit different to reflect the season.

We get what we need from out in nature. What we have is earned the old fashioned way. Not by buying a power ball chance for a million dollar pay out, because we are high on what we already worked hard to earn.

Are you addicted to know what is happening in other people’s lives?

Meet Your Neighbors, Kinda Shy, Have Four Legs. Whew. You Made It To Maine.

Is social media making you feel inadequate or depressed?

Shut it off or at least limit the screen time to create time for healthy rituals. Or use it for inspiration ideals from a Pinterest pin or a DIY YouTube video to glean ideas and skills. But not to see how your life sizes up compared to the thousands of so call online friends. Maybe those you follow are not so happy and part of the enjoyment is to take you down a peg or two to feel like a loser. Who needs friends like that? And who wants to be a toxic friend like that?

Thank you for stopping by our Me In Maine blog post weekly installment on FOMO.

Juggling Your Life Work Balance And Keeping Perspective. More Time In Maine Helps Clear Your Head.

Being grateful for all you do have, for what you cherish. Worked hard for to create, protect and to enjoy living in up in Maine.

Counting those blesses and not lamenting or longing for a long list of what you think you want that you don’t need. That’s the right direction I think most down to Earth Mainers decide to take. Less whining and watching others and more pitching in to help out. And that they pass on to their children by living those kind of examples in the mentoring and skill building to not just survive life. But to glean more from the life they create. Living it fully and richly by keeping it simple all natural outdoors in four seasons Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

September 19, 2021
Living In Maine, Sometimes There’s A Fly In The Ointment.

Small town rural Maine is simpler living whether you are on vacation or considering moving here full time.

And even though the fresh air, blue skies, clean water and friendly people are on the list of perks, sometimes pests need to be handled. We’re not talking mosquitoes and black flies this time around blogging. Maybe it’s Canadian geese on the war path leaving their calling card on your Maine lake property front lawn.

Stay Outdoors Mr Chipmunk, Mr Squirrel. Pests In Maine, The List Includes Beavers, Pigeons, Canadian Geese, Ducks! But We Are Missing The Poisonous Ones Other Hotter, Humid Population Centers Have.

And everyone knows the mother duck with the babies in tow out front the waterfront cottage are a cute but returning bothersome fertilizer depositor up on shore or covering your boat dock. Think about what happens after the introductory feed of stale bread to the quackers. And if you don’t, how do you feel about swimmer’s itch? Pass the medicated lotion please. At least the singing or crying Maine lake loon stays out on the water. Can not walk or come up on shore to be a nuisance.

Raccoons, porcupines, noisy crows, ravens on so big they seem to be on steroids. Maine black bears thrashing around in your garden’s fresh on the stock corn that go wild in a feeding frenzy. Whooping it up late at night. Over eating and making a mess of things. It happens. Just keep the red fox or coyote out of the hen house because they like you and I love chicken dinners too.

What other pests can happen in Maine?

Well, colder winter temperatures help curb lots of what other hot and humid areas can offer you for pest irritations. We lack the poisonous snakes, the large array of spiders that bite you just once and that’s all it took. Call the funeral home. Make the arrangements.

More Animals, Wildlife, Less People. Maine Does Not Have Gangs, The Crime Element.

Sometimes a relocating Maine real estate buyer moving is from an area where there are termites eating their woodwork. Those folks can infect their own household in Maine with what hitch hiked up I-95 hidden in the trailer or truck load of personal belongings.

I have not seen evidence of termites in my travels but around a lake with wet decaying wood a carpenter ant, a cousin to the termite can leave their calling card of handiwork. Powder post beetles I have heard of attacking a barn in Maine but it seems isolated, less occurring. I bet Jack Frost and old man winter help keep the pest uprisings to a minimum in four season Maine. More on Maine pests.

Pigeons, they are peaceful and don’t appear to be the smartest bird in Maine.

But once they decide your property is a good place to nest and rest, word gets around. More show up and then what do you do? You may not want to remove them using firepower and a bee bee gun is not the weapon of choice to encourage them to move along. When they are high up on a farm barn that can be fifty or more feet in the air. Just a tad out of reach with the Daisy red rider rifle copper pellets.

The Wildlife Were Here First. We Try To Live Together, Just Keep Them Out Of Our Maine Homes.

Live trapping the pigeon is an option. The cage large enough for eight to ten of the pigeons. Who swoop down to see what’s being served up for a snack inside and behind the wire cage with fresh popcorn, peanuts or something that welcome them in. To the Hotel California in Maine that you can enter any time you want but you can never leave.

Don’t pigeons know how to fly long distances? They are used by some to carry messages on their stick like legs in a capsule delivered by air mail. What’s to keep them from flying back? It’s what homing pigeons did over and over before Express Mail, next day Fed Ex, drone deliveries, pony express right?

Heck even beavers that are causing the waterways to back up behind your Maine homestead in the brook or stream that becomes a growing larger pond from their paddy whack dams. They too may need to be relocated, the dams removed so the flooding water can return to normal level conditions. But I know of one person who had the animal control folks trap and take a trip. To release a beaver transported thirty five miles from where they were caught in the live trap. And it only took three weeks after the open the door, here you go relocation into the deeper wilds of Maine. As they go over hill and dale to return to the original home they were evicted from not so long ago. Did you miss us while we were gone? The pests sure did you at the home sweet home they were forced to leave against their wishes.

How did the Maine property owner know it was the same not a new beaver?

Don’t they all look alike, the same thing the wildlife says about us? One beaver in the exodus had a white spot on it’s nose which I am told is rare like two eyes each a different color David Bowie, Jane Seymore were born with for peepers. I don’t think they checked the DNA to be sure but all I know is they’re back. The beaver returns or more just like the ones evicted showed up to keep the water rising. We all know how hard beaver work around the clock like a Maine farmer who has logged a forty hour week by Tuesday noon.

Wild Turkeys In Maine. You Can Have To Pile On The Brakes When Around A Blind Highway Corner Too Many Appear. And Don’t Move Fast Making Way For A Speeding Vehicle.

Have had a woodchuck under a building that liked nibbling on the flower garden bloom that was live trapped. Then set free in an unorganized township. It did not return but that does not mean another that gets the same idea to dig in and hang around won’t do the same free loading on the Maine farm. Ever heard of the Colorado potato beetle?

Winter approaching means lots of rodents want to hurry scurry to get in under cover for the lower temperatures and blanket of snow days forecasted ahead.

The two legged animals bank their Maine homes, pile the firewood, dig out the snow shovel and wool socks, mitten, head wear. It’s called survival right? Pass the acorns, nuts, berries and hunker down to hibernate until spring returns.

Where did I hide the Jiffy ice auger for winter lake fishing and the cross country snow skis? Up over the garage or was it down in the basement? Mainers are outdoors year round. Just dress a little differently to reflect the changing seasons.

Chipmunks are cute but very destructive inside a Maine dwelling of any kind. Show of hands of anyone feeling differently that has had them move in and take over. No one wants to see a red squirrel take up residence either inside the walls or up over the ceiling of where you live. And where you try to sleep when the lights go out as they run back and forth, up and down all around you, keeping you up at night. I have one older daughter living in Boston who says newer cars have wiring made with soy that attract city rats. Her 2009 Subaru has been spared when others parked around it were targeted. Peppermint oil is supposed to help thwart the rats and cause them to move along looking for another vehicle to nibble on when it is meal time.

City living getting you down? Maine, small town simple living. Looking for a piece of that?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

October 5, 2018
When The Red In The Temperature Tube Rises, When Maine Humidity Happens.

Humidity in a Maine weather forecast.

When it happens you feel droggy, sluggish, out of sorts. Not on the top of your game. Not as productive as you are used to being each day. Lack of sleep when it gets hot and humid takes it toll. Being a little edgy, with a hair trigger for some people’s crank factor. Irritability happens when a busy hard working Mainer is not able to crank out the same work load as they are used to doing daily. You feel a sense of getting behind in the sweltering crush of heat. The lack of motivation feels like you slipped on cement shoes.

Easy Does, Everyone Is Not Strung Out, Including The Animals. Plenty Of Elbow Room, Living Space Does That! Get To Maine For A Sample. Humidity Though Hits Those With Permanent Fur Coats The Hardest In A Maine Summer.

Humidity is not the norm in Maine weather climate patterns.

You could say most Mainers are pretty heat intolerant. And unless the individual has a medical condition where poor circulation keeps them craving heat all year round, most prefer our weather to be a little on the cool side over hot, hot, hot. A breeze adds to the comfort level inside and outside to keep the air moving and not becoming heavy or stagnant.

When the humidity increases, the productivity of Mainers suffers. You don’t feel good and at first wonder is something wrong medically. When it dawns on you, this is one of the few days or short spells of high humidity that is like a lead blanket heavy. That slows you down when you are used to accomplishing much around your property or when you are physically laboring for a living. Being on a black asphalt shingled roof and replacing the old shingles with new ones is not fun when the perspiration water is gushing off you or blurring your vision. Relief from the heat starts with opening up a Maine home in the early morning hours when Mother Nature allows a temporary cease fire.

Some folks are affected by the humidity more than others.

Fresh Air, Working The Sand As Early Masons On A Maine Beach.

COPD makes catching your breath even hard when the heat index, ozone alert, humidity rises. No one likes the feeling of just getting out of the morning shower or taking a refreshing dip in a Maine lake and for a time feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed. And then it happens. Within ten minutes of leaving for work or to explore Maine on a vacation you feel like you desperately need another shower or a repeat dunking in the waterfront to cool off and back up to restart the day. Because we get little humidity in the summer living and due to winter being a dry not wet or moist cold, our practice with the water laden air is limited.

It does not take long. You do quickly remember how much one does not enjoy the uncomfortable feeling of sweating and trying to shed any unnecessary clothing. Of staying hydrated and if you are lucky enough, being able to stay close to the waterfront to get in, get out. To stay refreshed until the spell of humid weather in Maine passes. To head for the beaches in Maine.

So Maine is as a rule not a humid state and unlike many southern locals that experience the worst side of global warming.

To make an already hot unbearable area more difficult. Hiding out in air conditioning is a temporary fix but being cooped up inside can make a true Mainer feel like a caged animal. Because any of the four seasons, we are outside more than inside four walls. More on Maine’s weather, climate, topography.

The Dairy Bars, The Ice Cream Delivery Trucks With The Musical Temptation Beckoning You Over For A Ice Cold Tasty Treat. Humidity Drives The Desire For Dairy Product Help Cooling Off In Maine.

So this time of year, because of humidity, in my day job I see a lot of reasons to move to Maine being because of less people, less humidity. And like this email this morning from a West Virginia real estate buyer, these are some additional concerns listed out in an email. Read on ….

“Hello,

My family and business have decided to move out of West Virginia. We chose WV 18 years ago because of its remote wilderness. We are a family of blacksmiths/artisans who specialize in forging hunting, kitchen, & historically themed knives, carved drinking horns, & other marketable art. We raise goats, hunt, fish, & generally attempt to live self- sufficiently.

We travel along the East Coast of the US to Scottish & other festivals for income. Unfortunately, WV has now removed all of their pollution controls, while introducing more toxic industry & soliciting toxic waste dumping from the surrounding region. Fracking is affecting the wells & new pipelines are coming in nearby. (One of them recently exploded & was on national news.) The fish are toxic, & the deer are dying of strange diseases that are chemically induced. Cancer rates are rising quickly, & part of the local construction boom is to build cancer clinics. I don’t want my 2 young grandkids to die of cancer.

We are getting out of here.

I’m just starting to research where to go that is conducive to our lifestyle & preferences.

We’re looking for acreage, not too huge, but enough to set up our homestead, workshop, forge, & run a small goat herd & garden. Road accessibility, well, & power would be necessary. We don’t want any nearby power plants, toxic industry, pipelines, mining, gas or oil drilling, or runoff that might affect our health, nor that of the local wildlife that we would eat. We don’t want wind farms within visibility or earshot. No giant power lines either.

We prefer to not be downstream from a large dam, nor to be in a flood zone. We don’t want to be in an area prone to wildfires. We don’t care about having TV or shopping malls although cell phone/internet signal would be necessary to run our business. We home school the grand kids. A nearby town would be good so they can go to the library & 4H club & etc. Emergency medical services within half an hour or so, & a bigger hospital within about 2 hours drive would be ideal.

Our business is conducive to having a small tourist-oriented specialty store as well. We are nice, friendly, down to earth, functional folks with skills. We’re independent thinkers, not fanatical in any direction.

If we can find something suitable, our chiropractor’s family wants to move also, with similar criteria. We would like to make this transition within the next few years.

If you can help us toward this, please let me know.

Thanks so much!”

Maine Vacations. Like Vitamins, You Need To Take More Than One A Year In Vacationland.

Folks seek out Maine’s fresh air, clean water and lower population because where they live now it lacks all three. Space, freedom to get away from dinky plots of land all walled in with spite fences and legal squabbles. To get away from the high traffic and even higher cost of living with all the layers of players that push and pull the permit regulation levers.

Cool off, beat the humidity heat. Hit the Maine waterfront.

Sit a spell on an open or screened porch with a summer breeze. Dig out the big air circulating fans, lift and tuck in the air condition with a careful heave ho. Into the best window in the Maine home for comfort, relief from the heat and humidity index. Reach into the ice box for a treat. Or down below for an iced tea, barley pop, a tall cool glass of ice cube loaded punch.

Maine is a great place to live if you can make a living. If you hold your horses on spending and make it easy does it slow as you go when you open your wallet or purse. If you learn how to work harder earlier in the day when it is hot and the farm hay has to be cut, conditioned, baled and stored in a barn facility. But make sure the moisture content of the hay is not too high to cause the fodder to heat up and burn down your Maine farm barn from spontaneous combustion.

A bolt of lighting from a crashing thunderstorm that cools the air dramatically. But means don’t be sitting in an aluminum canoe out in the middle of a Maine lake when those dark clouds swiftly roll overhead obscuring the sun. And the wind picks up considerable. Or don’t be unlucky enough to be out on the golf course swinging a metal club that only serves to attract a crackling bolt of lightning from overhead during the hottest stretch of a Maine summer. Have you been to Maine yet this summer and what are your plans for something new or an old familiar haunt to return to because it is a family tradition passed on to the younger generation?

How it works. How to reset and regroup. More on simple living in Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

July 25, 2018
Could You Live Comfortably On Minimum Wage?

Living well on minimum wage. How does that statement strike you?

Not where you live, not anywhere you believe? Is the notion a stretch to imagine? And if you make a lot of money hand over fist now but still wonder where it all goes, are you really living well? What you make is not as important as how you spend and what your priorities are in life. Your shopping / spending habits can be masking the illness of unhappiness. The retail therapy is self medication that works for a spell when you swipe the magnetic strip on the plastic card. But is it the kind that lasts and is healthy? Not like the volunteering time and contribution to non profits that enrich a small Maine community.

Sugar Coated Maine, Don’t Miss A Season, Make Winter Sparkle Part Of Your Vacation Plans.

Maybe you were just not taught as a young grasshopper how to economize or live a notch or two below your means.

To save, to respect what you do purchase. To take very good care of it. Because it has value beyond what you sacrificed to toil and earn the money used to make the acquisition. There is a satisfaction from being ship shape financial and not way out on the bending limb.

Wasteful starts with not realizing the value of the dollar used to purchase whatever is purchased by you or others. Read more on the difference between frugal and cheap. Grateful for little things like a warm house, happy kids, two cats in the yard. The bounty of a garden, a good home cooked meal. A view out your porch window that makes your jaw drop and conversation to stop. As you reflect on how really lucky you are in Maine.

In business if you spend out more than you take in, you get to shut it down and no more enterprise happens. Hi ho hi ho, no more work to off you go. As mechanical or controlling as it can sound, life is like businesses. The business of economic survival but also joy, comfort, security of knowing you are not penniless or just not sure where your next meal is coming from or where you will sleep tonight. Self reliance and being in control of your own destiny not a burden on someone else is the goal. Not oppressed and wondering how did this happen to poor little ole me. Living well on minimum wage takes patience, practice, study of how others get more for less. And it is easier to pull off in a small rural state like Maine where less is more. And you hone your skills to have more than one discipline to pull your through.

The Amish Freeway, Heading To Church Several Times In One Day.

Lazy is not a disability and is a choice to avoid taking the steps to help pull yourself up out of the muck.

Don’t rock the boat and everyone lean going into the next curve. Easy does it, a day at a time and goals of not staying in the up against it because you learn how to best manage your resources of time, money, talents. You know how to weather storms outside your home and inside your life. Read more on trade outs, bartering in Maine. You need no money, you share a talent or an already owned asset that is worth what you want swapped in the exchange.

You have little money but are grateful and rich in spirit.

Happy with what you do have that is more than enough. Or is your attitude you will never have enough money and there will always be something you want that you can not afford. What motivates you? What is your definition of poverty or wealth? We are talking beyond money in a bank account or your stock securities portfolio. We are not referring to spending money to impress or for status. Your impulse control to spend or not to spend is like dieting or quitting smoking. It is a choice. The approach to your spending that defines all the financial transactions as something you really need or are they an item or service you just want with overwhelming desire.

The Sweet Stuff, Rock Maple Sap That Boils Down 40 To 1 For The Golden Mixture To Ooze On Your Maine Blueberry Pancakes. All Homemade And Better Than The IHOP Stack.

When you have the money to make the purchase today it removes the wishing and wanting galloping gimmees because you don’t.

Your impulse control to spend improves because you want the item or service but at the best price. That is just good business and whoever you buy from has to run their operation without slack or waste so they can remain competitive.

You can not just keep raising your prices to overcome poor resource management. You don’t have a monopoly. You are not a king or queen or dictator. Read more on duplication of services in small rural Maine towns. Otherwise it becomes a sinking ship, the population numbers bleed out and bye bye small Maine community.

School consolidations, greater group purchasing and regional economic development, police central dispatching, public town work crews sharing equipment between municipalities all has to happen. To avoid wasteful duplication of service spending. Like not now, but right now. By not waiting so it is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic waste of time when there is none left to shape the best decisions on the local level that everyone can live with in time as reality sets in during reflection. And survival mode kicks into full gear to look for any other slack that can be snip-snipped. Liked pruning a tree to protect its life and make it flourish in time.

Happy Coffee, Warm Up Your Hands, Heart, Let the Buzz Give You A Kick In The Pants.

Could you live well on minimum wage?

Already at a stage in your life where you have had all the toys and trickets? Not just beginning the journey of life after the parents ease you out of the nest. But do you remember the happiest days of your life were when you were starting out and had little but appreciate every new purchase whether ne or second time around used? Remember, over half of Maine is already in the UT, the unorganized territories where there is not much local identity and home town proud. The control is handed over to the state of Maine and one of the sixteen counties to run their show. Too many surrendering towns, plantations and settlements has Maine lawmakers concerned as deorganization steps are underway in the legislature.

Over 41 independent communities in Maine have shuttered, nailed up the town office windows and doors in the last 100 years. The rising cost of government mixed with the declining population is a deadly cocktail to swallow. Replacing shrinking woods and farm jobs with something to pay the bills is the other side of the coin. That just hammers home the point of how important it is to be thrifty from the grassroots up to the state and federal level. To turn around the loss of population every time the US Census people show up for a head count.

Could you live well on minimum wage?

Comfortable and enjoying life’s small simple pleasures. Removing debt and making it pretty much cash and carry only living for you, your family? Hunger improves the taste and you won’t stay that way when you become resourceful and adapt at stripping away the non-essential that can rob your life of the real things in life to pursue that surround us. You could make more money living outside of Maine but you are going to need it and then some to exist, just survive. Get more for less of what should be the most important when considering family values, being involved and needed in your small community and the reward of outdoor recreation in Maine. Ever dream about that?

Maine has affordable housing, low or no cost four season recreation, low crime, no traffic and simple approach to living. It is clean, not crowded and folks pitch in are define the community they call home no matter how big or small. Maine, is it what is missing. Is it time? Is it today to reduce it all down and build it back up with a healthier approach to living in Maine, the way life should be?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

March 4, 2018
Delayed Learning, Catching Up Later On For Missing Childhood Lessons.

Maine. Practical, simple ways of performing routine tasks.

Natural short cuts and knowing what happens if you don’t take them. When you grow up in Maine, the rural living prepares you for so much. That you only really appreciate when you leave Maine and end up in an urban areas where not everyone is crossed trained. Not everyone learned carpentry skills, how to work on mechanics, and all the practical ways to approach everything you do in life.

Not Losing Old Ways Of Doing Things. Maine Is The Blend Of Old And New. The Pace Slow Enough For Pleasure Horses For Example. Or Working Ones Too.

It is easy living in Maine to figure everyone on the planet third from the Sun had the same on the job training for life growing up.

Folks that went to city jobs after the war ended because local employment was sagging found out quickly how much they were worth to a factory. Because you were asked in line as job applicants who is from Maine? Hands go up, the Maine applicant for the job was hired over someone not from the Pine Tree State. Because it was a given that work ethic came ingrained inside each and every individual from Maine’s DNA.

So back to the basics, the simple way of life in Maine where less complicated is always the best pathway to take.

Where doing things without pressure and last minute gun to your head urgency is the plan Stan. We are prepared, we live like we are ready for the worse but hoping for the best. We are grateful for however it turns out because positive attitudes keep folks working together. To avoid bogging down and getting mired down in negativity. Common sense still works and is applied through out the villages of rural Maine. Simple does work best.

Living Like The Locals, Seeing What’s Special In Maine Swapping The Use Of Your Home Out Of State. Ever Thought About Vacation Exchange Using Your Home?

Do the best you can with what you have and make it better than it was. If it is to be it is up to me approach to tackling anything coming at you. Rather than who do I blame, or hang ringing and running in circles with high emotion Chicken Little, The Sky is Falling drama. We try to be the Little Red Hen. Keep working, stay productive, make your efforts count.

Less clutter is part of revamping your life.

And stepping back to see how you tackle life chores. Do you make it complicated or easy? And algorithms … is what to do regulated by lots of back room, behind the scenes simple codes of if then statements to ride herd on the data?

Trying to save time by over simplify can back fire and end up giving you results that causes more work to untangle when a human asking questions and the answers directing where you end up for the best solutions.

Maine has more space, less traffic, 4th lowest crime stat too. There are four seasons, lots of waterfront, heavily forested, working farm sections that dot the landscape. Less people, less pollution and a lower cost of living makes the backdrop of Maine pretty darn attractive.

Ever filled out a form or answered an online survey where none of the answers really worked best?

How’s This For a Back Drop Reading Your Favorite Book In Maine?

Flawed navigation of the data collecting processing does not help. Nothing works like the face to face hearth felt discussion where you see the wrinkle of the forehead, eyes not looking directly at you and darting away. Where the non-verbal cues and voice inflections tell more than any sentence alone can deliver.

Maine, where we have slow cooked food and not the fast kind. Where we don’t always multi task and savor the moment. Because all the natural beauty helps suspends and stop the World with a quiet that allows you to think clearly.

Ever been to Maine?

Make the room in your schedule. Don’t put it off. Or maybe it is preaching to the choir. Hasn’t it been way way too long since you visited Vacationland?

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

August 16, 2017