REALTOR Andrew Mooers' Maine Real Estate Blog

Living On The Canadian border, a person can take for granted how easy the back and forth border crossing is here. Not like that everywhere inborder towns and have seen tightened security. Extra officers on US side, dogs sniffing and sometimes heightened security measures. Have two boys that play hockey and other than one team in Presque Isle Maine, all the other minor hockey level games are in Canada..sometimes four times a weekend trips across the border that is a mile and a half away.  So...you came north..with your Dodge mini-van and the big Thule casket on top to carry everything you own from home...you stay on I-95 passing the Houlton primary exit 302 and tool along with the radio blaring, the kids singing and the dog barking.  Oh oh..did you have some paperwork for Rover?  Aside from that issue and shots, etc..you turn down the radio, you feel some rumble strips as you approach the Houlton port of entry which you slowly pass as you head to the red maple leaf flagged port.  You don't stop at the US port leaving the country.  My advice is roll all the windows down to show 'em you're going to make their job easy.  A helpful fellow or lady will say Bonjour and Hello and ask where is everyone from.  Being a joker and indicating Saturn or Venus is not a good idea.  She has a gun, a bullet proof vest and there is a long line of cars behind you ready to lynch mob you if the delay is too long.  "All american citizens? Where are you planning to go?  How long do you plan to be in Canada?  Anything to declare..carrying any firearms, tobacco or alcohol?"  Again, don't utter a wise crack about if the Uzi under the seat counts.  Yes and no, thank you and short answers.  Then you are out of there.  After January of next year, passports were the extra rule of thumb for what's needed but that is getting lots of debate.  Everyone locally had ID's anyway because when you are racing to a hockey game two hours into the Canadian province of New Brunswick..you don't want delays at the border.  Birth certificates a good idea and if you have another person child as a friend of your own along for the trek...get his birth certificate, note and contact numbers from his parents, etc. Coming back thru, same questions. But if you bought something,  how much did I buy, and remember to stop into the Canadian Duty Free store to get back your HST tax which is pretty hefty if you brought alot of trinkets!

Since 911, Homeland Security has added over 80 new jobs to the Houlton port of entry. You have immigration for identity and country of origin questions/concerns and customs for all that product being trucked back and forth in addition to making sure you pay a little duty if applicable.  $400 dollars a day per person for each day you are in Canada can be brought back duty free though and that first day starts as soon as you enter.  You could turn right around, hitting the Canadian Duty Free place that has some pretty nice and pricey jewelry, cologne and fine candies, crystal and other things you can not live without when on vacation and the money is flowing freely.  Imported wines and spirits also well stocked and ready to follow you home.  Just declare what you bought and show them the slip at the Houlton US port of entry.  I-95 connects to the trans Canada highway and traffic moves very easily! The other side of this boundary marker says Canada and the International Boundary Commission does a great job keeping the border path well marked. Border Patrol and lots of sensors, two planes and other hi tech devices make sure everyone knows who is who on the border!

The biggest expression that makes me wonder about the person saying it and I know I know it gets used alot...is "Well...To be honest with you....."  I always hope they are being honest with me all the time.  I wondered when I hear it if they are really being honest now, or when do they start being honest...and what are they really saying.  It makes you think of what they were just talking about and reconsidering if maybe that was not honest.  Or it is just said like "you seem like a good guy, and I'll level with you...be honest with you..a straight shooter on the skinny on this or that". There are the other expressions about "not having to be a rocket scientist, thinking outside the box and have no clue" that get way over used.  In Maine, for awhile there everything was "Wicked.."  Or WICK-ked...meaning some kinda cunning chummy.  Maine humorist Tim Sample has a slug of them and was actually raised for part of his childhood I learned the other day in Fort Fairfield which is in Aroostook County. He has one liner that refers to one of his favorite songs of the Dubious Brothers from Lewiston that is "If You Want To Keep Your Six Pack Cold, Put It Next To My Ex Wife's Heart"! The downeaster lingo is usually along the coastal sections while northern Maine was either French acadian or precise English due to Canadian proximity and the direct English heritage as a commonwealth for many years.               Any rainers have expressions that make them feel like finger nails stratching across a black board or that just gets over used in the circles they travel in?  Post 'er here!  Realtors themselves are famous for catch phrases "Dirty But Nice", Easy Own Mortgage, Country But Near Town For Best Of Both Worlds, etc. FSBO, ARM, FmHA, VA, escrow, easement, Fannie Mae, Ginny Mae And Sally Mae.  Sometimes wonder who actually thought of the anacronyms for the letters but they are easier to remember and friendly sounding for buzz words that you need to know. 

What's For Afternoon Snack...Well This Half Dozen Deer Were Captured Eating Potatoes Left Over The Winter In A Field In Crystal Maine!  Eat Too Many And Major Gas And Bloating.  Some Local Farmers Over Did It With Little Potatoes, Known As "B"'s That Are Only Used In Soups Or Chowders And Have Lost Cows From Major Gas.  And Your Thought You Were The Only One Affected By Certain Foods.  Its Like Feeding A Horse Too Much Rich Cover When They Are Not Used To It! Deer Are Plentiful And Prevalent In Aroostook County Maine! Black Bear, Moose, Pheasants, Patridge And Other Small Animals Fill The Woods In Towns Where Human Population Is Small Or Non Existent! Red Deer Are Domestically Raised Too In New Limerick Maine Where Meat Is Free Of Any Chemically Altered Feed And Horns Are Used By Chinese As An Aphrodesiac!

Property with fireplaces, marble sinks, tin ceilings..zero right in on the feature rather than just a room shot.  Do both unless you are stingy with your digital imagery...play up the features up close and personal. Zero right in on the feature.  Many properties are Olive Oil Plain Jane so you are struggling to come up with eye candy for the viewer.  When you have the features, crank that zoom lens in and capture them. Don't just take room images and hope the viewer sees the feature in the corner...make the feature the full frame "story"!

       Digital photos are not costly.  Take a slug of them and sort 'em out back at the office.  Like a ball team, plan to use these stars in first attack...and then line up what other "face cards" are you going to use for reinforcement.  This will tell the viewer that this is the place ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.  This is the one they buy because of the sizzle, the excitement.

Want To Spend Another Summer Broiling In The City Or Dream Of Owning A Lakeshore Hideaway?  Thought So.  Make This The Year You Vacation On A Lake  In Northern Maine!  Eventually Live Here Half The Year, And Spend Winters In Florida Or Some Other Sun Belt State!  Now You're Talking...Stone Fireplace For Santa If You Stay All Four Seasons! 2 Full Baths For All That Company And Family! Hammock For Napping! Fish! Kayak! Water Ski! You've Earned The Peace And Quiet! Spoil Yourself Here On This Log Lake Retreat! Full Cellar Too! Or Rent It Out For Big Bucks!  Let Us Email You More Images On This One!

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Good for you! Are you sure you have the rest of the family on board with this vision...this new way of life that is not all glamorous? The unknown weather patterns are the biggest obstacle to your day to day now that you've decided to give up your inside desk job.  If you are raising crops, you have to work around the hectic spring planting and rushed harvest time.  You can have a day all planned and the early morning weather suddenly shakes you like an etch-a-sketch to quickly rethink on your feet and move in another direction in another area of the farm needing your attention.  What to plant...what do you have for storage and for a market? How far are you from the market and how do you deliver it? What equipment do you need to plant, cultivate and hoe and harvest this crop? How much labor is needed and how large is your family?  What is the price you can reasonably expect for the produce hoping the yield is large but that somewhere else in the country there was not a banner year and a shortage for what you raised exists.  Sounds mean spirited but a farmers best years are when there is a drought, shortage or disasterous growing season somewhere else in the nation.  It works both ways and those farmers eighteen states away benefit from your misfortune too.  It's part of the game of farming.  Are you going to grow food for local roadside and farmer's market consumption?  Are you going to have U-pick for those strawberries, apples, etc or are you simply growing a 1000 to the acre christmas trees seedlings for cut-your-own at christmas?  The tree farmers don't have a ton of money in equipment and start after Halloween cutting, wrapping and bundling to ship on flat beds to the cities.  What aphid do you have to worry about spraying for, when do you trim the top of the tree to avoid double points,  when do you spray and what does it cost?  Of if organic platform to the operation, when was the last time this soil has had pesticides, etc. Has it been seven years?  Where is thelocal USDA soil conservation office anyway Martha ? (reaching for phone book).

Or are you going to try your hand at critters?  Raising replacement milkers, beef cattle, goats, alpachas, chickens, pigs, red deer or even pheasants for state release? Again, how much land will you need, is there a building suited for your use on the farm or farmette you contemplated buying and if not, how deep are your pockets, what is the reasonable expectation for return on investment if you build new?  Are you going going to run a dairy farm...seven days a week?  Where is the closet dairy?  Maine has four and Houlton Maine is lucky enough to have Houlton Farms Dairy as an outlet for how ever many hundred weight of milk you can produce.  Milking parlor, stanchions with watering bowls, stainless steel tanks, glass lines, do you know what you are getting into?  Pole barns with shelter from wind and rain for the livestock.  Where is the nearest vet? Selenium for white muscle disease? And you give the shots or make sure a salt/mineral block is handy for the Durhams, Holsteins, Black Angus or prize line horses to keep healthy? Didn't mention that on the half hour show on Public Broadcasting on farming you watched last sunday..one of the details they had to leave on the editing room floor in show production I guess. Manure spreaders, fencing, haying, tractor breakdowns, purchasing new attachments, reroofing the barn, insuring the machine shed and chicken house...get out your yellow legal pad and make a list.  And how old are you anyway?  Feeling older as your consider this new livelihood? Or now thinking just have a chicken, a pony, a barn cat and a hunting dog and call it good? Maybe a 12x12 garden to round it out? Or rent out the land and buildings to a farmer down the road so you can look over the operation of farming...but not getting your hands dirty or bank account tapped with start up capital? Is this something you could have kick started twenty years ago but not now with your back ailment or bad shoulder starting to reach for the Bag Balm or Ben Gay?  "When it hurts, it helps." This is good honest but hard physical labor.  Humbling, with some new machinery advances to ease the load. But you may be using the older technology  to stay small with old John Deere and Farmall tractors of the 1940's.  Cheaper to buy, fun to service but on the lower budget scheme of things you had in your mind when you pondered the farm life you remember at grandparents each summer when you visited from the city? How sweet or sour is the soil? Do I need so many tons of lime to sweeten the soil?  What PH does this crop need anyway (reading box of seeds slowly, squinting wit the fine print..)  Do you have to clear some rocks or trees that grew back over the years?  Do you own a D-6 or want one for christmas? Again, costs, how large a scale farm are you really thinking of getting into?  Is you partner on board with all this?

Tax benefits? Yes farming is great for that. Lots of expenses, depreciation schedules, money going out.  So it this off setting a home run you have hit in another employment endeavor?  Talk to your tax expert to learn about structuring this one for next April 15th before next April 15th rolls around.

Crop rotation so the soil does not get worn out, renting extra ground, is half your farm pasture or tilable fields? More questions...and you thought of just sitting on the front porch with iced tea watching a sunset planning your next easy day on the farm?  Hobby farm or full time pay the bills operation?  Tread lightly old man!  For $150,000 you can buy a 40 acre spread, with big barn, brook, three bedroom home on side road and woods/cleared fields.  Or you can buy a 300 acre operation with storage sheds, multiple buildings and a half million dollar or higher price tag in Northern Maine.  Let us know if you need help with your homework!

     No doubt, where ever you live, you think your hometown and state and county are the best in the land.  Is part of it pride because you have lived there so long and have a sense of loyalty to the place?  Or do you consider yourself overall  smarter than the average bear and of course you scoped it out and decided this is the place to hang your hat, raise your family and prepare to meet your maker in the relatively short time we are on planet earth? Whatever the reason, I think Maine is a pretty special place and has a good overall image in a person's brain when they learn "Oh...you are from Maine".  Click the state to learn the basics on what this state in the right  hand corner of the USA is from a factual standpoint.

Now, if you consider that the pace of life, the pursuit of the world's goodies has spoiled the heart and soul of what this country always stood for...you may agree with writer Herrick Kimball who's viewpoint is "that the rottenness of modern culture" has made  places like Maine with its agrarian back ground  a wonderful place to retreat and reconnect with the rural roots that everyone had  once upon a time. Everyone used to live in a small community that was filled with unqiue individuals that needed each other to survive and who offered something special to make that community one of a kind from their contributions and lifestyle examples. Click the Maine seal below to get a taste of his viewpoint.

Do you sponsor a little league team?  Or coach one?  If your child is on the team, might as well be helping coach and getting more involved.  You can have a busy day and be a little tired but by the time you change into shorts, grab a glove and the player, and hit the park, whole change of scenery and you left that busy day behind and are now having fun and getting exercise. State playoffs held in Oxford Maine.