The term home grown extends way way beyond just where the food comes from that you serve up, put down on the family table.

What you cultivate on the local level is a known product though and takes away the mystery of where did this stuff come from anyway?

But the attitude of doing things local, everything local has to happen in a small Maine town.

Because if spending was not done locally, instead outside the economy of the small Maine community, it would cease to exist. Or the day to day quality of life would suffer.

Because the flow of money to feed all in the small Maine town would be cut off and stranded. The population would drop off as the census number of residents bleeds out. Did a blog post on the importance of using local resources in our real estate job.

In small towns you become protective, strive to preserve what is special where you are lucky enough to live on the map in Maine.

In a city, it might not even be considered so important whether you bought the car locally or out of town, out of state. As long as you got the best deal. Or thought you did.

Part of the roaming online to shop is motivated by the almighty dollar. But the habit of leaving a small Maine town to buy a product or service is one sure way to harm the local economy. There is something to volume that a larger market provides to whittle away on the price tag that tells you how deep to reach to cough it up. Open wide and say “ahhhhh”. But do you even need it comes into play. Better impulse control for the spending in small Maine towns happens.

The what is important if you live in a city and comparing that list with the one held in a small Maine town is so different.

Your happiness, your survival, your emotional and financially condition is fed differently. On a small Maine farm, you can get excited about your chickens that put themselves to bed. Are pretty low maintenance but are being eyed by a fox that sees them as individual fresh, never frozen chicken dinners.

You the homesteader building a farmstead in Maine likes the manure they create as they hunt and peck around the barn yard. Adding soil amendments and rich nutrients to the landscape you scrape, rock pick, cultivate and hoe to hopefully harvest something bountiful. To feed yourself, to sell to others what you don’t need.

In a city you are 10 and 2 in grid lock and hot under the collar when traffic on the expressway slows to a crawl.

Or to nothing at all as a wrecker is called, a meat wagon or hearse to clean up the next accident you come up on as you take the long journey home. In a city, you get excited about an open parking space, or owning a coveted one for $30,000. Purchased to be able to leave your car close to where you live.

In a small Maine town, help yourself. Parking is free, everywhere. Less people, less problems is a big part of it. When you boil it all down. You don’t worry about crime in the 4th lowest state for it either.

The ride to and fro to work in a city. Seems long, time consuming. That in reality is just a few miles but with an obstacle course of congestion to contend with every day. In the small rural Maine community, what is traffic? There is no need to remove the keys from the ignition, to lock up the doors or be concerned about someone heisting, boosting your ride either.

You work the local community events and help put together the behind the scenes parts of the production whatever it is.

From a community supper for a cancer survivor and their family to help out.

Or to pitch in and build a play ground, something else needed in the small Maine town. Rising to the occasion because everyone else who lives in the small Maine burg does too.

It feels good, was taught as a knee jerk reaction to see a need by parents, grandparents. Volunteer for others. It is a way of life that seems down home to a Mainer, like a fish out of water to someone that at first glance thinks hokey, unrewarding or a waste of time. Try it, you might like it city mouse. There is life beyond the pushing through crowds, trying desperately not to make eye contact and mostly looking down to seem nondescript.

The outdoor living, fresh air, clean water and space is what energizes in small Maine town living. In a city, space is found at one park. That’s all she wrote unless you can get out of the city. And get to a place like Maine, the way life should be. As often as you can.

Have you been away a tad too long or are you just new to these parts? Come see what you are missing in Maine, the way life should be. Still in.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com | 

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730