Handcrafted home made in Maine.
Little things, like scotcharoos and whoopie pies pasted down family recipes. The tray you need to return when empty that came filled with cinnamon buns, yeast rolls, flaky biscuits, fruit explosion squares. Anything homemade not store bought off the shelves is pretty popular on the local level of wherever you live in small town Maine. When one by one the local Maine community steps up to create the signature dish everyone asks for in their family. That gets put on the local fundraising stage to raise money for another worthwhile cause.
Maine simple living is all about hand crafted from home made in the kitchen food goodies.
Hit ’em in the stomach is not a cheap shot and always works best for fund raising. For providing the covered dish dropped off with heating instructions for tonight’s meal for someone sick or on the mend. To help out the family hold down the daily routine with aid from others out in the community.
All those built from hand crafted home made in Maine scratch items not mass produced from China that are not available from Amazon, Overstock or Ebay cyber storefronts.
Just got off a Facebook silent auction for donated food items and local business service certificates raising money for a local Maine school project graduation. Handcrafted home made in Maine. The wildlife already know those wild apples, strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, black berry naturally made by Mother Nature Maine snacks.
The value goes up when you know the Maine chef or cook.
When there is a local cause attached in the fund raising it takes the bidding to a whole new level. COVID has made many forced to retreat and retrench in their own homes to spend more time in their kitchen. Exploring and discovering the joy of cooking. That only doubles and triples when what is created with your own two hands is used as a local fundraising merchandise.
The beautiful hand knit wood mittens with matching scarf and hat.
The by hand not a long arm loom quilt that is one of a kind special. The time to create whatever is given away makes the bidder after it appreciate the quality and value even more when you know the creator. The pie of your choice made especially for you the high bidder tastes even sweeter when you have met the cook.
Living in Maine is a lot about home grown, hand crafted do it yourself approach to everything around you.
Part of it is the satisfaction of creating it yourself. Another reason is don’t turn to the wallet or open up the purse to just pay for something when you could make some just as good or better without the swipe of a credit card.
Reaching into your pocket for the money to buy something makes the point of purchase a lot more real.
The pain of letting go of hard earned funds at the time of money exchange can help develop spending impulse control. To wait and see if a better deal comes along. Or is this a momentary gotta have it or just want it need? More on frugal living in Maine.
Every Christmas season my mom would create the largest array of home made pies, pastries, cookies and delicious morsels. Confectionery sugar involved, lots of green and red colors versions of the natural sweetener used liberally.
Handcrafted home made in Maine. Mocca balls rolled in coconut. Star and Christmas tree shaped butter cookies decorated with grandchildren helping supply the icing artwork. Divinity white, chocolate and peanut butter fudge cut in cubes. Peanut brittle tucked on the plate like stacked puzzle pieces. The smaller the Maine town the better the way the locals treated others out in the community.
Date and raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, peach, lemon flavored oatmeal and molasses cookies.
The kind you don’t see racked and stacked with the Keebler or Nabisco or generic store brand association. Where no two are exactly the same shape but all are unique handcrafted home made tasty melt in your mouth creations.
One of a kind and the special freshly prepared Christmas holiday platters created slowly and plastic wrapped or hidden in protected decorative tins.
Whoever got one of the Christmas doses of home made cookies made in the Maine farmhouse kitchen pantry appreciated them. Felt among the privileged. Those delectables became Christmas tradition for the cook and the receivers. Mom AKA Nana is gone. But the mental sight of her in her Christmas pattern apron. All those years worth’s of holiday memories seeing her create holiday magic in the Maine farmhouse pantry kitchen. What she distributed town wide lives is sadly missed.
Photos taken in some corner of Maine and placed in special frames.
Wrapped in tissue paper of red, green and white to drag out the opening the ribbon and bows to see what was inside. Someone took the time to create the gift. The ones opened up, dug into and enjoyed surrounded by the trappings of Christmas bright lights, pretty shiny bows and ribbons.
Like the person created card that goes with handcrafted home made in Maine not plucked from a Hallmark revolving metal rack or long row of expensive mass produced sentiments.
Maine setting seasonal photos with or without loved ones in them are special items to create and wrap for under the tree gift giving.
Slow cooked and from the heart always leaves the last minute store bought experience in the dust. It stands out and shows someone really cares and went the home made put on the kitchen apron route.
Or worked days with the finding just the right yard and pattern to pearl one, knit two something to match a coat. Care and attention increases your admiration for someone and boosts the real value of the treasure gifted. When the recipient of the gift is an elderly lives alone neighbor, family member or friend, what’s offered can have no nutritional value. But instead is a cord of wood cut, split and delivered for the kitchen or cellar heater stove. Or IOU to bank the house for winter, to be the handyman to hammer away at new steps, inside home repairs.
Local Maine communities help those who live within the small town boundaries.
We struggle, maintain and triumph together. And when a COVID19 happens, it is not so hard an adjustment. You quickly shift gears and know what to do. Help others. It makes the kettle bell ringing for the Salvation Army cause even more important. Bundle up, head outside and help raise funds for those who need it most.
I think hardships endured growing up make your more resilient and resourceful.
You have a wealth of experiences to draw from to know your job when a crisis hits a Maine community. Instead of hand wringing or whining or blaming someone, we get to work. Chiseling out a solution and the work around to do the best we can to not just get to the other side. But to quickly see the best course of action in our day to day to conquer the obstacle life setback.
We rely on the handcrafted and home made in Maine that is dependable and will last. There when you need it lasting if you just respect and take care of it. Knowing money comes hard for you and other. To dash out and replace things is not the way to slash and burn, eat drink and be merry in Maine.
Plowing, shoveling out the yard and steps of a neighbor. Mowing their lawn, asking if they need anything at the local grocery store. All those behind the scenes private gestures in a small Maine town are just what people do.
This sense of community and helping is one of the many attractions to living in Maine.
Had a lady call me this morning from Morrill Maine who moved there from Long Island, NY about fifteen years ago. She said she was looking for a land investment and surfing the net to discover new areas of Maine to make it. I asked her isn’t Long Island NY known for its large potato farms.
She said it was and how it broke down was in the south fork of Long Island you had your Hamptons and rich hoity toity blue bloods. In the south fork we the poor as church mice Puritans and that did the farming. Until everything got developed as the property taxes drove the farming operations out and one by one there go the vineyards too. Replaced with McMansions and commercial developments.
This woman wants a 100 acres in Northern Maine to raise some critters.
Shifting her focus from horses to cows. And buying the Maine land investment as a hedge, as a vacation place. And because she feels her area of Maine is changing. She told me a friend told her Maine does not really start until you hit the Kennebec River and above.
The desire to Maine farmland to homestead and not just for vacation use for fishing and hunting is increasing. Not folks wanting to wrangle large sprawling Maine farm operations but that desire to just grow what they consume. Peddle a little bid of the excess to keep the wolf with the bills away from their door. While back home on the farmstead the buildings are one by one handcrafted and home made in Maine constructed DIY style. Pay as you go rather than saddled with a 30 or longer year mortgage attached to the Maine farm property lifestyle.
A better way, saner way and healthier way of simple living in Maine is catching on.
COVID has just sharpened the focus on where to live and why as people reflect is it time to move and how about Maine? I hear good things about Maine, that beautiful state larger than all the other New England collection combined. Most of what is here is hand crafted and home made to last.
Here a property you can leave your shoes on and take a peek at what you get if you can see yourself living in Maine.
Picture what life here in Maine would be if you bought this current property real estate listing video.
Maine, like any place it is not for everyone.
But it sure is the perfect fit for many when the timing is right to get while the gettin’ is good. Thinking of Maine a lot more now? Like what you remember from your time in Vacationland during a handful of too short vacations? Want to come, maybe for good or at least half the year in Maine? Instead of where you live now? But suffocating while waiting for answers to red hot burning questions needing to be addressed? The COVID pandemic is easier to side step and avoid catching the virus. No matter if you think you could lick it or not.
Let’s shoot the breeze about Maine weather, what’s it like being a border town with Canada.
Or how many barrels of potatoes I could pick, what are local Maine schools like, anything on your mind needing answers. Crime is the 4th lowest for the country. No we don’t have gangs or drive by shootings. Locked doors, what are those?
Here to help and sincerely offer what I do know about Maine as a life long native resident with the inside tract from years of experiences. Thank you for reading this blog post on the little things, like home made Christmas goodie packages exchanged and enjoy this festive time of the year. Nothing compares with handcrafted home made in Maine anything.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com | MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA