All About ME

Haha, clever, huh? I liked Alex and Maigie's post about Oregon when they moved out there, so I thought I'd do one All About Maine.

Population in the year 2004: 1,317,253

There are 41 people per square mile. (In Wisconsin, there are 98 people per square mile, and more specifically in Waukesha there are 3,000)

The people who live here are called 'Mainers'.

Maine has 3,500 miles of coastline, 6,000 lakes and ponds and 17 million acres of forest.

Portland is the biggest city (population: 63,882 in 2004) and Augusta is the State Capitol.

The state animal is the moose.

The state bird is the chickadee, which is featured on the general license plate, which Mike and I now have on our cars (By the way, registering your car in Maine is quite a bit more expensive than in Wisconsin).






Pine trees are popular. Maine is The Pine Tree State, the state flower is the White Pine Cone, and the state tree is the White Pine. A Pine tree is featured on the license plate as well as on the State Flag along with a moose and the state motto 'Dirigo' - 'I lead'.









Maine Products include:










Blueberries - 98% of the nation's low bush blueberries are from Maine











Lobsters - 90% of the nation's lobsters are caught off the coast of Maine









Potatoes - Maine is in the top three potato producing states in the country.









Tourmaline - Maine is one of the best places in the US to mine tourmaline (also the state mineral), and samples from Maine are in museum collections around the world. Tourmaline is found in every color of the rainbow, and Maine mines set the standard for non-chrome green colored tourmaline.

Tides: There are two high tides and two low tides every day, each separated by about six hours. So it goes high tide, low tide, high tide, low tide, all with about 6 hours between them. The time of high tide occurs about an hour later every day. So if high tide was at noon today, it would be at about 1pm tomorrow, give or take. The newspaper prints tide charts along with the forecast so you can plan your beach outing. I had no idea about most of this.

Climate: Maine summers are cooler, highs top out around 80 degrees. Our neighbors tell us its very rare for temperatures to get to 90, but not so rare to have some 50-60 degree days thrown in. Fall colors begin around October 1st and we hear they are spectacular (so plan your visits, everyone!). Winters are cold, but by no means Wisconsin Cold. Average temperatures bottom out around 15 degrees. Maine gets quite a bit more snow, however.

Maine actually can be hit by hurricanes. Over the past 360 years, Maine gets about one hurricane every eight years. However since 1960, the average is more around one hurricane every two years.

Interesting stuff!