Well in part one I told you all about the people at the auction, but I wanted to tell you about everything else there too. So, back to the auction!

There were four different rings going at the same time. One was just for horses and wow there were a lot of them. I could have stayed there all day just looking at all of the different horses and enjoying how they described them as they showed them. "Bell is a 3 year old mare from Ed Yoder’s farm. She is a fine buggy horse. Drives for both men and women. Traffic safe. Can handle going 18 miles at a time." And they were really honest too. If the horse had ever been injured, they would mention it or if it spooked at loud noises, they’d tell that too. I suppose within those tight knit communities they don’t want to sell someone a horse that could be a danger to someone else. I really liked that. It was funny though. Some of them put ribbons and such in the horses hair, while others didn’t even seem to give a good brushing. They had everything from miniature horses to Belgiums. Oh, it was a horse lover’s dream.

Another ring was for all of the chickens, rabbits and the such. You’ve never seen the like of all the different breeds of chickens, turkeys, guineas, peacocks, quail, ducks, geese and rabbits. There were just wall to wall cages under this big shelter. Did you know that peacocks can travel in bags? They would stick the head out of the drawstring end and then the back of the bag was open for the tail feathers. I hadn’t ever seen that before. Some of the roosters were so funny trying to stick their necks out through the top as they crowed. And the auctioneer just kept right on going right through all of the clucking, crowing and the such.

The next auction was for household items. That one wasn’t as interesting, except for the old fashioned hand crank washing machines and wood cook stoves. The best part of that section was THE FOOD! They had all kinds of handmade bakery items - fried pies, cookies, muffins and the yummiest pretzels ever. Next to that they had homemade french fries all done by hand right there where you could watch. One woman sat there peeling the potatoes, then the old man would push them through a hand crank french fry cutter, and then they would be fried and served. Absolutely de-lish! They also had barbeque chicken and other assorted yummies, but we were all full of pretzels and french fries. Dr. Atkins would SO not approve!!

Then you could walk through rows and rows of tractors, lawn mowers, tillers, building supplies and assorted stuff that I didn’t know how a person would use. The auction there was just gathered around the back of a pick up truck where the auctioneer was and we could barely see so we didn’t hang around there too much. Nope we didn’t find a tractor. There were some there, but we didn’t feel comfortable with the whole auction process. Tony and I both agreed that we both prefer buying something with a price tag, rather than having to sit through a whole auction waiting for it to come up. We heard people saying that things were going sort of high though so I guess it was a good day at the auction for the sellers.

All in all, it was a wonderful day and a wonderful experience. With all different kinds of people, animals and equipment, it was a lot of different sights, smells and sounds. We loved it and can’t wait to go again. Even if we did come home empty handed.