LURE OF A COUNTRY AUCTION (part 7 )

                                                        BEST AUCTION PURCHASES

Early in our auction going days my husband was searching for a truck with a dump box on it.  He wanted to use it to haul rocks and sand to build a base for our 3/10 mile long driveway.  His idea was to buy an older truck and drive it up to the local sand pit owned by a pig farmer and fill the truck bed up by hand with a shovel and then come home and dump it where he wanted it.  I have always thought he was crazy for the old fashioned ideas he comes up with and this was about at the top of his crazy list.
So naturally we searched auction listings for the perfect dump truck and he found one listed at an upcoming sale about 50 miles southwest of home near a little town called Ettrick.  He decided to go look at the truck beforehand and took a good neighbor friend to check it out.  Trouble for me understanding it all was that his good friend was blind.
When we arrived at the farm where the truck was located the owner said we could inspect it but it was way off in an overgrown hayfield.  The truck was a 1942 Diamond T, with a flatbed on it that did dump.  It hadn’t been run in a long, long time and had wooden sides you could put on it with faded red lettering that read “People’s Ice & Coal Company”.  So there we were out in this hayfield, the blind friend crawling underneath the truck feeling all the joints, wheels, parts, and he’s telling us it’s a keeper, it’s a good solid truck, it’s just what you need.  And I’m thinking oh my gosh, this is crazy.

We came back on the day of the auction and bought that Diamond T truck for just over $400.00.  We had to get my brother to tow it home with his Chevy pickup truck because it wouldn’t start.  But it turned out to be one of the best purchases we ever made.  When the driveway was finished and many years passed we took the Diamond T to a consignment auction down in Richland Center and sold it at about the same price we paid for it.
My husband also found a tractor at an auction at Neillsville just on the edge of town.  It had belonged to a displaced farmer who was elderly.  The tractor was a Farmall B and came with a corn cultivator.  We left the cultivator behind because we didn’t need it or want it.  He drove the tractor 17 miles home and I followed in the car with the flashers going.  The Farmall was a steady eddy, and earned its keep through the years.  The only way to start it was with a hand crank and I always worried that my husband would break his arm starting it.  Luckily he never did.  We ended up selling the tractor for what we paid for it this past summer.
One of my favorite auction purchases was the red velour sofa we still have in our living room.  It was bought at what I call a “quality auction”.  That is when the merchandise is in tip-top shape, like new yet.  Often an auction like this is held when someone is moving or has a bad case of shop-itis and they want to get rid of their things and start shopping for all new things.  I bought our sofa for $20.00 up near Lake Dubay, and I have enjoyed it for many years.  I am perched on it with my laptop right now!  The sofa still looks like new, it was “quality” merchandise.  My husband’s aunt furnished much of her new house with items she bought at a “quality” auction, all with the Ethan Allen brand name.  She told me that was her favorite auction in her over fifty years of auction going.
In addition to most of the furnishings in our log home, one of our biggest auction purchases was a band saw sawmill.  My husband figured he was getting a good deal because a sawmill dealer who sold those types of mills was the second highest bidder dropping out just before him.  The mill has a 20 foot metal track that it slides on and an 8 hp Briggs and Stratton gasoline motor.  We slabbed off nearly all the logs and lumber to build our gambrel roofed pole barn with this mill and cut the lumber for the board and batton siding.  The saw mill has earned its keep and is ready to cut more lumber again some day.

HOARDER’S DILLEMA

Look at how neat that one is!

It’s just like mine, but I lost it.

I think I’ll buy it and put it there by

The one I forgot in my closet.

But wait, there’s no room in the closet

‘Neath the bed or behind the door.

Regardless I’ll find a place for this

Cause it goes with the ones from before.

Stuff sits on my shelves in boxes,

Been there for a long, long time.

The day may come when I’ll need it,

So I’ll save it until that time.

In my house on every flat service

In the spare room, the corners, and more

Are things I’ve been saving because

They’re easy to bring through the door.

I can think of a million excuses

To keep all the things that I have.

My favorite reason is this one…

I need each one really bad.

Although my world is filled up

And there is nothing that I’m without

I’ll keep collecting more things ‘til I die

Because, that’s what I’m all about.