Chapter 54

I was up, dressed and sipping coffee, when Mom and Sissy came from the hall. Rosita came out, too, and said to the two other women, "I do the milking now. If you want to help, you can."

Mom was about to break up as Rosita poured herself some coffee and sat next to me. Sissy said, "How about all of us doing it this morning so that Mom and Mike can get out of here early. One of us should stay inside to get breakfast ready?"

Mom said, "I'll stay in. I'm not that interested in getting cold and wet until I have to."

Shirley came from the bedroom, still in her gown and rubbing her eyes. She said, "Do you need help with the chores this morning?"

Mom laughed and told her, "Go put some clothes on so that we can make breakfast. Light the wood stove for me before you go out, Mike."

The wheels of our world had begun to turn. I lit the stove, worked my way past the stokers for the smoke houses, and into the barn where I put grain in the buckets for the cows in the milking parlor. I fed the deer after letting in the cows, and pulled a section of gate around to give the deer their own area to get grain. I was impressed that the fawn was playfully bumping into me like the original deer had done as a little one.

The does closely watched me while I played with the fawn. They had no comparison to know how I would react. I didn't know how I would react either. Who ever heard of raising wild deer?

The new steers in the barn were happy to get more grain and hay. There was no competition for food, so they could eat at their leisure. The steer that had given me trouble the day before gave me a head shake and snort to let me know he hadn't forgotten the way I treated him. Well, he wasn't getting out of his pen until it was time to be table fare.

Back inside after finishing the chores, Mom told me not to shower, but to go shave so that I looked reasonable. She told me a shower might make me colder later. I didn't think so, since I'd been in cold climates before and knew what to do to stay warm.

I made sure that Mom was wearing sufficient clothing and outerwear. We both wore warm waterproof boots so we wouldn't suffer the 'cold tootsie' syndrome. We left home with our soup and coffee early enough to get to the auction first.

There were exactly six pickup trucks in the parking area at eight o'clock. The farmer and auctioneer were watching the clock, and finally said that it was time to begin. They began selling the equipment first, as expected. Item after item was selling for half of what I thought it should sell for. When a twine and wire combination square baler came up for sale and the high bid was three hundred, I bid on it since that was too cheap. I ran the bid up to all of five fifty before it was awarded to me. I didn't mind as I felt that I could sell it if John had one that was better. A fairly new John Deere 7600 series tractor was put up a few minutes later, and only bid at a thousand dollars. I hollered, "And twenty-five" and waited to see if the other bidder was serious. He wasn't. I bought a twenty-thousand dollar tractor for a thousand twenty-five dollars.

Another five to ten pickups had arrived and registered during this time. Nothing else sold for next to nothing, so I didn't bid. There was no reason for me to buy anything, since I was fine as far as equipment was concerned.

Mom and I had some vegetable beef soup and more coffee when the auctioneer broke for lunch. You could almost see the farmer crying at his losses so far. We talked about how depressing this must be for the farmer and we both wondered what was behind him selling out completely. There are always so many reasons for someone willing to take a loss like this that it is difficult to speculate.

After lunch, I was surprised to hear lively activity for the sheep when the stock auction began. The goats appeared to be popular next, as they sold for more than I would have thought.

The ancient Holstein was next and brought better than utility beef.

The bull caused some ridiculous bidding that ended with the bull going for more than double what it should have been worth.

What happened next really surprised me. I thought there would be all of those same people bidding on the calves that were next.

I bid an opening of twenty-five each and was bid up to forty, where I bought them. Next were the un-bred cows that I stole, then the bred cows that went even lower, which was stupid.

We were finally down to the steers and bidding for each instead of per hundredweight for all. The opening bid was a hundred and all I did was holler "And twenty-five" to keep the bid steps lower. There were only four of us left bidding, and one of the others bid three hundred which I thought might be his way to scare me off, but I again said, "And twenty-five".

I figured to go all the way up to seven fifty, but when the guy said, "Three fifty" and I said "Three seventy-five" a few seconds later, the other bidder hung his head and turned away, heading for his pickup truck. Mom elbowed me and smiled, "You are even worse than your dad. You stole those steers, too. We are set, plus we have some breeding stock."

I had called the trucker to tell him we needed a big flatbed truck and a big stock trailer, so he showed up with his big tractor trailer and a flatbed. I settled up with the finance people and received the bill of sale so we could transport. We loaded the tractor and baler on the little truck, then loaded all of the stock into the big stock trailer.

It was still raining when we arrived at the house. I had the stock truck back into the big pasture and unloaded everything except the calves. We pulled around to the barn pasture, unloaded them, and let them into the other lean-to shed where we fed them some hay. They were very content to be fed and out of the weather.

We unloaded the tractor and baler, keeping the tarps over each. I figured that I might sell either or both at Saturday market, but held out that I might want to use them. I went out to the new pasture after settling up with the hauler, and made sure the new cattle had access to the hay and overhead shelter. The stock was getting along fine, so everything was okay.

Mom was inside, coming out from a warm shower and drying her hair when I came in the door. I thanked her for coming with me, and she said, "You were so much like your father today that I thought it was him who was there bidding. You bid a few men on equipment up and bought a couple of implements that I'm sure you don't think you needed, but were being sold for too little. The stock you bought was a great deal, and you'll be able to build a herd with them."

I went into the office to tally what I had spent and was pleased that it wasn't close to half of what I had expected. I reviewed the notes I had on other coming auctions to look for more Herefords for sale. There was one, but it was way north of Mount Sterling. They had both mid-feeding steers which would be about yearlings, calves, and a couple of breeding bulls that were listed as being older. The sale was on Friday, but we could look at them as early as tomorrow or all day Thursday.

They didn't say the quantities in any category, but intimated that this was a very large herd. This was probably going to be an auction where the big city auction buyers were the most visible.

I told Mom, "We should go look at what they have and see if we might want to bid. If we could pick up a few more heifers with calves, and about ten more steers, we would be good to go for next season. A bull would be nice, but we can always use artificial insemination. That's expensive, but maybe not as expensive as buying a bull."

Mom said, "Pray for rain, Son. We've seen that it pays to bid in the rain. Let's go look at what's available and decide."

The day before the auction we found the stock to be beautiful and very well fed when we arrived at the sale site. This stock was premium and would sell for big bucks. We looked at the different stock pens and tried to put a number on each group. We both agreed that this guy should be taking his stock to a city stock auction where he'd bring top dollar on every one of his animals.

Mom almost told me to forget it on the way home, because the stock was too nice and would be out of our reach. We were watching the news that night, and saw that there was going to be heavy rain and snow mixed in the area of the sale. Better yet, the rain and snow would be covering all of that area of the state.

I looked for a sale postponement, but there was none. I figured to check before we left in the morning, and hoped that we would be one of the few who braved bad weather.

Mom and I left after chores and breakfast, slowly going north in the heavy rain with snow flakes mixed in. We kept waiting for the roads to ice up, but no problem so far. We arrived at seven forty-five for the eight o'clock start time, and there was only one other pickup. A tent was over the auctioneer's platform that was outside the stock pens. The plan was to run the stock through the pens for bidding.

Mom and I were under the tent at eight, along with another guy holding a clipboard, and the auctioneer. He called for the first group of stock to be brought out.

These were bred heifers, not cows, but heifers. This meant that the heifers had several more calves to bear in building up a herd.

The auctioneer was begging for a bid, so I finally bid a hundred to get it started. The other bidder looked at me funny and bid one fifty. I bid one seventy-five, and it stayed there until the auctioneer finally awarded me twelve bred heifers for one seventy-five each.

I should have called the trucker and gotten out of there right then, but I had to see if there was another good deal.

Un-bred heifers were next. I bought those for ninety dollars each. That's better than calf price.

Next were older bred cows within four to nine months. I figured them anywhere over the calf price, but watched as the bid only went to a hundred-twenty-five. I bought those, too.

Mom asked me, "Where are you going to put all of these animals?"

I told her, "I don't know yet, but we can't pass up good beef that cheap."

The steers that were all around yearling figured to be the big deal. I held up my sign for a hundred when no one bid. Mom and I looked around for the other buyer and saw him huddled under another building, talking on the phone. I hollered at the auctioneer, "Hold on until the other guy comes back. It isn't much of an auction unless someone else bids."

The rain was coming down harder, as was the snow, when we watched the other buyer run for his pickup, get in, and drive away.

The auctioneer said, "Do you want these steers at that price?"

I nodded, and he said "Sold".

The last of the day was a nice looking bull complete with horns. Mom told me, "Cut his horns if you get that bastard. You'll have stock that's beat up if you don't, so buy him for beef, or cut his horns so he can breed. He is good looking."

The auctioneer said he was going to bid on the bull against me and went all the way up to four hundred until I bid four twenty-five. Mom was giving directions to the stock hauler, and telling him to bring two trucks to where the auction was, while I was paying for the stock.

The auctioneer wanted some beef, so we picked out a very fat, very prime yearling, and sold it to him for five hundred. He was at least five hundred ahead, and Mom and I were dancing in the rain and snow.

While dealing with the auctioneer, we found out what caused this auction. The farmer was in the hospital and none of his children were willing to come take care of the stock. The man's wife had just recently passed so he was not only alone but unable to take care of his animals.

It took a long time to load all the stock. No matter how many times we counted, we kept coming up with more steers than we had bought, and more bred cows than we thought. The calves were off by five in our favor, so we weren't unhappy there either.

We finally finished putting the new calves in with the other calves, and the older bred cows in with them. I put the bull in a pen in the barn until I could rid him of his horns, while the rest of the stock went into the new pasture. We were going to need a larger covered area to shelter the beef stock.

The hauler said that he had a lead on a lot of hay if I was interested. I told him it needed to be fertilizer free, and he thought it might be. He said he would go see the farmer and I could make a deal from there. I would need the hauler because the hay was in big round wrapped bales. I would have to have it hauled and put in an area where I could get at it.

That's when I remembered a piece of equipment that was still lying on the ground when we loaded the big John Deere at the earlier auction. I called the auctioneer, but he said he didn't care what was left up there. He did give me the farmer's number, but I got a "This number has been disconnected" when I called.

I jumped into my truck and drove to the farm at the far side of Pine Ridge. Laying there was a perfectly good round bale hydraulic fork and lift. I loaded it up and looked around. There were dozens of hand tools that were never sold, so I tossed them into the truck as well. That's when I got the idea to look in the barn. A very thirsty Angus steer was standing there next to a female that looked like she was going to drop a calf any second. Damn, taking someone's stock is rustling. I gave both of them water first, then found some grain and hay to put out.

I went out to my truck and called the County Sheriff. I told him what I found and asked him if he could call animal control. The man laughed and said, "We don't have one of those, Animal Control, I mean. Christ, we're a one-horse county that barely exists. Take them out of there if you want, or let them die otherwise."

Shit, that wasn't the right thing to tell me. I called my hauler friend and told him what I had. He said he would be up in an hour or so, but to look around to make sure that I wasn't leaving any other animals.

As it turned out, I found two more calves and a six month old Angus steer. How do you forget to take care of animals? I was almost ashamed to admit that I hadn't looked around to make sure the handlers were getting all of the stock into the display pen. This was another thousand dollars plus of animals that I had found. As I looked around, I found a front loader lift kit that would be good to clean out the manure from the lean-tos that I struggled to load into my pickup. There were more hand tools and a half dozen milk cans. My pickup was riding low by the time the trucker arrived. We loaded the livestock and I told him to go straight home. I would follow, but would be driving very slowly.

We didn't finish unloading the stock until after eight, but he didn't mind as I made sure he ate well. Mom made some of her outstanding stew with biscuits.

I threw a tarp over the back of my truck and left it for tomorrow. The equipment had been out in the weather, so another day shouldn't make any difference.

The way I had come about the stock and equipment wasn't right, and I figured to find a way to fix it. After breakfast the next morning, I called the auctioneer's office again and explained what I had found. He asked if I had fed and watered the animals, and I told him I had taken them home to care for them. He said, "Then I guess they're yours. You were a good man to care for them."

That was a stupid thing to say as the livestock had a great value.

I talked to the man about the round bale fork and the loader. He said he remembered them as not being bid upon. When I said I wanted to buy them, the guy asked me, "Will you bid a dollar?"

"That's ridiculous; they're worth far more than that."

Again the man asked, "Will you open the bidding for a dollar?"

"Okay, I'll bid a dollar."

The auctioneer went into his patter of asking for two dollars, a hundred dollars, a dollar and a quarter, and finally said, "Sold to the caller for a dollar."

When I didn't say anything, he said, "I expect you to send me a dollar for that equipment. I'll send you a bill of sale. Be sure to write down what you just bought so that I have a record."

I was laughing when he said, "Hey, you were the dummy to be out in the rain. You were smart enough to be there and keep bidding to make a deal. I admit you were a thief, but it was a legal theft. I'm glad you found those animals before they died."

I sat there after I hung up, thinking of how lucky those critters had been that I went to see if I could find a hay fork for the tractor. I went back out to the barn to make sure the big Angus steer was okay. He was lying down chewing his cud. He looked up at me and didn't realize he was probably a day away from dying. Well, he was going to be on our table in a few months, so enjoy your pleasant life of food and water, I thought.

All of the critters I had brought home were fine and I was happy to have salvaged them instead of someone having to scoop up their dried out bones and hide.

I was sitting there, drinking some grappa, when Mom came and sat by me. "You look like your dad when he found animals that had been mistreated. You found them in time, and no one else cared, Mike. It's funny how a farmer can feel compassion for a mistreated animal, then have him for supper shortly after. The idea that someone would do that to a dumb animal is what bothers you, but it also makes you a good farmer."