Hey now, humm-a-na humm-a-na, SOLD!

That tractor went for $32,000.

I went to a farm auction a couple of weeks ago in Shelby. It was the first I'd ever been to. I had my eye on a Versatile swather and a Gleaner M combine. A neighbor farmer thought the Gleaner might for for $500. That's incredible when you consider a relatively new combine might cost a farmer upwards of $300,000 these days.

From the beginning, I could see that auctions are a whole subculture (or maybe simply a culture) all their own. It was mostly old men, I'm guessing farmers. There were even people there that brought folding chairs who set them up in front of the auctioneer while he yammered off a piece of equipment, folding them up when he finished, and setting them up in front of the next item to be auctioned off. My friend and fellow organic farmer Russ was there. He's been to quite a few auctions in his time, so I hung out with him and asked him lots of questions.

All the little things were auctioned off first, then in the afternoon they got to the machinery and when it came time for the swather, my heart jumped and I got really nervous. The auctioneer started the bidding at $200 and I almost rose my hand, but decided to wait and see what would happen.

This is usually the way an item would get sold: the auctioneer would say, "Let's start this at $200." Then he'd go into his high-speed rambling with the next bid squeezed in between some rapid speech. Some old farmer would wave his arm or shout, then another would do the same, and they'd be off. After that the auctioneer would simply look back and forth between the two who would be nodding ever so slightly, the price climbing by $5 or $10 on the smaller items and $25 or $100 on the bigger ones. Eventually, one guy would shake his head no and the other guy would get the item. Occasionally a third or fourth person would jump in, especially if someone dropped out, but mostly each item would quickly shake out to two people.

As most of the other items went, so went the swather. A couple old men started going back and forth on my swather and it wasn't long before it was more than I wanted to spend. It went for $750 which is probably a screaming deal since it also came with a conditioner and a grain header (which was pretty beat up), but I chickened out and I'm probably better off for it.

The Gleaner M I was eyeing went for a song: $300. The header was all torn apart, but everything else looked pretty good. One thing that I wondered while I was considering some of these pieces of machinery was, how do you get these things home? What if I ended up with the swather? What about the combine? I don't know. Bid on a big flatbed semi, I guess.

It was a full day that I walked away empty-handed from, but what a scene. I wish I'd at least made the opening bid on my swather, but if I'm in this farming game long enough, I'll have plenty of opportunity to get into a nodding match with some old farmer.