The Amish Auction

I went to the Amish Auction today and it was a very nice experience. Compared to the previous auction the weather was delightful. The auction its self was located at a large farm there were several venues a lot of horse equipment, tools, household articals, a few private vendors lots of food and handmade crafts such as quilts.

I walked the areas and took note of what was for sale and there were a few items that I was interested in at a given price. I met a few folks that I have met before doing business in the community. There was a mixture of folks, with of course the Amish in abundance, Mennonite, Conservative Christian, tourists, local farmers, and a few sharp business folks.

It seems that everyone was in some sort of dress depicting their group/religous/non-religous beliefs. I wonder what my costume said about me? Most of the conservative ladies wore their traditional dress. I don't think one would ever see them not in their traditional dress. There were similarities, between the conservative groups, with distinct diffrences of detail such as the style of bonnet, yes they wear bonnets and properly tied I might add, fabric with or without design, the male members of the various groups could be identified by their hats, type of suspenders, colors of shirts quite an interesting sight. There seemed to be a lot of friendships between the various groups, many have know each other all their lives. I haven't a clue as to how far these friendships go, but from what I have seen there is a genuine respect between the groups and the local unaffiliated folks like ....well me.

I didn't think that I would go home with anything this time until the auction got to the quilts !
I had my eye on one special quilt cover (just the top part) it is called Sun Bonnet Sue, it has the profile of a girl's head wearing a Bonnet in various colors including pink and blue, very cute. I got the bid on this and I also got a quilt that is a block quilt with colors I like and a quilt with a lighthouse motif. All three quilts for less than $150. Yup, I am smilling here. Next year I am paying closer attention to the quilt auction one man walked off with at least six or more quilts and didn't pay more than fifty dollars for any of them. I bet he is selling them somewhere.

I also bought a pie, an oatmeal pie. I have never tried it before, the taste is sort of like custard you wouldn't know there was oatmeal in it unless someone told you the name. I bought some blankets from a vendor for anyone that drops by to keep warm in. I would say I had a good day.

I also enjoyed the horse auction, there were some nice horses and ponies that went up for sale a team of work horses went for $1000 dollars they were pretty greys the man who bought them looked like he knew his horse flesh. A buggy horse went for $500 with the understanding that you couldn't leave him untied when you stopped becaused he would wander of down the road with your buggy, this got lots of chuckles from the crowd. Quite a show when they are auctioning the horses. There were other live stock as well chickens, duck, geese, turkeys, rabbits, goats, and dogs,cats they went home with someone.

There were fruit trees and bushes for sale, even flowers, the trees looked first rate I was tempted to get more. I didn't see much farm machinery, there were comments that others made that they were disapointed that there weren't more farm equipment for sale.

I spent most of the day there and had a swell time. I got to share the pie with friends later a very good day...

More photos later