Cattle Auction

First of all, we now have L4. Another black lamb and the ram continues to impress us. We now have 3 black lambs and 1 white. The first two, Starlight and Snowball are so big now that it is hard to tell them from the rest of the flock. But enough of my babies.

Monday I went to my first cattle auction.  We took Alessia and I promised to watch her so that Dan could wander around and learn. So she and I walked across endless two plank wide bridges that are ABOVE the cattle pens. She was hesitant but game and I was fine until we got to the larger groupings,. The pens with 6 or 8 cows were fine but some were really mashed in there. So off we went to get good seats for the auction itself.

Now I have to tell you that I only understood 1 word out of each 10. Partly the accent and partly the speed. I had been to estate auctions as a child and they sounded very similar. Perhaps it was partially our seats in the nosebleed section. Alessia and I (and later Dan) sat in the final row. The building is hot, Luckily Alessia is wearing the layered look. Over time she shed several layers and was still beet red. And this is not a hot day. Behind us was the aisle which rapidly filled with stockmen, observers, etc. I was wearing my tiny ponytail and someone put his arms on it and my head was constantly jerked as the cattleman reacted to the price flucuations,

These are pleasant men; no nonsense men; men hunched slightly against the constant New Zealand wind. They are generally overweight with strong, strong thighs (shown in shorts and boots or wellies). And most of them were older. As in 50s and more. I don't know if the younger cattlemen let the fathers do the buying or if there is a problem with young people staying on the land. I know its a hard life.

So cattle enter from the right into one holding pen and then proceed into a second. In the second they are bid on and then moved out while two more groups are moving in. The auctioneer does his rapid pace delivery. Spotters point to bids and yell 'OM' and a board tells the per kg weight average of the group being sold. The elderly man next to me was bidding; he barely moved his pink number paper but the spotters found him and he found himself the proud? possesser of several lots of cattle.

We watched for an hour. Dan hoped to get 5 head that were very thin and fatten them on our paddocks. But someone else got them. Perhaps we'll try again next week. It was like another world, with a foreign language and customs but it was fascinating..