Once our long school year ends, I encounter questions from people about how we’ll spend our summer.
Will we go on a vacation? Do we have any big plans? The answer is typically no. This family uses summer break to slow down and play catch up. It’s not as if we don’t stay busy. We just don’t make a lot of plans to be busy.
A couple months ago, my husband began a crusade to clean out both his barn and machine shed. I followed his lead, inspecting our closets and garage for items that needed to be purged. He had it in his mind; he was going to host a mid-life farm sale. For a guy his age, he’s collected a lot of junk over the years. And you know what they say – one man’s junk is another man’s treasure? He believed a small farm auction was the answer to this cleaning campaign.
Several of his dear friends and I tried to talk him out of the auction. I panicked at the idea of several strangers milling around all of our old stuff. Our only compromise was him getting a porta-potty. It was happening and we all had to jump in to get the sale organized and quick!
The night before the sale, our good buddy from Bella Vista, Ark., came down to help get Nathan organized. He’s our go-to friend when someone needs to keep my husband on task due to a looming deadline. Our neighbor joined in the sale, cleaning out all the treasures he’d amassed. The deadline to be prepared was imminent and we did not feel ready.
I fed our reinforcement team a good dinner and we got to work. We had tables to organize and a parking lot to create.
The kids didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to share in the profitability of the auction. After floating them a small “loan” to purchase ingredients, they decided to open a lemonade stand. They spent the day before making gallons of lemonade and dozens of cookies to sell to potential patrons.
The morning of the sale, everyone was up early working their “station.” By 9 a.m., eager bidders had begun to arrive at our farm and rummage through the trove of paraphernalia available. As I sat at the table checking in buyers and handing out bid numbers, my husband walked around pretending to do his “auctioneer song.”
One fellow told me most people didn’t come to auctions to buy anything, they just wanted to sit around and visit. I cringed. I hoped those people stayed home, because we really needed to move some stuff.
The kids walked around yelling “lemonade for sale!” Their little business took off from there. Once the sale started, I was amazed at things that were popular and even more amazed at things that weren’t. When it was finally over, we checked out buyers and began loading their treasures in trucks and trailers. By the end of the day, we were left with a small trailer full of things to donate and a really clean barn. The kids made a little bit of fun money. Even though we were all sweaty and dirty, the effort put in was worth it. After all, we can now park machines in the machine shed, neighbor.
