has been and gone.
I woke Wednesday morning, after a terribly restless nights sleep. The nerves were all ready in action, the day had arrived.

My husband was long gone from bed, getting up at 5am to finish the last laps of placing his farming life in the front paddock. I could hear the 4 wheeler rushing around, back and forth, sounding almost as if time was running out.

One thing about my husband he is a perfectionist, especially when it came to his farm machinery. Everything was cleaned, serviced and neat as a pin when put out in that front paddock. This is how he is with all his machinery. Everything is cared for in the most amazing manner.
I believe that due to this care of his machinery, it made a huge difference on sale day.

I did the school bus run at 8am, cars were already coming down the long dusty drive even though the sale was still two hours away. My nervousness hit a new level, it finally kicking in that today was the day, this was real and I wasn’t in a dream. At the bus drop off point there was the sign – CLEARING SALE – pointing back towards where I had just come, another reality sign.

At 10am we went an stood at where the bidding was to begin. Our old red truck loaded up with smaller items on the tray, having been picked over for hours already. The auctioneer thanked everyone for coming, told them that this was one of the most well organised, best presented and well done clearing sales that they will have ever been at.

Then the bidding began.

My heart stopped for a second, this wasn’t real was it? One item gone, the next started, how quick it was happening. I turned and had to walk away as the tears were coming. I walked towards the sheds, running into my sister-in-laws, this being their original family home. I was met with tears from them. Together we all walked out into the paddock, escaping the sound of the auctioneer, his voice the reminder of why we were all here today.

We decided to go and see the old Vickers tractor, childhood memories abundant for my sister-in-laws. We stood there talking, them remembering playing for hours on it, how it had always been there in that same spot and now here it was about to be ripped from it’s home.

There’s a lot of people affected by the sale of our farm. Not only my own family, but the brothers, sisters, Aunts, Uncles, nieces, nephews and the list goes on. Then there is the community, the loss of children from the school, the loss of trade as yet another family leaves due to the drought. Can these small communities continue to survive if one by one families leave. Are we going to see new ghost towns cropping up in the future?

The bidding continued, the walk to the tractor helped a lot. The talking helped even more.

People crowded around, watching, listening, bidding. Oh and they bid! We can’t be sore at the prices we got, these wonderful people knew their stuff, knew they were getting lovingly cared for machines. I wonder if they knew that they were helping us so much with just a raise of their hands, each one helping to get us back, fight back, against the drought.

It didn’t take long to get to the big stuff, even though it was quite a few hours. Time seemed to fly, or perhaps it was just that my head was all over the place that time wasn’t registering. My nerves reached that peak again, knowing that this was the stuff that we really needed to sell to get us out of strife.
The first few big things went well, but when we got to the header and versatile, things stood still. Not a bid was recorded on either.
My heart sunk, the tears welled, the crowd moved on.

The bidding finally ended, we did really well, selling all but the two large machines. I have been reassured that they will sell, maybe not just now. I hope, I hope so much they do.

Anyone in need of a header or versatile, let me know. They are well cared for machines, better than new as they have our memories living within them.