The Van Zante Family: To Market, To Market...

...to sell a little pig. Saturday gave us a chance to go on a roadtrip with Josh to sell hogs. For those of you who don't know what it is exactly that we actually do, let me explain. In the last post, you saw a few of the sows that are part of the herd. We raise the piglets that come from these sows until they are in the neighborhood of 50-80 pounds and sell them; these size pigs are called feeder pigs. Then, whoever buys the pigs at this size feeds them out until they're ready for pork chops, bacon, ham and other pork deliciousness for your dinner table. Well, Saturday there was a group of piggies ready for market and the kids and I all got to go with Josh for a little trip to the Keosauqua Salebarn.

The Happy Crew
This one was taken in our driveway before we had even started backing out. I can't say that the whole trip was this happy - brothers and sisters will have their squabbles, especially in the tight spot of a truck cab - but they did pretty good for the hour trip.

Caleb training for his future job...and he didn't miss a gear!

So what kept these two occupied during the trip? They took turns playing with a little tape measure and a "Y" (the thing that splits a single water hose into two uses). Its amazing what keeps little hands busy!

The Keosauqua Salebarn is quite the sight to see. They have their sales on Saturday morning and they have just about everything, as you will see below.

We pulled in right behind a load of goats. Ahead of that was a load of sheep. And you see all kinds of vehicles and trailers, too. From the fanciest to the humblest. But I have to say that one of the funnier things we've seen there was on this trip. It was a pretty fancy SUV pulling a short little trailer. Nothin' against fancy SUVs, but to see it pulling a little livestock trailer just didn't look quite right... kinda like the odd couple :-)

Anyway, most salebarns just sale cattle and/or sheep nowadays. But Keosauqua sales cattle, sheep, goats, all kinds of hogs and the things you'll see next.

Here's a view of the lineup to sale outside. If you look close, you can see a diesel barrel frame, all sorts of doors, and hedge post among other things. Hedge post are fence post made from hedge trees. Years ago, farmers planted hedge trees in groves to be cut and used as fence post for generations to come. The hedge trees are remarkably resistant to rot and decay, making the effort a farmer puts into his fences more worthwhile since the post will not rot and have to be redone for a very long time. Plus, the post are free if you're lucky enough to have them on your land already!

There was also a lot of hay being sold. Others things we (Josh) have seen being lined up for auction are chickens and eggs. They have just about everything farm-ish, including....

...the kitchen sink. I'm not sure if this was actually supposed to be part of the sale or if it was just put there to get it out of the way, but it was a funny picture no matter what the reason.

Inside the salebarn is of course the ring. But here you can see how they have ads up on the wall along the whole front. If you look at the bottom center of the picture, you can see the sign that shows the current sale. I took this picture before the sale started, so there isn't anything on display, but during the sale it has the number of head in the ring, the average weight, and the current bid. If you've never been to an auction, it takes some practice to understand the auctioneer and to keep track of what's going on. But once you're good at it, its actually kinda fun to watch the action take place.

Coffeetime, before the sale. M&ms for the little kids and a doughtnut for the big one. Between this treat and Caleb's preschool roundup bri...um...I mean reward, my kids have probably had more candy than they usually get in a month (unless they visit a grandparent, in which case THAT candy doesn't count!) How do you split one bag of M&Ms between two kids? Well now, that's the real reason I have them wear hats... its a handy snack container for when eatin' time comes around, as you can see Caleb demonstrating quite nicely. (Josh looks a little annoyed at the sight of the camera coming out again, but he really does love me.... AND my camera...really!)

Across the road from the salebarn is the county road place (the technical term slips my mind right now). They are nice enough to let all the trailers who don't fit in the salebarn parking lot park in their great big parking lot, which is where we parked. To get to the salebarn, we had to walk past this neat display of a grader. Years ago, they pulled the road graders with horses.