I just returned from a week at the Rice County Fair in Faribault. This is always a fun event. The Fair Board and Jim Hermel always do a great job. This fair does a lot to honor the rural heritage of Rice County. Rice County has a strong 4-H program and I was pleased to be able to help with the annual 4-H auction which was a rousing success. You don’t often get to sell a chicken for over $500. When they dress this chicken, it should be in a tuxedo. Be sure to look at our photo gallery.

I am starting to get behind in blogging again. We were gone to Ohio for a week to conduct the annual convention auction for the National Milk Glass Collector’s Society. Although milk glass prices are weaker than they were several years ago, there is still keen competition for rarer pieces. We had a great time, saw a lot of friends, and made some new acquaintances.

Wow! The Prairie Creek people know how to have an auction. In the first place they had great food and a good silent auction. Then at the live auction, they had some really good items. A gourmet dinner for 8 sold for $1800. This has to be a Northfield record. Then to top it off, the donors offered to do another dinner if the contending bidders wished. Both of the contending bidders accepted and so Prairie Creek raised a total of $5400 from this incredibly generous donation. Another item was an incredible trunk which had been painted to look like Prairie Creek School. Then the donor took photos of all the students who had ever attended Prairie Creek and decoupaged them on the trunk so that you could see the kids looking out of the windows. Well I knew this was a great item and so I thought I would ask for a high starting bid. I was shocked when I asked for $1000 and I saw a bid. I was stunned by the final bid when I finally said “sold” for $3200. Congratulations to all the people who worked together to make this event so much fun, and special thanks to all the generous bidders who made this auction such a roaring success.

On Saturday morning we conducted the auction for John and Barb Kisor. The weather turned out really nice and we had a good auction. Several collectors competed for pieces from Barb’s chicken collection. The chickens sold well as did the woodworking equipment. John and Barb are selling their house and in many ways the most important part of this auction was to be able to empty the house and get it ready to be put on the market. An auction is a remarkably efficient way to get a house ready to sell. As I write this, three days after the auction, the house is completely empty and cleaned and ready to sell.