A little auction fun!

When we bought our property almost 2 years ago, we started looking at auctions online to try to fine reasonably priced used farm equipment. Who knew that tractors are $30k and up? Not this girl! We searched and searched but never won any of the auctions we tried to bid on. I had forgotten all about auctions when Jamey informed me last month that there was some property up for auction near us that he was interested in. They were having an “open house”, so we loaded up in the car and drove to the old farm house to see it in person. The 112 acre farm was being divided into tracts. We were interested in the 1800’s two story farm house that included 6 acres, with a barn and creek frontage. As soon as we walked in we spotted a few folks we had met at the Beef College last year. They knew the family who was raised in the house and shared some history with us! We would love the opportunity to bring this beautiful old place back to it’s former glory! The potential was huge but so was the project.

The house was full of antique furniture too. Everything was being sold at an online auction in one week.

Another Farm House Project or No?

Jamey and I decided against the 3500 square foot Farm House, as absolutely charming as it would be since we just don’t have the time to invest in such a large project right now. We did, however, find some items we were interested in bidding on.

Auction Day!

Auction day came and we watched as each item climbed higher and higher in price. We raised our bid. They raised their bid. The bidding war was on and it was so easy to get caught up in the moment! These were items we didn’t really “need” right now. I found an old rocking chair, a mahogany dresser, and a beautiful old coffee table. Jamey found a utility trailer and some other tractor implements. I also wanted to bid on some mason jars. They had pictures of each item online. The mason jars were listed as “contents of the spring house- mason jars” and the photo showed them still sitting upside down on old wood shelves all the way around the room.

There was no description of how many jars were there, nor were the sizes listed. We tried to “count” how many jars were on the shelves in the picture because I didn’t want to spend more on the used jars than the cost of new jars. Always mindful of the bottom dollar! It looked like maybe 125 jars so I decided my top bid was $115.00. The auction began and we kept a close eye on our “bids”. The phone continually chimed all afternoon as the bids exceeded our “top bid amount”. Ding! Ding! Ding! Finally the auction ended and we actually won a few of the items we wanted!

I won the Mason Jars!

Today we went to pick up our auction items. When we opened the Spring House door and flipped on the light, we were stunned! We spent the next 3 hours packing the jars into my car and Jamey’s truck.

Two loads later, we finally finished. I counted at least 300! And these are not little jelly jars, these are quart, half-gallon and even some gallon size jars! It’s comical how excited I am! I just wanted some extra jars to can with. I can’t wait to wash and sterilize these beauties!

What to do with all these jars?

I’m planning to use the gallon size jars to store dry goods in my pantry and some of the half-gallon jars as storage for flour and sugar. I just love the look of dry goods in clear glass! What do you think? Post some ideas in the comments for “What to do with all these jars?”!

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