Auction Extravaganza!

Today, Tom and I went a mile or so down the road to watch the giant McMansion get auctioned off to the highest bidder. There are many places that this 13,000 sq. ft. house would fit right in. My neck of the backwoods is not one of them.

I'm not going to use this blog to spread small-town gossip about why this mansion was built in the first place or why it's being sold only a few years later. Gossip like that is better spread in-person over a cup of coffee or a couple beers.

Not many people came out for the auction - maybe 75 at best (and that's including kids in tow). I bet more than half were looky-loos like myself and most of the rest were thinking about bidding on some of the contents. If you were looking to buy, bargains were to be had.

The only item I would've really liked to have was this little mostly-finished cabin. I could've turned it into the most awesome chicken coop ever. Already on skids and ready to move - a mere mile from my property - it went for $600.



The McMansion itself sold for a little more than a third of the original asking price. Along with 13 acres of land, it went for $450,000.

My entire crappy mobile home might fit on that second floor balcony, but I still have the better view.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A couple nights ago, clear skies allowed the Talladega Mountains to cast their shadows across the sky at sunset. According to Wikipedia, it's the very tail end of the Blue Ridge Mountains - located about 40 miles to the west. On a clear day, you can see Mt. Cheaha from my place - the highest point in Alabama. (At 2413 feet, the Alaskan in me has trouble calling it a mountain. If trees can grow on top of it, it is not a mountain.)

If you click on the picture for the bigger version, you can see Venus just above and to the right of the new moon in the upper left corner. I took this picture from inside my livingroom. You won't see anything like this from the big McMansion (which is located in the darkness a little above and to the left of the dot of light in the bottom right corner).


After the McMansion had a new owner, we went to my neighbor's place to pick their excess blueberries. We filled a two-gallon bucket before a sudden downpour drove us back to my house.

But the rain stopped as suddenly as it started and we took off back down the hill to the East Alabama Goat and Poultry Auction. Again, neither of us were looking to buy anything but I always enjoy checking out all the different kinds of chickens (and occasional guineas, turkeys, quail, pheasants and even pigs and bunnies).

Here's a little taste of good old-fashioned auctioneering for ya: