It had been many years since I’d sat down and watched a livestock auction in person. I was pleased to learn that most things about sale barns hadn’t changed.

My wife and I raise a few Jersey steers. We normally sell them as halves and quarters of hanging beef to friends and relatives. For some reason, I didn’t have the gumption this fall to get after that process. My recent cancer treatment might have had something to do with this. In any case, we had four steers that had grown quite large and were living large on our grain.

I shared this issue with our neighbors, and they immediately said that they could haul our steers to the nearest livestock auction barn.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

I was told not to worry and was assured that it wouldn’t be a problem. No amount of money could ever buy that kind of neighborliness.

On the appointed day I locked the chosen bovine quartet in our barn. Neighbor Paul soon arrived with his pickup, pulling a stock trailer that appeared to be approximately the size of a mobile home. There was more than enough room for our four Jersey steers.

Paul skillfully backed up to our barn door, displaying a level of precision often associated with docking two orbiting spacecraft. I know from experience that it would have taken me several tries to be half as accurate.

The four steers walked into the stock trailer as nonchalantly as if they did this on a daily basis. I climbed into Paul’s pickup, and we were soon off for the auction barn.

Upon arriving at Pipestone Livestock Auction Market, we had to wait our turn in the long line of pickups and stock trailers. This was not unpleasant as Paul and I found many things to discuss to pass the time.

When our turn came, Paul backed up to the unloading chute with a level of precision that could be measured in the hundredths of an inch. If I had been at the wheel, I just would have embarrassed myself in front of all the other drivers.

The steers unloaded themselves with the nonchalance of seasoned veterans. Paul and I decided to hang around to see how they sold, so we parked the trailer and went into the auction barn.

The inside of the sale barn smelled exactly as I remembered: a pungent combination of wood chips and fresh cattle manure. With time to kill, we repaired to the sale barn’s cafeteria where I bought us lunch.

The special that day was their hot beef commercial. This is comfort food on its most basic level: two slices of whole wheat bread loaded with fork-tender roast beef topped with a scoop of mashed potatoes, all of which was slathered with a generous portion of rich, brown gravy.

We each got the special and dug in. I surprised myself when I was able to polish off the entire entree. This was a minor victory for me; it was the most I had been able eat for several weeks. I saw this as a bright sign of progress on my road to recovery.

We finished eating just as the auction was about to begin. Paul and I found seats in the bleachers and watched the parade of cattle as they marched through the sale ring.

We made a game of guessing the weight of the cattle. Paul was pretty accurate, but I never got closer than 100 pounds of any of the bovines’ actual weights. To be fair, I’m accustomed to looking at little Jerseys while Paul and his family raise beef cattle for a living. The sheer amount of practice he gets should have given him a leg up in this game.

At one point, two dozen fattened Holstein steers were ushered into the ring. Good Lord, those animals were huge! They appeared to be the size of elephants when compared to our Jerseys.

A gate swung open, and our Jerseys trotted into the sale ring. I was surprised to learn that my mental guesstimate was only off by 50 pounds on three of them, but I was nearly 100 pounds off on the fourth. Oh, well. Such is life.

I had an ideal price in mind for our steers, but so did the cattle buyers. We probably landed somewhere in the middle. That’s the hallmark of a successful compromise.

I picked up the cattle check and we headed home. The day turned out to be a very pleasant experience.

The only way it might have been better would be enjoying another serving of that yummy hot beef sandwich.

— Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.

Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.