As it turned out, I did not get anything at the pet shops last night except food for my critters. So, this morning, after driving my wife to work, I left the house well ahead of time and headed to another pet shop still searching for something to donate for the auction. I already had a lot of used stuff to donate, including a barely used tank with light, background and substrate, a load of reptile & amphibian care book, tank accessories, a small plastic fish tank with accessories, and so on.I would also be donating a Redfoot Tortoise as well, but figured something new would be nice. I could not settle on anything and left it at what I already had on hand. It wound up being more than enough. I figured would be donating over $150 worth of items.
I was at the auction site at 1230, about a 1/2 hour early, and passed the time talking to some other early bird LIHS members. The door was opened right around 1PM and I had my donations set up on the tables inside in a few minutes. After about an hour or so the auction got underway. Every item I brought along sold during the bidding except for the tortoise. Not to worry though, he wound up selling to when the auction was over, to someone who had bid on it earlier but not met the minimum bid I had set for it. Let's face it, at the $50 he paid for it he got one heck of a steal.
There were lots of other great things being auctioned off. Most herp related but some not. Someone had a chemical/biological suit up for auction, there was a flat screen computer monitor, desk lamps, a fist or two fists sized piece of amethyst but most everything was related to reptile & amphibian care. A lot of it was new too, such as a Neodesha tank, a turtle aquarium filter, an incubator, and tank accessories. Of course, there were other animals up for auction too, those all being snakes. One member donated at least a dozen snakes, some high end corn snakes and a couple of Hognose Snakes, another donated a beautiful Boa Constrictor.
We were told to bring cash and that is just what I had done. I was going to use most of it to buy a new item to donate but since I did not buy that, I decided to use the money bidding. I had the high bid on a pair of Corn Snakes at only $25 the pair, and the high bids on two Hognose Snakes - one at $25 and one at $35. I also had the high bid on the Hova-bator Incubator made for birds eggs but also commonly used for reptile eggs). Being that it came with an automatic bird egg turner, I may have to buy some quail eggs just for the heck of it. I also won the bid on The Field Guide to the Mammals of North America, only $2.00! Wow, in no time I spent a tidy sum and now had 4 snakes I did not need but that I can turn to my advantage or keep as I desire. I may later sell them all or trade them or donate them to the LIHS or sell them on behalf of the LIHS and give the proceeds all to the LIHS. For now though, I will enjoy caring for them while I have them. I may well keep one of the Hognose Snakes, which are both males, and try to trade the other along with a bit of cash for a female (with an eye toward a breeding project for next year). Could be I may do the same with the corn snakes, they are a sexed pair. For now though, I am a bit critter heavy, especially with other recent acquisitions, and I have got to put a stop to any more acquisitions. It's not that I have too many to care for, just that I don't want it to wind up being a pain in the butt and big expense to take care of them all, and I know my limitations. So enough is enough even though snakes are relatively low cost to maintain and easy to care for critters.
I have got to hand it to the membership for donating the items that they brought to the auction. The gentleman who brought the snakes I bid on also brought several others. A sizable amount of money had to be generated by their being auctioned off today and a sizable loss of revenue for him was had because he could have sold them at shows for much more than they went at auction and he donated all proceeds to the LIHS as far as I am aware even though he could have done it as a 50/50, half for him half for the society). In addition to members who donated items, it was also the membership who were buying items. So a hat tip to them also. The LIHS executive board has to get not only a hat tip but a bow for setting up the whole thing and making it possible. They did one heck of a good job at it. All in all it was a fun 2 1/2 to 3 or so hours at the auction.
Once it was over, I stayed around an chatted a bit. Then I headed home to get there on time for dinner. I was pretty early and helped getting things ready. Company was about 10 minutes early and by about 5:00 I was setting up the grill. Burgers and dogs were sizzling by 5:15 and we were probably eating by 5:30. Linda had prepared her own always delicious German Potato Salad, and her wonderful Bean Salad. I cooked 10 burgers and 14 dogs, and toasted buns for all, for 6 people (and for Brendan who would eat when he got home from work, so make it 7 people). When I looked for a second hot dog and for one or two to put aside for Brendan, I saw, much to my surprise, that all 14 had disappeared. Since the not one of the four 4 legged dogs ever once climbed up on the table, I have to guess that somebody sure loved those hot dogs! Brendan had a couple of burgers and the salads when he got home. After dinner, we sat around and talked, then Linda brought out some freshly brewed coffee and Phil's dad (Phil is Celina's boyfriend) brought out three plates of cookies he had baked. One of plain butter cookies, one of little fried ball of dough with sprinkles on em, and another of sesame seed covered cookies. All were out of this world delicious. The party broke up at about 9PM. I have to say, it was really nice meeting Phil's parents. They were great company and made for a great time.
After company left, I went downstairs and took care of the new critters. Now that that is out of the way, and now that I have blogged for the day, I am going to sit back and enjoy something on television. With a little luck there will be a good Sci-Fi show I can watch. Hope your day was at least half as nice as was ours.
All the best,
Glenn B
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