Nancy Beagle went to a Beaudesert auction on Monday to buy a saddle.
The 15-year-old from Veresdale ended up with a piglet called Cabbage instead.
Tom Stariha went to buy calves. With cattle prices soaring, the 26-year-old cattleman from Mt Cotton was outbid.
He got a sheep, about 15 roosters and two bird cages as consolations.
There are few places in South East Queensland where such transactions could have taken place.
By the afternoon of March 29, 2021, there was one fewer.
Because that marked the final Monday under Hayes & Co’s lease to run the Beaudesert Pig and Calf Saleyards.
Scenic Rim Regional Council is not renewing it, arguing the 61-year-old heritage-listed building does not comply with modern health, safety and environmental standards.
Which means young Tom will have to look elsewhere for livestock.
But while he’s “spewing”, the grief of some older farmers ran far deeper.
Reg Hennessy, 66, said he’d been coming to the sales since he was 14 and remembered the days that trains brought in calves and pigs to the Helen Street yards.
But on Monday, Mr Hennessy’s wife was on the way to pick him up early.
“I get very sentimental since the stroke,” he said.
“I get the shakes, I get a fair bit emotional.
“Today’s a sad day.”
Since he “got crook”, Mr Hennessy sold his farm at Burnam and now runs a few cattle at Veresdale Scrub.
He still came into the sales, because his family had bought and sold cattle through Peter Hayes “all our lives”.
“And I love Beaudedsert, I’ve always loved it,” he said.
Mr Hennessy said he’d been up last night looking for old photos of a bullock train he ran with Philip Thomson.
He found them, ran into Mr Thomson at the sales and gave the photos to his mate.
Mr Thomson had the photos in his shirt pocket, beside his notebook, as he watched the poultry sales.
The Natural Bridge man said he’d been coming to the sales since 1964.
“It pulls your heart out,” he said of the closure.
“I’m wrecked.
“Devastated.”
Mr Thomson said he was not only saying farewell to the building and its fortnightly sales, but many familiar faces as well.
“There are people here I’m never going to see again,” he said.
“It’s not just the sales, it's the social value.
“That’s something money can never buy.”
While its role as a meeting place may have been priceless, much of the haberdashery went for a bargain.
Because the yards were not only a place to auction livestock, but old farm gear, odds and ends dug out of sheds, even works of art.
Karen Bony came in from Munruben with her kids Jaiden, Ashden and Kastelle.
She was there to gauge interest for wrought-iron sculptures of motorbikes, roses and dragons made by her mate, Leo Incognito.
Ms Bony said she’d been a regular at the saleyards since she was a kid and described its closure as upsetting.
“It’s such a historic place,” she said.
“It’s part of what makes Beaudesert, Beaudesert, a country town.”
Reports of a market for live pigs in Beaudesert date back to 1890.
For Kastelle, the pity was less about the history.
“I’m going to miss all the baby animals,” said the nine-year-old Beadesert Primary School student.
Along with an exchange of money and goods on the day, most sales were accompanied by a bit of banter or free advice.
A young bloke with a beard and a big hat bought a Ned Kelly tin sign for $20.
“He must be related!” came a wisecrack from the crowd.
When an old fella bought a rusty spade for $5, someone asked if it was going to be used to shovel B.S.
He then bought a hay fork and someone likened him to the Grim Reaper.
“We’ll know who to look for if anyone goes missing!” she cried.
Not every item found a new owner. One cat toilet seat did go unsold.
FOR SOME it was a first visit.
Dugandan’s Greg Jacklin was there with his Blue Heeler, Jacks, and his mate Wayne Russell.
Mr Russell, a cattleman, was a regular. On Monday he sold three Muscovy ducks and three Light Sussex chooks.
The cattle were “too dear” for Mr Jacklin, but he enjoyed having a look around and a chat.
“I’ve been meaning to come for a while,” he said.
“We used to have the sales at Boonah, but gradually this thing has stopped in most places.
“It’s ripping the fabric out of a country town.”
It wasn’t just farmers who came for a stickybeak.
Senior Sergeant Ken Murray was there with six officers for two reasons.
“One, I’ve never seen a saleyard with pigs and calves and odds and ends before,” he said.
“Two, we wanted to make sure no other groups came here to take it over and put a stop to what everyone wants, which is the community coming together and the town having some fun.”
If he feared violence, in the end, the good officer needn’t have worried.
There were a few there to make trouble for council. But that trouble came in the form of words and signatures.
Tamborine Mountain’s Amanda Hay said 155 people signed her Stop the Rot petition on the day.
Julie Wilkinson, also from the Mountain, was there. She said she was hoping to meet with the state’s director general of local government on the back of her online petition calling on him to intervene.
Geoff Sharp said his petition was going “like a runaway train.”
The retired, long serving councillor of the former Beaudesert Shire said it was “beyond belief” that the Scenic Rim had allowed the saleyards to fall into disrepair at a time when the rural economy was in “the best conditions in living memory”.
“One thing I can tell you about the council that I served on,” he said.
“We knew how to read public opinion.”
It didn’t take an expert to read the opinions of the crowd on Monday. A few had conveniently written them on signs.
“The council want this closed,” read one.
“What a disgrace.”
But not everyone who uses the saleyards will have an option to vent their frustrations at the ballot box.
Philip Thomson, the bullocky, said the Beaudesert saleyards was a meeting place for people from a 100 kilometre radius. Some live in other local government areas.
He said this made the decision to close the sales “brain dead”.
“You come in, have lunch, go get groceries, go to the bank, do whatever you have to do in town,” he said.
“I’ve got no reason to come back here now.”