Blog Archives

the spotter

This auction spotter was entertaining to watch as he coaxed higher and higher bids from the audience. His job involved shouting, a variety of gestures, and once – when he couldn’t get the bidder to go up another $500 or $1,000 to secure the bid – he tossed his program into the air in exasperation.

Pro tip: if you keep your camera up to your eye and keep shooting (or acting like you are), it’s hard to accidentally bid on something.

Random (to me) comment from the auctioneer (referring to a horse, not the spotter)(I think): He knows how to drink water in a strange place.

Mallet Event Center
Levelland, Texas
photographed 2.10.2024

roping (to boost bids)

The same young man from yesterday, putting a horse through the things horses are supposed to do in order to boost bids at the auction.

See how much I’ve already learned about how these things work? I’m practically an expert.

Random (to me) comment from the auctioneer: This one ain’t slobbering his face all over.

Mallet Event Center
Levelland, Texas
photographed 2.10.2024

the spot: marked

A couple of dead trees marked the location with the traditional spot-marking X, which was fun to photograph but not all that much help in terms of wayfinding.

Crosby County, Texas
photographed 2.3.2024

not much longer

One of these days – probably it won’t take many of them – this old farm building is going to finish falling all the way down. That’s the way of farm buildings around here as farming practices and populations and the climate all shift.

Crosby County, Texas
photographed 2.3.2024

time can do so much

This building was the school for the community of Allmon for about a quarter century; in 1935 the school was merged with the one in the nearby town of Petersburg. That was followed by years of being vacant, a time as the offices for Barwise Elevator and Fertilizer, and another era of vacancy.

The building is made from tan brick with red-brick accents around the windows, which I guess was the height of rural school design back in 1909.

Allmon, Texas
photographed 2.3.2024

(Historical information from the Texas State Historical Association.)