We talked hay yesterday with Mike and the hay auction season coming up for Hamilton Hay Auction, but the Hamilton family involved with Black Hereford cattle, and they're looking for a good fall, and an open house coming up on the farm this weekend.

We got involved in the, with the Black Herefords approximately 15 years ago.

We've grown, uh, grown to where we're producing a lot of purebred Black Herefords now.

And seven years ago, the Hamilton family, we started putting on a sale, uh, in the fall up at the Brent Lauderman's sale barn up in Carthage, Illinois, and we had it there a year, and then we joined forces with, uh, some friends of ours from, uh, down by Jeff City, Missouri, the Schroeder family, and we moved it to Lebanon, Missouri, and we've had sales there up until this year, and the, the place that we was having it at, Wall Street Cattle Company, it sold.

And so we're, this year we're gonna be down at Stratford, Missouri at the Chapel Sales Arena.

We've got a nice facility there right along I-44.

Oh, we've got 71 lots consigned.

Now, I know that in the last couple of times that we've visited, you've given us sort of y- your s- we'll call it the elevator speech, but, you know, what, what are the breed assets, uh, when you get into to this breed of cattle, and what makes it attractive?

Your typical customer, Mike, has that changed a bit? Do you still kind of serve the, a wide array of livestock producers, beef cattle, dairy cattle, horses?

Yeah, and actually, we've picked up a few llama producers, growers.

So yeah, we've, we serve everybody big and small.

Uh, we picked up a few feed yards in Southern Iowa.

That's been a help.

It keeps us going through the summer on private treaty.

Yeah, we still serve a lot of our, uh, harsh customers that started with us 31 years ago.

Of course, uh, your sons, um, help, and if somebody hasn't been to, to a Saturday auction there near Fosterburg, what's it like?

Lot of cuttings in the Midwest, quality running a little shorter, and then of course you have the drought out West.

It's pretty dry in the West.

We witnessed it ourselves.

We was on a vacation out West, and it's extremely dry.

As far as local here, yeah, there was a lot of hay made.

Every hay producer I know had trouble making good hay because it was so humid, and it seemed like we were getting rain every few days.

It was hard to get it dry.

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