SENNETT - Hundreds of pickup trucks lined up and down Route 5. About 1,000 farmers roamed the grounds of Sennett Sales. It could only mean one thing - the annual spri ng auction had arrived.

A tradition that is now in its 35th year continued Saturday at the farm auction business between Auburn and Elbridge. Farmers from all over the state looked machinery up and down, and then got into the bidding game.

Owner-operator of the auction house Mark Kent had a sky's-the-limit approach to the proceeding, while those who milled around, evaluating the merchandise, had a more earthy desire. Where the two philosophies met, was where the fun - and the deals - took place.

It all started a good two hours before Kent sat up on the back end of the hay wagon, singing prices like an opera singer running up and down the scales.

Tractors burped the scent of diesel into the scrubbed clean early morning air, while prospective buyers walked easy from piece to piece, shading their eyes whenever they faced the rising sun.

“It'll probably bring $300,” Fred Woznica Jr. of Cicero said, looking down at a haybine. He wasn't really interested, just stating a fact.

“It cuts the hay, then squeezes the hay to dry faster, then it lays it on the ground,” he explained. “I was looking to see how good the frame is, the bearings. You look at the rollers to see if the rubber on the rollers is intact. And there's the age: this is a pretty older one. I wouldn't want it because it's got a shear pin instead of a slip clutch. ... But it would be all right for a guy with just a few acres of hay.”

Woznica, who owns 200 acres, has been coming to the auction house since he was 10 years old. He's no stranger to buying and selling himself, sometimes on eBay. But he also just likes the atmosphere.

“There are buys, but there's such a variety of things, from antiques, to parts, to equipment. I just like to look. It's like a sport,” he said.

He said it's not the end of the world if one should get carried away bidding: “You can't dwell on your losses, 'cause there's a new bus coming around the corner every day. It's part of the education.”

And then, ready or not, there is Mark Kent - master of the monologue, part-referee, part-teacher - to get things rolling, faster than the seconds on a clock. His family's been in the auction business since 1929.

It's their 35th year on site. Like his grandfather and father, and now son just coming up, he'll help you decide just how badly you want something, and what to weed out.

“We'll have parts, $2 minimum bid, all they way up to tractors for $7,000 to $8,000. Corn planters high as $15,00,” he said. “There's a price advantage. When you come to an auction it's basically a wholesale market. They come here, look at it, have an idea in the back of they're mind. When it comes up for bid, hopefully they'll get their price, or a little less.”

Typically, 800 to 1,000 people come to do just that each year, once in the spring, once in the fall.

He takes in equipment the week of the auction, sells it as is, where is, he said. In slow motion, he demonstrated how it's done:

“Five, would you give ten, ten would you give 15, 15 and 20, 20 and five,” he said, holding back.

He also sells cattle twice a week. But what does he do to practice, to keep his tongue in place?

“Go down the road selling telephone poles. Every time you pass one, you take a bid,” he said, emptying the coffee in his cup.

But does he take his work home at night?

“I don't talk a lot.”