MERCED, Calif. - The end came in a blink outside the Merced County courthouse.
Only six people showed up for the foreclosure auction, Janice Pimentel and her son Nick included. By chance, the Pimentels’ dairy farm was the first property offered.
The auctioneer, a young man in aviator sunglasses and blue jeans, read their address and paused for bids. When none came, the Joe T and Janice R Pimentel Dairy Farm, 21 years in the life of the family, officially became the property of its main creditor, a local lender.
“Well,” Janice Pimentel said, “that’s that.”
The Pimentels’ farm was once a fixture in …
