CORNVILLE -- Every year during the giant yard sale that just keeps getting bigger, Anita Wentworth receives friends from Vermont, who bring a truckload of furniture and other items to her Cornville home.

Wentworth's daughter, Wendy Wentworth-Morre, brings things from her New Hampshire home. And always, during that second weekend in May, Wentworth is reminded of people from Texas who once stopped to peruse her offerings.

Every year, she gets a Christmas card from the Texas couple.

It's yard-sale time again this Saturday and Sunday.

"They'll be knocking on our doors at 6, let me tell you, if the sun's shining," said Wentworth, who lives at 988 West Ridge Road. "They'll even help you take your tarp off."

The forecast calls for cloudy skies, but organizers of what has become a 15-mile-long yard sale know there will be hundreds of cars clogging West Ridge Road, all the way down Malbons Mills Road in Skowhegan.

From Cindy Boutwell's home, within sight of the Great Eddy on the Kennebec River in Skowhegan, to Kevin James' place at the end of West Ridge Road and beyond, bargain-hunters will abound.

In conjunction with the giant yard sale, the Somerset Humane Society will hold its annual lawn sale at the corner of Malbons Mills Road and U.S. Route 2. The Humane Society will accept donations.

It all began in 1983, when Donna and Tom Hendricks of Cornville held a yard sale.

The following year, they got some neighbors in on the act.

For several years after that, the late Carolyn Perkins and Evelyn Demmons ran the show.

This year, the yard sale will stretch 2 miles beyond West Ridge Road onto Route 43 near the Madison town line, and the other way into Athens.

"You can buy a car, you can buy a house, you can buy a snowmobile, dogs, cats," said Sandra Goodell, who lives at 205 West Ridge Road. "You name it, we have it."

Goodell is baking 10 pounds of baked beans for her yard sale, and will also have hot dogs and beverages. Wentworth plans to offer more than 300 perennials at $2 apiece.

Janet Bernard, owner of Nelson's Candies at 949 West Ridge Road, will sell off her stock of candy at a reduced price. Nelson's closes from the date of the yard sale until August, when it begins to rebuild stock for the holidays. "They come in by the hundreds, and they pretty much clean me out of candy," Bernard said. "You meet a lot of people."

Each homeowner participating in the yard sale contributes $3 toward advertisements that are placed in as many as 15 newspapers.

"Sometimes I get 50 or 60 (customers) at a time," Goodell said. "They're lined up. Last year was the busiest. I couldn't go to the bathroom all day."

To avoid slow-moving traffic, Wentworth advises people to go before 10 a.m., or access West Ridge Road from the other end -- Route 150. Portable toilets will be available at locations along the yard sale route.

Antiques are everywhere, Wentworth said. And people are in the mood to spend. "The selectmen never give us a hard time about the traffic because a lot of people pay their taxes with this money," Wentworth said.

Larry Grard -- 474-9534, Ext. 343

lgrard@centralmaine.com