Every year the anticipation of the Junk Jaunt starts to build at our house about a week or two before. Well, actually long before that because we have a running list that we add to whenever we think of something we could use for the house and we haven’t been able to find it at an auction. Items that are unusual or fit a specific need. The funny thing is we seldom come home with those items, but we always find something else interesting to buy.
This year the weather was perfect compared to last year which was chilly and wet. Friday was in the 80’s and Saturday and Sunday in the 70’s with lots of sunshine. A couple of years ago when we stayed in the Victoria Springs cabins for the Junk Jaunt, Dennis told us that his friends Tom and Bonnie Mayo didn’t live far from there. That year the Mayo’s had a garage sale of their own so we stopped by just to say hi. Ken had met Tom and Bonnie way back when Andy and their son Paul were just little guys. We enjoyed our visit with them and Tom showed us around the farmstead a little. They still have the old farmhouse that has been in Bonnie’s family for generations and at that time they were renting it out on a monthly basis. As with any rental property, the renters sometimes don’t appreciate the value of the house and consequently don’t take very good care of it. About a year ago Dennis told us that Tom and Bonnie had had enough with renters and they decided to turn the farmhouse into a vacation rental. Since 2016 was our turn to make the reservations for the Junk Jaunt we reserved the farmhouse at Cedar Lake Farms for all of us.
The house was spacious and very comfortable with the old woodwork which I love. Some of it had to be at least 6 to 8 inches wide. I also love that when they built these old houses, they tried to create as much usable space as possible.
The upstairs closets had the slanted ceilings to conform to the pitch of the roof. There were three bedrooms up there with an open area toward the back of the hall that was large enough for a full bed and they also put up a tri-fold privacy panel to help conceal some of the area. On one wall in this open area was a small door probably about three high. Another space of storage. Love it!!
Downstairs the dining room had a long table that all nine of us could easily sit at to enjoy our meals and we didn’t feel crowded. There was a living room or parlor as they used to call them. The kitchen was large and fairly modern. There were two more bedrooms on the main level plus one full bath and one half bath.
Enough about the house, let’s move on. Ken and I usually leave home on Friday and start Junk Jaunting when we get to Cairo or St. Paul. Then we make our way in a westerly direction to some other towns until it’s time to meet up with the rest of the family for dinner. This year we met at Smoken Hot in Sargent. When we are done eating we all headed to the house to unpack and to chat about what we had already found and what we were looking for in the next day or two. Ken and I aren’t ‘die hard’ Junk Jaunters, we like to do other things, so we go out sometime on Saturday morning but we are usually back by early afternoon to walk or fish or something. When we got back to the house around 2:00 Tom stopped by to ask us if we wanted to go fishing. That was our original plan anyway but having Tom along to show us the best places to fish would be great. Little did we know that he was going to take us out on his boat. He trolled us around the lake and we caught some big bass and some huge crappies. Some of the crappie were so large that when they opened their mouths as you were pulling them up through the water they looked like a big bass. Ken thought a few of them could have been 18” long. Gigantic by our standards!!! We also caught some bluegill that were beautiful. The clear water just seems to bring out the best in the fish. We did all ‘catch and release’ but we took a few pictures for posterity.
While we were out on the boat there was an Osprey that was also doing some fishing. He would circle overhead and then set his wings for dive mode, spiral down through the air and hit the water. A couple of times he came up empty handed, but one time he headed to the trees and we thought maybe he had caught a small fish. It was interesting to watch as he was taking off from the water, he would shake like a dog.
We had a great meal in the evening and Tom and Bonnie joined us. She had brought us breakfast that morning of biscuits and gravy, monkey bread, fresh fruit, juice and milk. We didn’t realize this was a bed and breakfast so Carol had brought a breakfast casserole and I brought some banana bread and a braid. Needless to say, we had plenty to eat that day.
Knowing that we only had one shower for nine of us everyone had the same idea to get up early on Sunday morning to use the bathroom. Todd was given the honor of being shower police, so if you were in the bathroom for more than 15 minutes he was the person designated to bang on the door to remind you that your time was up. I don’t think anyone had to be reminded. Church wasn’t until 8:30 but by 6:30 everyone had showered and we were all sitting around the kitchen and dining room waiting for breakfast to arrive. Just a side note here, Mayo’s have cattle on their farm and when the cows are hungry they start to bawl . . . . U A A A A, U A A A A to let Tom know they need to be fed. Dennis always comes up with something so he changed that bawling to T O M M M, T O M M M and told Ryli to try it. She just gave him her sheepish grin (no pun intended) and shook her head no. But about 7:00 when Tom and Bonnie came to the door with breakfast, everyone started bawling in their best cow voice, T O M M M, T O M M M. Tom and Bonnie got a good laugh when they walked in the door and heard all the commotion. Tom said he thought for sure Dennis would be sitting at the table with knife and fork in hand just waiting for the food. I think this was better:)
Each year we plan to go to Church on Sunday morning and depending on the size of the Church, we can fill a whole pew or more. This year we went to St. Anselm’s in Anselmo. A week or two earlier they had had a thunderstorm in Anselmo with some lightning. This Church is one of those big old brick churches with a tall square parapet on one side that has four concrete spires at each corner. Apparently lightning struck one of the spires and it crashed to the ground. Thankfully no one was there at the time and luckily it didn’t crash down on the roof. If it had it probably would have left a large gaping hole through the Church. Instead it landed in the Church yard and left some pretty big indentations there.
We enjoyed the Priest at St. Anselm’s and also the guest speaker who was a Missionary associated Maryknoll. He was a lay person and spoke about his time in Africa.
After Church we all gathered outside to say our goodbyes. Ken and I headed home with a quick stop at a farm outside of Ravenna. Found a few more bargains there and we were done. After we left Ravenna we were lucky enough to see a bull Elk in a pasture along Highway 2. That’s not something you see every day in Nebraska.
Another memorable Junk Jaunt in the books.