Shannon reached under the counter in her kitchen and got out the sack of Lemons she had bought a couple of days before. She carefully cut them in half, began to rotate them on the little juicer.
She knew the crew working out in the hay fields would be thirsty, it was hot as blazes and had been for over a week now.
The weather report showed no relief in sight, a good thing since there was now a full 180 acres of sweet hay lying on the ground.
Her husband Norman would usually be in the North fields by now running the old Ford 3000 raking the crop into wind rows.
That strip of land's crop was always the heaviest, the yields there easily twice per acre more than that of the rest of their acreage. A small creek ran out there, ending in a Beaver dam that gave them fits every year. That land held moisture in the soil very well, the tall grasses often reached well over five feet.
They had tried trapping the Beavers, trying to shoot any of them was a waste of time because no one could get within a half mile before they would vanish.
Taking out the 18 foot wide dam didn't work, in just a few busy nights they would put it right back up.
The only thing to do was create a compromise.
Five huge 30' long left over telephone poles from the local PUD took care of the problem, Norman had hauled them in from the storage yard. Those were free since power and phone lines were all going in underground, the left over poles couldn't be burned or disposed of due to the creosote, but they sure made good fence posts and bridge supports.
They reached far enough up onto the banks on each side that they were nice and solid. Then he found some pressure treated beams that came from a barn salvage, four inches thick and varying lengths. The chain saw cut them off in 10' foot long pieces, Norman planned to spike those down to the long poles.
It would make a perfect bridge, the Beavers would have their place and they could reach that last nine acres back there. Of course, Beavers tended to make their own decisions regarding things like that, but it was worth a try.
Then one long pole had rolled out of place.
Norman did everything he could think of to get it back into line and it kept slipping. With his tractor on one end of the bridge and the problem on the other he was at that for nearly half a day.
Finally he threw a fit, grabbed the end of it and lifted it enough that he could get it over and into the right spot.
Norman was an enormous man, 6' 3" feet tall and right at 270 pounds. The saying around their area was that when Norman grabbed something, it either came or it broke.
But Norman wasn't that enormous, a 30' long creosoted telephone pole is on the heavy side. There likely wasn't another man in the entire County that could even begin to get one end of it off the ground, but he managed.
Just as he dropped the end of the big pole back into place, he felt his back let go.
When he was in his twenties he probably could have gotten away with something like that, now at 48 his big body just wasn't quite up to the task.
Their two man crew, Charley and Daryl hauled Norman back to the house flat on his back on the hay wagon.
Charley was in his fifties, without fail he had on a floppy black hat and a piece of straw stuck in his mouth. His grizzled features from countless hours out in the Sun were cratered with heavy lines, partially due to his constant smile.
Daryl was younger, around 30 or so, he looked to be soft and pudgy, but he wasn't, not in the least. His legs were thick, his belly round, but he worked like a Dog and ate about the same way.
When Shannon showed up with food, she never had to take any back home because Daryl would eat everything in sight. A platter of a dozen sandwiches were three for Norman, one for Charley, Daryl took care of the rest, no problem at all.
There was lots of teasing about that while they sat under the big Red Alder trees by the creek eating lunch.
"One leg full, starting in on t'other!" Charley would wisecrack, his dessert being a piece of nearby straw.
"Man's gotta eat to work!" Daryl would say, digging out the slice of pickle and eating it first.
"Don't see how ya can even move after that. Hey, want me to catch you one of them Beavers?"
"You get one, I'll eat it!" Daryl would grin.
"No wonder ya ain't got no wife, ya probably eats them instead of beddin' them."
"Oh, I eat some of them, all right!" Daryl would fire right back, then look at Shannon and blush.
They would all laugh, it was easy to make Daryl blush.
It was always constant lighthearted banter that turned to some kind of sexy teasing whenever Shannon was around.
Of course the way Shannon always looked created a tendency for them to make sexy wisecracks, and she delighted in their antics.
Men always looked her up and down with interest, she was completely used to that and comfortable with the men.
Everything was fine though, between the two of them and Norman, everything got done around the ranch.
Now Norman was hurt, down for what looked to be quite some time.
There was no choice, it was hire more crewmen to handle the crops or leave it to rot. It would take two good men to cover the work that Norman did by himself, at least.
They already had Charley and Daryl, so Shannon went down to the feed store and hired 2 more men to come out and help. There were always slips of paper with names and phone numbers for men looking for work.
Ten bucks an hour for a 12 hour day, paid in cash meant that part was no problem. Everyone in the County knew all about Shannon's huge plates of sandwiches, platters of fried chicken, her homemade Lemonade.
