I was still laughing at Elger after telling me he'd been hit on by a woman at the pizza place. I laughed even harder when he told me it was widow Pearson. I didn't think I had much to worry about. Still, I asked him how he knew she was hitting on him.
"Because as I was leaving, she beckoned me to lean down toward her and told me I could park my shoes under her bed anytime. That's how I know, I'm a married man, surely she knows that."
Now I was laughing even harder, here's my six foot something handsome strong as an ox guy flummoxed by a late 60's widow, and not a slim nicely fit older woman, a slightly overweight and frumpy woman missing half her front teeth. The more we joked about it during supper the more relaxed he became.
"Leah, do guys hit on you?"
"They do El, not all the time, but they do. You have an attractive sexy woman on your hands you know. Better make sure you meet my needs buddy."
I could see the confusion and hurt in his eyes as I quickly rose and squeezed my way onto his lap.
"Stop that you lunk. You know I'm fooling around, there will never be anyone but you in my life Elger. I thought we'd settled this some time ago, I have never given you reason to be jealous, and I won't start now. I'm afraid you're stuck with me for life."
Kissing me he apologized, and said I was right, I had never given him a reason to be jealous, the comment had caught him off guard. The afternoon romp in the woods was enough to keep us satisfied, neither of us was overly amorous, after watching the evening news and Gunsmoke we called it a night and turned in early.
With the garden area tilled we set about buying seeds and a few plants already started. We wanted earlier tomato's, so I bought six plants along with pepper plants, the remainder were seeds. It took us an entire Saturday to get our garden planted, from there on it would be watering, weeding and an eventual harvest. We'd cleared out the root cellar, El had installed shelves from some cedar he had, we were set to store what we canned later in the summer.
Elger had enough shingles purchased to put a new roof on Lou's house, discontinuing cutting for two weeks he was spending his afternoons doing that. He was able to get it all stripped in two afternoons, replaced the few rotted boards and laid down tar paper by the third day. He had watched the weather closely making sure we had clear skies for the time the roof was bare. With tar paper down he was less anxious if a rain squall were to appear.
There were no pneumatic nail guns around then, no Lowe's, Home Depot's, or Menards, it was hammer and nails, manual labor. It took El three full afternoons to lay down the shingles and finish Lou's house, sore knees each night, empty belly, sore shoulders and arms from hefting 70 pound bundles of shingles up the ladder and across the roof. He would carry five or six bundles up, rest and do it again until he had enough to lay down five or six courses. Then do it all again, I had one very tired man on my hands each night when he dragged himself through the door for supper.
We made love once that week, and I gave him a blow job once just to keep those balls empty. Over time I had learned to enjoy the control I had over him when his cock was in my mouth, I also liked the feel of him cumming, the taste of his essence, the taste and feel of MY man. Like most men he thought with his dick and I was the happy recipient of those thoughts. In the first stage of my pregnancy I was hornier than normal, now that I was several months along, I wasn't as horny as before. I made sure I kept Elger happy and sated, but it wasn't the driving force it had been in the beginning.
With the garden in it was time to start cutting and splitting wood for the winter, assuring it would be dried enough to burn properly by fall. If Elger didn't have logs to cut he was in the woods, cutting tops and hauling them home to split. He'd been at it for several weeks and nearly had the basement filled with cord after cord of wood. Once our winter supply was replenished, he set about getting wood cut and split for Lou, once he'd finished that he started cutting trees the forestry management people said we should cut first. As he would cut them, he'd bring them to the log staging area, when he had 5 or 6 logs ready to go, he'd cut and stack them in the mow.
Mid-summer brought about the 4th with its many celebrations for the nations 200th birthday, our small city as well. I was concerned Elger wouldn't be able to cope during the military salutes, the fireworks and kids lighting firecrackers, but with Willy and Eileen next to us he did quite well. I was so proud of him, it had been several years since our first encounter with the noises and blasts, he had been able to put most of it behind him. Memorial weekend was always the hardest for him, it still is. It used to be a phone call from one of his platoon buddies every year thanking God their name wasn't on the wall, now it's a text.
It was late summer, time to start harvesting and canning, we had been able to stay ahead of the weeds and had a decent harvest to put up. Earlier in the summer we had frozen several quart bags of sweet corn and I'd made sweet pickles with the smaller cukes. After canning carrots, green beans, stewed tomatoes, and making dill pickles we were ready to dig potatos and onions, which we stored on racks in the root cellar. The few apple trees we had didn't produce much more than deer feed, we decided we'd pay more attention to them next summer.
Elger had reached the point where he needed to spend his time sawing logs and it was time to start building sample pieces of furniture to sell. With Burt's grandson doing so well El approached Burt about possibly not working at all, not surprisingly, Burt was a step ahead of him.
"Readin my mind boy."
Seems that a local football star found college a lot more challenging than he thought, he was home and looking for work. Being his grandson's best friend, Burt told him he'd see if something could be worked out.
