Dorothy Edwards

Pat King carries over the next piece of wood, and her husband, Ken, waits, chainsaw in hand. He cuts the log into two or three pieces and adds them to the hundreds stacked in the yard. They&#8217;ll use them in the old-fashioned fireplace that serves as the only heat source in their country home on the outskirts of Berea.
Pat lifts and carries the wood, she says, because she&#8217;s younger and stronger, but Ken handles the saw because it hurts her back to bend over for that length of time.
In wood chopping as in life, where one lacks, the other provides.
Pat, 64, and Ken, 69, are newlyweds. They started dating April 16, 2011, and married exactly three years later. Pat had married and divorced 12 years before, leaving an abusive husband.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t like to think about that because I have a good husband now. I got the best,&#8221; Pat says. &#8220;I think a good man is a gift from God.&#8221;
Ken never married because of a hereditary tremor he feared passing on to children. He lived as a nomad, which he figured wouldn&#8217;t be fair to a wife.
&#8220;He was waiting for me, weren&#8217;t you honey?&#8221; Pat jokes.
&#8220;Yep. I was waiting for the best,&#8221; Ken says.
Pat fits comfortably into Ken&#8217;s adventurous life. She didn&#8217;t travel much before, but in the last year, they have driven 6,000 miles around the country, exploring new places together. When they aren&#8217;t traveling, they pick persimmons and walnuts, hike and raise a garden together.
&#8220;We basically do everything together,&#8221; Pat says. &#8220;We are just best friends.&#8221;