Fog settles low in the hollows around Buffalo most mornings and burns off by nine, and that is about when Elk River Lawn Care gets rolling. Ozark yards are rarely flat — they fall away toward the creek, they climb toward the ridge, and mowing one well means knowing which way to take the slope. Trimming does the rest: around the stone, the mailbox, the well house, the places the mower has to leave alone. Late in summer the hardwoods hold their shade and the grass beneath them grows thin and slow; autumn buries all of it in oak and hickory leaf. Cut, trimmed and cleared, a hillside yard sits in its hollow looking exactly like someone lives there and means it.