Late in a Pulaski County summer, the sky over Jacksonville stacks up gray in the southwest by four o'clock, and anybody with a mower learns to read it. Latham's Lawncare & Services works ahead of that weather: mowing, string trimming along fences and foundations, edging the sidewalk back to its true line, then clearing the drive so nothing washes into the street when the rain finally lets go. Around Dupree Park the oaks throw long shade and the grass grows uneven, sun to shadow, which is its own small puzzle to solve. Autumn turns the job to leaves and the slower, gentler kind of cleanup. There is something steadying about a yard that still looks looked-after once the storm has passed over it.