By October the nights up here drop hard, woodsmoke settles low over the rooftops, and the grass slows to a stop. Sierra Propane closes yards out for the season — a final short cut, leaves lifted off the turf and out of the corners, walks and drives cleared so nothing sits and rots under snow. Trimming tidies the fence lines one last time, and the load goes out with the truck the same day. Put to bed properly in fall, a lawn wakes up better in spring, and that is the whole argument for doing it. Through summer it is the plain steady work — mow, edge, trim, haul — week after week, in a town where the season is short and nobody wastes it.