Bijou Creek comes down through the country at Byers with a line of cottonwoods marking exactly where the water is, the way water always announces itself on the plains. Mornings out here belong to meadowlarks and the sound of a mower starting up somewhere down the road. Old Ranch mows, edges and trims yards around town, cutting where lawn meets hayfield and pasture and keeping that boundary honest. Grass grows fast in June and grudgingly in August, and the schedule respects the difference. Cleanups pull the year's leaf drop and windblown debris off the place before the ground freezes hard.