Morning comes early on the plain east of Colorado Springs, and Pikes Peak stands white-shouldered over Cimarron Hills before the first mower turns a wheel. The Lawn Patrol works these wide, wind-brushed yards the way the light does — one clean pass at a time, until the grass lies in even rows and the edge along the walk runs straight as a chalk line. Mowing, trimming and edging out here mean coaxing green from dry high-plains soil, so aeration, fertilization and weed control matter every bit as much as the blade. Spring cleanups clear the winter's scatter of cottonwood and elm; the autumn round sends the leaves off before the first hard freeze settles into the ground. It is sunlit, unhurried work, and the reward is a yard that reads as cared for from the sidewalk all the way back to the fence.