October in Durango turns the scrub oak on Animas City Mountain to copper and lays a low gold light against the red sandstone above town. R & D Landscaping and Masonry spends those short afternoons putting yards to bed — final mows, edges tightened up, beds raked out and carried off before the ground goes hard. There is real satisfaction in a property that looks composed in the off-season, its lines still legible under the first dusting. Then the plow blades go on and the winter shifts begin: drives opened, walks cleared, ice handled at the doorways where it matters most. Come May the mowers roll out again and the whole round starts over.