June afternoons on the plains build their own weather: a white anvil stacking up over the mountains by two o'clock, thunder rolling east across the beet fields, then twenty minutes of rain on hot pavement and that smell that means everything is about to grow twice as fast. Rangel Landscaping Services works the days after — mowing yards that shot up overnight, trimming, edging, clearing away the storm's litter of leaves and small branches, putting beds back in order. Out along the county roads the alfalfa gets cut in long green windrows; in town the same instinct applies at a smaller scale, on lot-sized ground between the sidewalk and the back fence. Fort Lupton yards ask for regular attention from April on, and there is real satisfaction in giving it. A cut lawn on a warm evening, watered and quiet, is worth the whole week of it.