In late October the light over East Windsor goes the color of cured tobacco leaf, the old sheds standing open to it across the valley flats while a fresh patio cools under the season's first hard frost. J & D Landscaping works in stone here — patios designed and laid, retaining walls set to hold a slope where the Connecticut River valley's sandy ground would rather slide — and much of it is drawn in 3D first, so a homeowner can walk the yard in advance of the first paver. There is a particular satisfaction in the last course of a wall: the level reads true, the joints run straight, and the thing will still be square long after the leaves are down. When the cold settles in, the same hands turn to snow removal, opening driveways around Broad Brook and Warehouse Point before the commute stirs; in the green months it is lawn care, the mower's clean line drawn along the walk. Stone, snow, and cut grass — three ways of leaving a place better set than they found it.