By the Yard

About By the Yard

Fayetteville wakes slowly around its courthouse square, the old brick going warm as the sun clears the pines along Highway 85. By the Yard starts out on the side streets with the mower deck set, laying lines that run true all the way to the curb. Summer here is long and generous and the Bermuda answers every degree of it, so the work becomes a rhythm — mow, edge, trim the fence line, put the walk back clean. The reward is stepping out to the street to look, when one sharp edge pulls the whole yard together. Come autumn the sweetgums and pin oaks let go nearly at once, and the job turns to lifting leaves off the grass before it forgets the light.