By late October the pecan groves around Peach County start letting go, and every yard in Fort Valley takes on a layer of leaves and hulls overnight. Cruz Lawn Care and Landscaping spends those weeks with rakes and blowers, pulling the drifts out of the beds and off the centipede before it smothers. The last mows of the year come in then too, shorter and further apart as the nights cool. Spring runs the other direction — mulch, bed edging, shrubs cut back, mowing picking up speed through April. Both ends of the year end with the same picture: a yard that looks like somebody just went over it.