April arrives in Kingston along the county roads — redbud first, then dogwood breaking white against the pine, and the pastures greening up from the creek bottoms outward. The first mow of the year has a smell to it that nothing else in the calendar matches. Southern Lawn Services opens the season with that cut and keeps it going: mowing week after week, trimming close where the mower can't reach, edging walks and drives back to a straight line, and clearing the clippings so the pavement looks untouched. What the work leaves behind is a yard that has come back to itself, tidy right up to the porch steps. Around Kingston, Euharlee, Adairsville and Cartersville, spring gives plenty of notice and then no patience at all.