Morning mist collects in the hollows around Ludville and slides off the ridges an hour after sunrise, and the mowers wait for it the way everybody up here does. CK Lawn Services works these Pickens County yards — mowing, edging and trimming lawns that sit on red clay and lean downhill more often than not. Slope changes everything about cutting grass: you take it across, you take it slow, and you keep the wheels honest. Along Talking Rock Creek the ground stays cool and the grass holds green well past when the valleys give up. A clean edge on a hillside lawn is quiet proof somebody knew what they were doing.