The first cut of the year in Lyerly happens with fog still lying low in the valley, Taylor's Ridge just a blue line above it, and the grass wet enough to clump on the blade. Big Jake's Lawn Service starts the season right there and stays with it — mowing, trimming, edging and cleanup straight through the long green middle of a northwest Georgia summer. Ridge country grows hard after a rain, so the calendar is half the job: come back on time and a yard never gets away from you. There is real pleasure in the sound of it, the engine dropping a note in the thick stuff and rising again as the pass comes clean. Lyerly, Summerville, Trion, Menlo — small towns, short roads, and yards cut the way the folks who live in them want them cut.