Start early enough in July and Nicholson is still cool, fog lying low in the bottoms toward the North Oconee, dew heavy enough to soak a boot by the second yard. Daves employee runs the mower into that quiet hour, edging the walks, trimming around mailboxes and posts, blowing the clippings back onto the grass where they do some good. By ten the Georgia heat has moved in to stay, and the lawns cut at daybreak hold their lines all through it. Summer here is a long argument between thunderhead and sun, and the grass answers both by growing, which is why the route comes back around each week. The pride is in the finish: a sharp margin along the concrete, a swept apron of driveway, a yard that looks completed rather than merely shortened.