Pine Mountain runs east and west along the last ridge before the coastal plain, and in April the hardwood coves fill with dogwood the way a room fills with light. R&C Tree Service LLC works those slopes and the flat lots below them — taking out a pine that has died on a hillside, trimming hardwoods that have grown out over a roof, pruning so a tree keeps its form instead of its bad habits. Ridge work has its own arithmetic: gravity is always on the tree's side, so the cuts are figured and the rigging is set before anything moves. When wind funnels along the mountain and lays a limb across somebody's drive, they cut it up and haul it out the same careful way. The ridge grows more tree than anyone could ever need, and half the trade is deciding which ones stay.