By October the light out along the Davisboro road goes long and gold, and the Bermuda finally slows down enough to let a yard hold its shape. Northlake Express LLC runs those county roads out of Sandersville with mowers on the trailer, working a route yard by yard — cut, trim, edge, blow the drive clean, on to the next. Fall here means leaves and pine straw more than anything else, and getting them off before they mat down over the grass. Winter turns the lawns tan and dormant, and the work shifts to cleanup and cutting back. Then comes the first warm week of spring, the whole route greens up at once, and it begins again.