Sparta sits where the Piedmont hills begin their long slope toward the coastal plain, and in October the light there turns thin and gold by four in the afternoon. Piedmont Custom Turf Farm keeps lawns across those slopes — mowing on the contour, edging the walks, trimming what a deck can never reach, clearing leaf drop before it mats down. Grass in this county grows the way the land does: unevenly, answering sun and shade and whatever the week's weather decided. The work is reading that and cutting to it. A wide lawn finished at dusk, the cuttings swept off the drive, is a plain thing and a good one.