East of Springfield the land slopes down to Ebenezer Creek, where cypress stands in black water and Spanish moss holds the morning damp long after sunup. NICKS TREE EXPERTS works Effingham County from the courthouse blocks out to the pine plantations — removals where a pine has gone brown and brittle, trimming to lift a limb off the roofline, pruning live oaks so they can spread the way live oaks want to. Coastal weather builds fast here, and wet ground will let go of a root plate on a tree that looked fine at breakfast. Then the day is rope, saw and hauling, until the drive is passable and the yard can be walked again. The finish is what people remember: smooth cut faces, the chips carried off, the grass unmarked.