After a wet March the ground around Avena greens up all at once, and the first cut of the year is the one that changes everything. CKC Lawn Care LLC is out for it — mowing, trimming, and putting a clean edge along drives and walks that have spent all winter blurred over. This is old National Road country, timber and pasture and small towns strung along the Kaskaskia, and the yards run generous. Through the summer the work simply repeats, each pass keeping a place looking tended rather than merely outgrown. The reward is ordinary and real: a lawn that makes the house look right.