Down here the growing season is generous and it does not let up. Carterville sits in the green country north of Crab Orchard Lake, where summer comes in thick and humid and a lawn can put on a week of growth in three days. So the work runs on a rhythm the grass sets: mowing on time, trimming around the posts and the mailbox and the base of every tree, edging the walks until the line stays honest, then hauling off what comes with it. On a July morning the air over Williamson County is heavy enough to see, and a yard cut clean against all that looks like an act of will. By evening the light arrives low and sideways and every pass shows.