Late June in Champaign is a growing contest nobody entered. Warm nights, a thunderhead rolling up from the southwest, and by Saturday the lawn has put on more than seems reasonable — this is the same dirt that runs corn out to the horizon, and it does not distinguish. Goat Mowing Company keeps pace with it: mowing on a real schedule, trimming the fence lines and around the mailbox post, cutting an edge along the drive, and blowing the walks clean afterward. A yard finished at seven in the evening has its own smell, cut grass and warm concrete, and it means the week is over. Come autumn the mowing gives way to leaves, and the final pass leaves everything flat and ready.