Spring arrives in this part of Jo Daviess County from the bottom up: the south-facing slopes green first, then the ridge tops, then the shaded hollows that hold their cold a week longer than anywhere else. Four Seasons Yard Management works a Dunleith yard the way the growing year actually runs — cleanup while the ground is still firm, mowing and trimming straight through the long green middle, then leaf work when the oak and hickory hillsides finally let go in October. Grass here grows on limestone with a thin skin of soil over it, so a lawn wants steady tending far more than it wants rescuing. The satisfaction is cumulative. A yard that looks intentional in May and still looks intentional the week before the ground closes up is the whole ambition.