East of town the Pecatonica bends through timber, and from the high ground at Oakdale Nature Preserve you can watch the whole valley change color inside a single week. Bear's Outdoor Services keeps after both halves of the year out that way, mowing, trimming, edging and running seasonal cleanups while the ground is soft, then plowing snow, clearing walkways and salting once it is not. River-bottom air holds the cold, so frost lands here before it lands anywhere else around Freeport, and the outdoor season is shorter than people expect. That makes each usable day worth spending all the way down. A yard closed out properly in November is a yard that comes back easy in April.