Out toward Horseshoe Lake the cypress stand in the shallows and the herons keep their own schedule, and by mid-October the light over that water has gone low and gold. That is the season R&B Outdoor Services changes gear — final mows cut a little shorter, silver maple and sycamore leaves raked and blown out of the turf, fence lines and beds cleared before the ground goes cold. Through the growing months it is the steady rotation instead: mow, trim, edge, blow the walks clean, move on. Granite City yards sit on flat, generous ground that takes leaves by the truckload, and getting them off before the first hard rain is what keeps the grass alive underneath. There is a plain pleasure in a lawn that goes into winter tidy and comes out of it green.