By late October the backwaters below Hanover fill with ducks, the cottonwoods go the color of old brass, and every lawn in town needs a hand before winter. MS Exterior Services is the outfit for that stretch of the calendar and the ones on either side of it, mowing through the growing season and clearing leaves once the wind starts working on the trees. Grass along the Apple River bottom stays green late, so the last cuts of the year matter as much as the first. A yard raked out, edges redrawn, beds cleared to bare soil — it goes into the cold looking settled instead of abandoned. Then the snow comes and covers the whole thing, and the work waits, patient, for April.