Backyard Getaways

About Backyard Getaways

West of Herrin the water and timber of the Crab Orchard country fill up with geese every fall, and the sound of them carries right over the backyards of Williamson County. Backyard Getaways works those yards year round — mowing, trimming and edging through the long southern Illinois growing season, then plowing and salting when winter finally means it down here. Little Egypt winters arrive more often as ice than as drifts, which makes the salt as important as the blade and the early start more important than either. There is a particular satisfaction in a driveway that is bare and gritted while the trees are still glassed over. Come April the mowers come back out, and the yard becomes somewhere worth sitting again.