Ivesdale sits low on the central Illinois prairie where Champaign and Piatt counties meet, and the grain elevator and the brick steeple are the two tallest things for miles. Magsamen Landscapes keeps lawns mowed, trimmed and edged through the long green middle of the year, when corn stands loud on every side of town and the evenings run out past nine o'clock. Come winter there is nothing out here to slow the wind, so snow travels rather than falls and banks up against the north side of everything. That is when the plow goes out: drives opened, walks cleared to bare concrete, salt laid down where the ice wants to hold. There is real satisfaction in a straight-mown yard against all that open ground, and in a lane that's black and passable before the first pickup leaves for chores.