At noon in July, the shade around a Locust farmhouse is worth more than anything else on the property. Locust Tree Services keeps that shade sound — trimming limbs off the gutters, pruning out deadwood before it comes down on its own schedule, removing trees that have lost the argument with age or lightning. Work out here gets measured in tractor lanes and clotheslines and the corner of a machine shed nobody wants scratched. After a storm walks through the fields and lays a top across the driveway, storm damage cleanup means saw, chipper and rake until the gravel shows again. What lasts is that cool green circle at three in the afternoon, tended well enough to keep throwing it for years.