Middleport sits low on the Iroquois River with Watseka just across the water, and the silver maples along that bank grow fast, grow enormous, and shed what they cannot hold. Mense Tree Service knows the type — trimming them back off roofs and wires, pruning out the weak forks before wind finds them, removing the ones gone hollow at the base above a cut bank. High water and hard weather are part of the year here, and storm damage cleanup means wading into the tangle and hauling it out until a yard is a yard again. Winter work is the quiet kind: boots on frozen ground, the river running dark past the willows. Every job ends the same, with the brush gone and the grass raked flat.