Milwaukee Avenue runs on the diagonal through Niles, cutting its own angle across a village of square blocks, and by late May everything along it has gone riotously green. F. Jasso Landscaping opens the season there with the first cut of the year — the one that takes a shaggy lawn and hands it back its shape. After that comes the routine: mowing, trimming around fences and posts, edging the walks, and clearing the yard at either end of the season. Cottonwood fluff drifts through June like slow, warm snow, and the mowing goes on straight through it. What stays with you is the smell of that first pass and the way a lot looks when the last stripe closes.