February in Rushville is the honest month for tree work: the leaves are down, the ground is firm, and every crossing branch shows itself plain against a gray Schuyler County sky. Zeisler Tree Service uses that clarity — pruning oaks and hackberries on the blocks around the courthouse square, thinning the crowns of yard trees on streets that run out toward the timber above the La Moine bottoms. Removals in this country often mean an old giant that has shaded the same white farmhouse its whole long life and has simply come to its end; it deserves to come down cleanly, in order, with the fence still standing. Squall lines build fast over the open western ground in summer, and the day after belongs to chainsaws, a chipper, and lanes cleared so the truck can get out to the field. The best measure of a finished job is a yard that looks tended rather than worked on.