Summer storms announce themselves early here: a bruise of cloud stacking up over the flat land west of town, an hour of stillness, then rain enough to run Thorn Creek brown. Alarcon's Lawn & Maintenance reads that sky and gets the cutting done ahead of it — mowing, string trimming, edging, and the clippings hauled off before the first drops land. After the storm passes there is the other half of the job: the branches down, the beds washed thin, the yard put back in order. It is steady, unglamorous work, and it is what keeps a property looking cared for from June into September. The reward comes on the walk back to the truck, when the lines are even and the cut-green smell carries the length of the street.