Spring arrives on Tuscola's older streets one front yard at a time — bulbs first, then the maples, then the grass all at once in a single warm week. Jerry & Jan's Yard Care meets it with the season's first cut, the trimmer along porch skirts and mailbox posts, the clippings off the walk before the wind can put them back. Back yards get the same care as front ones here, which is not always true elsewhere and is the difference between a mowed lawn and a tended one. Through summer it is a weekly rhythm; in fall it is leaves, and a great many of them. What lasts is the feeling of stepping out a back door onto a yard that is entirely ready for you.