By mid-July the corn at the edge of Washington stands taller than a mailbox and the town settles into that long green hum of cicadas and lawn sprinklers. Brad's Lawn Care Corp. works the neighborhoods straight through it — the weekly cut, the string trimmer along fence lines and foundations, a hard edge set beside the walk, then everything blown clean off the drive. A lawn looks different afterward: the stripes lie down in bands that catch the low evening light, and the whole yard reads as tended. Spring cleanups and fall leaf work bracket the mowing season on either end. It is ordinary work, kept to a schedule, and the whole street is better for it.