High summer in Waterloo: heat sitting on the courthouse square by noon, shade pooling under the storefront awnings on Main, and every lawn in town growing like it has somewhere to be. M&K Mowing takes it week by week — the cut, the trim along fences and mailboxes, the edge beside the drive, the sidewalk cleared of clippings before the truck pulls away. Spring and fall cleanups bookend the run. Evening is the reward: long light down the side streets, the yards all at one height, sprinklers ticking. Nobody photographs a mowed lawn, but a street full of them is what a town looks like when it is doing well.