March in Waukegan smells like thaw and two-stroke. The snowbanks are grey and shrinking, the first mud shows through, and every garage in town holds a mower that ran fine last September and will not start now. North shore lawncare & small engine covers both ends of that — cutting and trimming lawns through the season, and keeping the machines that do it running: mowers, trimmers, blowers, the small engines that carry a whole neighborhood's summer. There is a particular satisfaction in a carburetor cleaned, a blade sharpened, a pull cord answered on the second tug, and then in the straight cut that machine goes on to make. Grass work and wrench work turn out to be the same trade seen from two sides. Waukegan keeps both benches busy.