By noon in July the East Baton Rouge Parish heat stands still over Shenandoah, and the mower moves through it anyway, cutting long even passes while the cicadas run their engine up in the water oaks. St. Augustine grows fast here — a week is a long time in a Louisiana summer — so a routine of mowing, edging and trimming is less a chore than a conversation kept up. Walks and drives get blown back to bare concrete; hedges get taken down to an honest shape. Late in the afternoon the clouds stack up toward Ward's Creek and the yard is already finished, cut lines running true across the front. That is the reward: standing on a street off Coursey Boulevard and seeing a lawn that looks looked-after from the road.