When the melt comes to West Fitchburg, Falulah Brook runs loud for a week and the yards along it go soft underfoot before they firm up for the season. Brookside Landscape Management, Inc times the first mow to that ground, then keeps it on a steady rotation right through to leaf drop. Cutting, edging along walks and drives, trimming out the corners a mower cannot reach — the routine is simple and the difference is not. In April the yards are raked out; by November the leaves are moved before they smother what is under them. In a mill city built on moving water, there is something fitting about work measured in weeks and finished by hand.