Toward the Boxford line the Middleton roads narrow into old farm country — hayfields, stone walls gone soft with moss, and September light coming in low and gold across the grass by five in the afternoon. Tinkham Landscapes works right through that hour. Lawns get mowed to an even height that suits the shortening days, trimmer lines follow wall and post and tree, and mulch is laid where the beds have thinned out over summer. Then the leaves start, and they come off in patient passes until the turf is bare and clean going into the cold. In April it runs the other way, the winter's litter raked out so the first green has nothing standing in its way.