Late September, and the light over Sassaquin Pond goes long and gold by four in the afternoon. This is the stretch of year Yellow Jacket Landscaping likes best across New Bedford's north end — mowing height raised, leaves pulled off the turf, hedges shaped up before the cold means business. The Acushnet River runs quiet this far inland, more marsh than harbor, and the yards that back onto it hold their damp, so the season's last cuts get timed to the ground rather than the calendar. A property reads as finished when the edges are true and nothing is left scattered across the walk. The standard doesn't move, week after week, straight through the leaf drop.