Mud season along the West River is Upton at its least photogenic and most honest — frost heaving out of the dirt roads, culverts running hard, everything waiting on the ground to make up its mind. Nicks Landscaping and Excavation LLC starts the year right there, with spring cleanups and the first cuts once a yard will hold a machine. Summer turns into a steady rotation of mowing, trimming and edging on properties where lawn meets woodline and old wall. Then it all inverts: plows out on the town roads, driveways cut open before the day begins, banks shoved back where the drifts crowd in. Same town, same trucks, opposite problems — and both of them solved.