In Calais the St. Croix does double duty — a river and a border, with New Brunswick close enough to read the streetlights across the water. Calais Ace Home Center works the yards and driveways on this side of it, mowing through the long green light of a Downeast July and plowing once the river fog turns into something harder. There is real satisfaction in a lawn cut straight to the edge of the walk, and in a dooryard opened wide before the first car needs to leave. Winter here is patient and so is the work: clear it, sand it, come back when the wind fills it in again. Summer asks for a steadier rhythm, week after week, until the grass finally gives up in October.