April in Newport is the ugliest month and the most hopeful one — frost heaving out of the back roads, sand everywhere, the grass flattened and gray where the snowbank stood. Paris Farmers Union works that turn of the year with the spring cleanup, raking the winter out, sweeping the sand back, getting light and air onto lawns that have been under cover since November. Then the season settles into its ordinary rhythm: mowing, trimming, edging, mulch into the beds, leaves cleared before the first hard freeze. There is something farm-store plain about the approach — the right task on the right week, and let the ground answer. Give a Newport lawn a fair start in April and it carries itself right through to September.