The hills above West Paris are gem country — Mount Mica and the old mineral diggings, where tourmaline came out of the ledge and people still climb up with a hammer in August. West Paris Metals mows and maintains the lawns below all that, in the village and out along the Oxford County back roads. The work is mowing and string trimming, bed edging and mulch, brush and leaf cleanup in spring and again when the maples let go. Late in a summer afternoon the shadows of the ridges reach across a finished yard and the cut looks better than it did at noon. It is ordinary work that makes an ordinary place look cared for, which is not a small thing.