The soil around Long Lake is sand under a thin skin of loam, which means a July lawn out there can go from lush to straw in about ten days of sun. Colton's Excavating and landscaping LLC keeps those shoreline and back-lot yards on a mowing schedule that respects it — cutting a little higher in the heat, trimming clean around dock posts, birches and stairways, edging the drive so the gravel stays where it belongs. Cleanups bracket the year at both ends, hauling off the winter litter in spring and the leaf drop in fall. It is satisfying work: a rented cabin lawn and a year-round place, both left looking cared for the same way. On a still evening the mower carries across the water, then stops, and the yard is done.