North of the Broadway bridge the land climbs into Bird Hills and drops again to Barton Pond, and the lawns up there are cut into slope and shade. Slater Lawn & Landscape works that terrain: mowing on grade, trimming around tree rings and outcrops, edging the drives that curve down toward the road, and hauling out the spring and fall cleanups a wooded lot generates. April in Ann Arbor arrives in fits — a warm week, then frost on the windshield — and the first mow of the year is a small celebration. By May the hillsides are green all the way to the water, and a kept lawn sits in the middle of it looking like it belongs. That is the aim again every week after.