October pulls fog off the Saginaw River and hangs it under the Third Street bridge until the streetlights look like they are floating. MCA Lawn Service is out underneath it early, taking the last mows of the year and pushing wet maple leaves off lawns before they mat down and smother the grass. There is real satisfaction in a yard that goes into winter clean, with nothing left to rot under the first snowfall, the beds edged and the walks swept clear. Then the river ices at the banks, the blade goes on, and the same driveways get cleared storm after storm through a Bay County winter that does not negotiate. By April the mower is back out, and the lawn remembers who looked after it.