By late April the heavy lakebed clay around Lambertville has finally dried enough to walk without leaving prints, and everything wants to be cut back, cleaned out and started over. This is lawn care and landscaping work: mowing, trimming and edging, bed maintenance and planting, and cleanups that take a winter's worth of debris off a yard in one afternoon. Spring in this corner of Michigan is not gentle — it is mud, then green, almost overnight. The reward comes with the first mow of the year, when the color rises all at once and a fresh-cut edge holds its curve exactly the way it was drawn. A yard that starts the season clean stays easier all the way to October.