By mid-July the air around Patriarche Park is thick enough to lean on, and everything green is either growing hard or going dormant. Green Hog Lawn Care runs the neighborhoods out that way in the heat — mowing high through the dry stretch so the roots keep their shade, trimming the fence lines, edging the walks back to a straight seam. When the storms roll through and the clay drinks a week's worth of rain at once, the grass jumps and the route tightens up to keep pace. Fall brings the other job entirely: leaves off the lawn and out of the beds before the first hard freeze locks them down. The smell of cut grass on a hot East Lansing afternoon is most of the pay.