Come October the hardwood ridges east of Gaylord turn all at once, and the country out toward the Sturgeon Valley reads like a map drawn in maple and beech. Stuckman Tree Experts Inc. works this high Otsego County ground, halfway between the equator and the pole and every bit as northern as that sounds. Pruning and tree trimming are the year's quiet work — clearing a roofline, pulling deadwood out of a big beech, giving a young tree a shape it can hold for fifty years. Tree removal is for the ones past saving, let down where there is no room to fell them whole. Storm damage cleanup finishes what the wind starts, and by dusk the brush is chipped, the wood is stacked, and the ridge is quiet again.