October comes down hard over Lincoln Brick Park, oak leaves letting go in sheets while the Grand runs dark and cold below the old clay banks. This is when Coomes Landscape Services does the year's heavy tidying around Grand Ledge — leaves hauled off, beds cut back, the last mow taken low so the turf goes into winter clean. Through the growing months it is the steadier rhythm instead: weekly cuts, trimmed borders, mulch laid fresh, edges kept sharp. Fall work is cold hands and full trailers and the smell of wet leaves, and it is oddly satisfying every single time. A yard put to bed properly in November is a yard that comes back easy in April.