Fog sits low on the Tittabawassee most summer mornings, and it burns off just about the time the first mower fires up. This crew works the yards of Jerome Township — cutting, trimming, edging and hauling away the leaves and limbs a river-bottom summer sheds. Ground near water grows fast and unevenly, so the schedule bends to what the grass is doing instead of what the calendar says. There is real pride in the moment a rough lot turns tidy, borders clean and the clippings gone with the truck. By afternoon the light has moved off the river and the yard sits neat inside its edges.