Late July builds thunderheads over the Ingham County fields by mid-afternoon, and the trick is to have the mowing finished before the sky decides. Grass in that heat grows in bursts, so the routine holds: cut on schedule, trim close along foundations and fence posts, edge the walks back to their proper width. Leslie Township is wide and green in high summer, and a yard that has been kept up stands out against all that unmown country. The satisfaction is small and repeatable — the clean sweep of a finished pass, the clippings off the drive, the machine loaded before the first drop lands.