October in Lockport Township is a slow gold avalanche — maple and sycamore standing along the Portage and the Rocky, and every yard beneath them buried by the third week. Blown away leaf clean up and yard service takes that on: leaves cleared off turf and beds, corners and fence lines emptied out, the whole lot handed back green. The rest of the year runs to the ordinary rhythm of mowing, trimming, edging, feeding and weed control on St. Joseph County lawns that grow well in river-bottom soil. Spring gets its own cleanup, once the thaw finishes leaving its mess behind. Nothing in the calendar quite matches the last pass of a fall cleanup, when a yard that had vanished under leaves is simply a lawn again.