By mid-October Nelson Township turns copper and rust — the oaks along Cedar Creek, the sandy two-tracks running up toward Sand Lake, leaves stacking against every fence in the sections north of Rockford. G&S Outdoor Services is out in the middle of it then, running fall cleanups: leaves pulled from the beds and off the turf, the last mow of the year put down short and even. Through summer it is the steady rotation — weekly mowing, trimming around posts and tree rings, edging that keeps a lawn from creeping into the gravel. The soil up here is light and quick to dry, so reading the ground is half of knowing when to cut. A raked, mowed yard under bare oaks in November is a plain kind of beautiful, and worth the afternoon it takes.