In Orleans Township the Flat River takes its time, sliding through hayfields and low woods on its way south toward Ionia. Artistic Irrigation/Landscaping works the early hours here, when mist still hangs over the bottomland and the first spray of a zone catches the sun sideways. The work runs from mowing and edging to planting beds that follow the shape of a yard, and to irrigation lines tuned so a lawn holds its color through the dry weeks when the gravel roads go to dust. A head that pops up exactly where it should, a bed edge that curves the way the ground wants — those are the small things worth doing right. Orleans, Belding, Smyrna and Ionia are an easy run from here.