By noon in July the pavement along South Westnedge is throwing heat back up at you and the grass on the median has gone the color of straw. Full throttle lawn maintenance works right through it — mowing, trimming, edging, and clearing off the clippings before the wind can move them onto somebody's sidewalk. Commercial frontage and neighborhood lawns get the same pace, which is quick, and the same finish, which is squared off at every corner. Portage summers do not hand out easy weeks; the growth outruns you if the schedule slips even once. Keeping ahead of it is the sport, and a clean strip of green on a hot afternoon is the scoreboard.