Chuck's yard work and odds and ends

About Chuck's yard work and odds and ends

Montevideo took its name from the capital of Uruguay and keeps a statue of José Artigas in its plaza as a token of that friendship, but its landscape is pure Minnesota: the town sits where the Chippewa River pours into the Minnesota. Chuck's yard work and odds and ends looks after lawns in this river-valley town, the plainspoken kind of yard work that has a Saturday feeling finished by ten in the morning. Picture a quiet street in August with the grass cut low and even, clippings blown off the sidewalk, and the dew still burning off the valley floor. Late summer here is wide-skied and loud with grasshoppers, and a fresh-cut yard is the coolest-looking spot on the block. Two rivers meet at Montevideo; on mowing day, the lawn and the sidewalk edge meet just as cleanly.