Preston sits down in the valley of the South Branch of the Root, limestone bluffs standing over the town and trout water running right past the back of it. Kinneberg Lawn Service LLC keeps yards on the valley floor and on the shelves above it — grass cut, edges trimmed clean — through the green season, then plows and clears ice once the hills go white. Fillmore County weather funnels through these valleys strangely: fog holds in the bottoms until mid-morning, and a north slope will keep its snow a full week after a south slope has given it up. Learning which drive glazes over first is most of what winter work amounts to here. In September the bluffs turn copper above a lawn cut clean to the fence line, and it is a good place to be doing this work.