Yard Works

About Yard Works

A concrete buffalo the size of a house stands on the bluff over the James, keeping an eye on Jamestown and everyone who comes off the interstate to look at him. Down in the streets below, at noon in midsummer, the heat sits still and the whole town smells like cut grass. Yard Works is somewhere in that smell — mowing on the weekly turn, trimming close where a mower can't reach, edging until the sidewalk shows its true width again. The last of it is cleanup, blowing the walks clear so the only evidence left is a lawn that looks deliberate. The prairie beyond the valley rim goes on forever without anyone's help; a yard is the small piece of it a person actually gets to shape.