August in Gretna arrives with cicadas in the bur oaks and heat rising off the gravel section roads by ten in the morning. Cedar lawn and landscape works straight through it — mowing at a height that lets the turf shade its own roots, trimming close around posts and mailboxes, clearing every clipping off the concrete before the truck rolls on. Fertilizer and weed control keep the grass standing when the sun leans on it day after day. Come October those same yards get raked and cleared, the leaves hauled off before the first hard freeze pins them down. Between the two ends of that stretch is a whole year of steady tending.