Middleton keeps its distance from everything: the Moose Mountains on one side, Sunrise Lake tucked back in the trees, long roads between houses where hay-scented fern crowds the ditches. KNL Greens LLC mows out here where the lots are big and the grass comes in bursts after rain, trimming around stone walls and well caps, edging where lawn gives way to gravel. Spring cleanups mean pulling a winter's worth of sand and branch litter out of the turf; fall means keeping ahead of oak and beech leaves before the first hard freeze. The routes run through Middleton and over toward Milton, New Durham, Farmington and Wakefield. There is a plain pleasure in the last pass of the day up here — mower shut off, the field gone quiet again.