Salem's winter comes in damp and heavy off the Merrimack Valley, the sort of snow that sets like mortar by first light — so the blades are down on the drives off Route 28 and the lanes near Policy Brook while the streetlamps are still burning. Beacon Property Services keeps that ground open through the cold months, then meets the April thaw with mowers, once the granite ledge lets go and the oaks finally consent to leaf out. Summer here is long grass and longer evenings, and the work shows in the small true things: a mowing line laid straight across a yard, an edge cut sharp where turf meets walk, a lawn that holds its shape from June clear into September. It is plain, physical satisfaction — a driveway bare and dark before anyone is awake, a property that looks cared for from the road — and it is the whole point of the trade.