Kuser Farm Park hands over its leaves nearly all at once in the last week of October, and after that Hamilton spends a month raking. Doerler Landscapes spends it too: blowing, gathering and carting off leaf litter so the turf underneath doesn't pass the winter smothered. The rest of the year is the steady rhythm — mowing on schedule, edging beds back to a firm line, trimming shrubs, laying mulch, feeding and overseeding the thin spots where summer wore the grass down. A yard in this township carries a lot of shade from old maples and oaks, which is its own puzzle worth solving. By the first hard frost the properties on the route look put away for the year, and that is exactly the point.