The Point Pleasant Canal runs the town clean through, river to bay, and when the tide turns the whole channel changes direction under the bridges. Ryan's Lawn Service, L.L.C. keeps yards on both banks of it — mowing on a weekly line, trimming the awkward corners, edging the walks until they read like drawn lines. There is a quiet pleasure in the last look back at a finished property: nothing shaggy, nothing left loose, the mower marks running the same way across the entire front. Cleanups in spring and again in fall bookend the cutting season at either end. The water keeps changing its mind; the schedule does not.