When the acequia gates open above Arroyo Seco and the Rio Hondo comes down full of snowmelt, the village turns green almost overnight. The high pastures under the Sangre de Cristos go first, then the yards, and by June everything wants cutting. Lawn work at this altitude is short and intense — a compressed season where a week off shows plainly. Mowing on time, trimming along adobe walls and ditch banks, and clearing the yard afterward is most of the day. There is something worth the drive up in a small mountain yard cut even, with Wheeler Peak still holding white in the distance.