First light on the Manzanos reaches Tomé Hill before it reaches the valley, and for a few minutes the crosses stand black on the summit while the fields below are still blue. El Cerro Mission wakes into that, and so does the day — coffee gone cold on the tailgate, saws warming, a big cottonwood waiting on its trim. Pruning out here keeps the mesa wind from finding a weak union in a shade tree, and keeps branches off the roofline where the truck parks. Removal is done in measured cuts once a tree has died back past bringing home. After a storm crosses the valley, cleanup means the driveway, the corral and the ditch are passable again.