By the middle of October the cottonwoods along the Santa Fe River go the color of new brass, and La Cienega starts smelling faintly of piñon smoke at dusk. That is the season Carlos Landscaping & Firewood likes most for yard work: the last mowings of the year, leaves raked out of corners and carried off, grass cut short and even before the cold sets it sleeping. The rest of the year runs on a steadier rhythm — mowing on a schedule, trimming along walls and portals, keeping weeds out of the gravel beds. Nothing dramatic happens in a well-kept yard, and that is the appeal of it. You come up the drive, the lines are straight, the edges are clean, and the house looks like somebody is home.