Santa Rosa is a town the desert let keep its water — the Pecos threading past, cold springs rising blue out of the rock, lakes sitting where the high plains have no reason to hold any. Grass here is something a household decides to have, and Blue Hole treats it that way: mowed even, trimmed close to the posts and the walk, clippings swept up before the afternoon wind carries them into the road. Mowing runs early through the summer, while the air is still cool enough to work in. When the late-July rain finally arrives and the whole valley greens in a week, the yards that were kept all along are the ones that show it. There is real satisfaction in stopping at the gate and seeing a lawn that looks like somebody meant it.