August in Albany can go a fortnight without rain, and you can read the drought right off the lawns — the high ground along New Scotland Avenue turns straw-colored while the low corners stay stubbornly green. Lawn sprinkler work is the answer to that arithmetic: irrigation lines laid, heads set and adjusted so water lands on grass instead of pavement, systems opened in spring and blown out ahead of the first hard freeze. Alongside it goes the ordinary care that makes turf worth watering — mowing, trimming, feeding and seeding the thin places. In Hudson Valley heat, timing matters more than volume; water early enough that the blades dry before evening. A lawn that keeps its color straight through a dry August is a result you can see from the end of the street.