North and east of Ithaca the land flattens out toward Freeville and Groton, and spring shows up there as mud first, then all at once as green. Three brothers landscape works that country and the town below it — mowing, trimming and edging through the growing months, plowing and clearing snow when the roads go white. A crew that knows each other well moves without much talking: one on the mower, one on the trimmer, one working the edges, and the yard closes up behind them. Winter runs on the same shorthand, in the dark, with a plow and a shovel and a list of drives to open. Either way, what is left is a property somebody has clearly been through.