Spring comes up the valley loud in West Shokan — Kanape Brook full of meltwater, the mountain still gray, the lower fields greening a good two weeks ahead of anything higher. JAX'S Landscaping opens the season there with the first cuts of the year, then holds the rhythm all summer with mowing, string trimming and bed edging. Winter leaves a mess in these hollows: branch litter, gravel thrown up from the road, October leaves matted flat, and all of it gets raked off before a mower ever runs. Doing that groundwork once means every cut afterward comes out even. By June the yards along the creek roads look like the season caught up with them all at once.