Flamingo and Cactus

About Flamingo and Cactus

Owego turns its face to the Susquehanna, and the yards behind Front Street run down toward the water in short bright strips. Flamingo and Cactus mows and trims those strips through the long green middle of the year, edging the walks, cutting back whatever crowds a fence line, and clearing out the beds in spring and again in fall. July here is loud with cicadas and slow with river air; a lawn cut in the cool of the morning stays sharp all the way through the heat. Small yards ask for more care, not less — every corner is a corner somebody sees from a porch chair. The pleasure of it is the after: the mower gone quiet, the clippings swept off the sidewalk, a little green room by the river ready for evening.