Riparius is a bend in the upper Hudson with a green iron bridge across it, and up here the mowing season is short, bright, and worth every week of it. Bison FMS keeps lawns along the river road and up the grades toward Chestertown, where yards are carved out of hemlock and hardwood and the grass grows only where somebody insisted it should. Weekly cuts, trimming around ledge and stone, cleanups after the mountains let their leaves go — straightforward work in country that isn't. Mornings start cool even in July, mist coming off the water below the bridge, and the first pass of the day cuts a dark stripe through the dew. By evening the lawn sits open and orderly with the Adirondacks standing all around it, which is about as good as a yard can look.