The workday on Shelter Island starts on a boat. CP Lawn Pro rides the early ferry across with the mowers strapped down and the light still low on the water, and by the time the wake has flattened out the first yard of the day is already getting its stripes. Summer here is short and crowded, and the grass along West Neck grows fast in the salt damp — it wants a steady hand every week rather than one heroic afternoon in August. Trimming, edging along the shell drives, cleanups when the oaks let go in fall: unglamorous work, and exactly what keeps a place looking cared for. The reward is the walk back to the truck, looking at a lawn squared off against the hydrangeas as if it had been drawn.