O'Brien's Landscape

About O'Brien's Landscape

West of Amherst the land dips into the Vermilion River valley, and on a still winter morning the hollow holds fog while the ridges above it go pink. O'Brien's is out ahead of that light — blade down, drives opened, walks cleared, salt laid where the overnight melt froze back. When the ground finally softens, the work turns green: mowing on a weekly circuit, trimming, edging, beds cleaned and mulched, the shape of a yard brought back after five months under snow. Landscape work rewards somebody who has seen the same property at both extremes. Open in February, kept in July — that is the whole arc of it.