Lay of the Landscape

About Lay of the Landscape

Hudson was laid out by Connecticut surveyors on a grid that never quite agreed with the land beneath it — the ridges and hollows of the Western Reserve run their own stubborn direction. Lay of the Landscape reads that contour for a living: where the water goes after a storm, where the lawn thins under an old maple, which side of a drive the drifts will build against. Warm months mean mowing, trimming and cleanups; the first hard frost turns the work over to plowing, shoveling and salt. Knowing a property in August makes clearing it at four on a February morning far less of a guess. It is one job wearing two coats.