Fog lifts off the water near Blountville most summer mornings, and the first yards of the day are still wet when Phenomelawn starts cutting. The rounds are even passes, edges taken clean along drives and beds, hand-trimming where the ground breaks, and every slab of concrete cleared before the gate closes behind them. Upper East Tennessee grows grass with real enthusiasm from April to October and there is no coasting through it. Late in the season the light comes sideways over the ridges and a fresh-cut lawn holds its stripes like corduroy. That picture is the point of the whole day.