Neal Bumpus

About Neal Bumpus

October is the best month on this side of Cass County, when the rises toward Daingerfield turn over in hickory yellow and sweetgum red and the air finally loses its weight. It is also when leaves begin arriving faster than anyone can keep up with, so cleanup joins the regular round of mowing, edging and trimming. The rest of the year the work is simpler and no less satisfying: a lawn cut on time, the borders sharp, the walks cleared. Hughes Springs is a town of springs and pines laid across small hills, so yards here run to slope and shade more than to flat open turf. Learning one particular yard, where it stays wet and where the roots run shallow, is most of the craft.