Spring arrives early in Southside Virginia, and by April the yards around Blackstone are growing faster than anyone quite believes. Mornings begin with dew still heavy on the fescue and mist sitting low over the fields out toward Fort Barfoot. That is the hour for mowing and trimming — before the heat leans in, when a fresh cut holds its lines and the smell of it follows you down the block. Clay's Landscape & Lawn Care runs a steady route through Blackstone and the surrounding Nottoway County towns, edging drives and sidewalks and clearing what a Southside thunderstorm scatters across a lawn. A yard tended on schedule never has to be rescued; it just stays right.