Mid-July in Orleans County smells like cut hay for about two weeks straight. The flats toward Coventry and Derby go green to gold to stubble, and everybody works while the weather holds. Southern States is a farm supply business in Newport, and the lawn side of it keeps the same practical habits: mow when it needs mowing, trim what the mower misses, feed the thin spots, clear hard in spring and again in fall. Northern grass wants attention in bursts rather than steadily, and the trick is being there for the burst. A yard that stays even and deep green through a Kingdom August has been paid attention to.