Fog pools in the Otter Creek valley below Pittsford and lifts slowly, the way morning light does when it has to climb over the Green Mountains and slide back off the Taconics — and the work here is cut to that rhythm. Carpenter & Costin mows and edges, mulches and weeds, prunes ornamentals, sets annuals and perennials, aerates and overseeds thin turf, fertilizes, runs insect and tick control, and carries off the wreckage of spring and fall clean-ups; they design and build, too, laying patios and walkways, stairways and terraces, retaining and decorative walls, fire pits and pergolas, pool decks, fences, driveways and parking lots, with drainage and stormwater work set underneath where the runoff wants to travel anyway. When storms come down off Killington and fill the Route 4 corridor, they plow lots and drives, shovel walks, sand and salt the ice, and haul the piles away once the banks stop making room. The pleasure of it is physical: an edge left crisp along a marble-town sidewalk, a driveway opened before the valley has finished getting light, a yard that keeps its shape clear through mud season. Their trucks range across Addison, Rutland, Bennington and Windsor counties and east along Route 4 toward Hanover — Middlebury, Rutland, Manchester, Ludlow, Killington and the hill towns between.