An upslope storm never arrives from the mountains — it comes the wrong way, in off the plains, and piles against the hogback until Dakota Ridge wakes up under a foot of it. Dakota Ridge Home Services is out in that dark, plowing driveways and shoveling walks while the streetlights are still doing all the work. The aim is simple and it matters: an open drive and a safe path to it before anybody has to leave for the day. Ice melt goes down where the shade holds and the daytime runoff refreezes by dusk. Then the sun comes over the plains, catches all that white, and the morning starts as if nothing had happened at all.