West of town the Devil's Backbone stands up out of the grass like a row of broken teeth, and on a February morning it catches the light first while the valley underneath is still blue. Moose and Bear Excavation is out under that ridge by then, running plow down long gravel approaches and stacking snow where it won't slide back across the lane. Loveland gets the heavy kind — wet enough to load a shovel, quick to set up hard once the temperature drops at dusk — so the walks are scraped to the concrete and treated for the refreeze. Big ground and small ground both get opened: the acreage turnaround and the four steps to the front door. The work is finished when a place looks like the storm simply skipped it.