An irrigation shop in northeast Colorado learns the year backward: water first, then the taking-away of water. Once Egbert's Sprinkling Systems has blown the last line clear in October, attention turns to what falls out of the sky instead. Sterling sits in dry country stitched with ditches and pivot circles, and the same eye that reads a slope for spray reads it for where meltwater will freeze after a thaw. Drives are opened wide enough for a real vehicle, walks are taken down to the slab, and the icy corners get treated before anyone finds them the hard way. It's a quieter kind of winter work, and the result shows up as an entirely ordinary morning.