At eight thousand feet in the Fraser Valley the summer is short and generous, willows crowding the river, wildflowers up in the meadows, grass growing fast because it knows it has not got long. Alpine Landscape Service uses every week of it with mowing, trimming, edging, a spring cleanup once the drifts pull back and a fall cleanup before the ground locks up. Then comes winter, which in Tabernash is most of the calendar: plowing long ranch driveways, shoveling entries and decks, keeping ice off the steps when the valley air goes bitter before dawn. Snow up here does not melt between storms, it stacks, so the banks have to be pushed back wide and early or there is nowhere left to put February. Getting a family down the valley road on a January morning is its own quiet accomplishment.