Three in the morning on a Middlebury back road is a particular kind of dark — stone walls, the old Larkin trail bed buried, and no sound at all but a blade finding pavement. Highlight Landscape & Design keeps that hour. Snow removal here is unglamorous and it matters: the driveway open, the walk cleared, the car out in time for a shift that will not wait. Storms come sideways off the western hills and drift wherever the yard narrows, so one lane can need two passes before sunrise. That is what the crew shows up for, across Middlebury and the towns that ring it.