Darland's Skid Steer Services runs its machine out along the ranch lanes that spread across the Big Lost River basin below Arco, where the ground underneath the snow is more often lava rock than soil and a blade has to know the difference. Mount Borah and the rest of the Lost River Range stand white to the south long before the valley floor sees its own real snow, and by the time it does, the basin can go from bare ground to drifted-shut lanes in a single overnight wind. The skid steer clears long gravel approaches, stock-yard aprons, and turnarounds that a regular plow truck can't always reach, pushing snow back off the same high desert ground that runs dry-farmed grain and cattle come summer. Out here a driveway can run a quarter mile from the county road to the house, and Darland's works that distance the same as any in-town lot, opening it back up so a rancher can get feed to the stock before the cold sets any harder. When the machine finally idles down for the day, the basin goes quiet again except for the wind working its way down off the mountains.