The first real snow of the year usually shows up over Turtlehead Lake as a gray smudge in the western sky, and an hour later it is on the ground. Emmons Seasonal Services runs the snow work through Bremen Township — plowing drives, clearing walks by hand, and laying salt down before ice can set. Anyone who has driven Cook County's flat blocks in a February wind knows where the drift lines fall: the same corner of the same driveway, every single storm. Getting there ahead of the weather, and then again behind it, is most of the job. A cleared drive at dawn is a small and exact kindness in a hard month.