Winter in Lee County is less about one enormous storm than about the thaw that follows it — meltwater running down a drive at noon and turning to glass by five. Clearing snow here means the whole job: plowing the drive out to the street, shoveling walks and steps down to bare surface, and putting salt exactly where water will refreeze overnight. Open ground east of town lets the wind rebuild a drift across a driveway an hour after it was scraped, so a route sometimes gets run twice in a night. The reward is small and specific — someone stepping out at dawn onto footing that holds. Dixon, Amboy, Sterling and the roads between them.