At four in the morning in February the open ground north of Freeport does something the city never sees: the wind lifts loose snow off a picked cornfield and lays it back across the blacktop in long white ribbons. Bader Sealcoating runs snow removal through those hours, plowing lots and drives, clearing walks and putting salt down where the ice has set up hard. Storms in Stephenson County are as much wind as snowfall, and a lane opened at midnight can drift shut by dawn, which simply means going back again. The good part is the sound at the end of a route, blade up, everything scraped down to pavement while the town is still dark. Somebody's morning got easier and they will never know the exact hour it happened.