Some Joliet winters skip the picture-postcard snow entirely and send freezing rain instead, a glaze that turns a parking lot into a skating pond between midnight and six. S&O landscaping works those nights as hard as the pretty ones — plowing, scraping walks down to the surface, spreading salt ahead of the freeze rather than after it. Timing is most of the skill; ice that gets a head start is far more trouble than ice that does not. There is something plainly satisfying about a lot cleared corner to corner at first light, the piles set where they will not block a single stall. Winter here is a run of nights like that, and they get answered one at a time.