The storms that matter in Lyons usually arrive out of the northwest overnight, dry and fast, laying three inches down before anyone's alarm goes off. Ducks Landscaping meets them at that hour — plow down, blade set, the length of a driveway opened in one long push while Joliet Road is still nothing but salt trucks and taillights. Clearing walks, drives and lots in the dark is its own discipline; you work by the sweep of your own lights and the sound of the edge riding concrete. By the time the sky goes gray over the village, the pavement underneath is black and passable again. That is the entire point of the night.