Out west of Monticello there is nothing between the town and the weather but open ground, and when the wind turns northwest it carries the snow sideways until the section roads fill in curb-high. Baxter Utility Services works those hours — the black early ones, when a driveway is only a shape under a drift and the plow gives it back its edges. Come May the same trucks trade blades for mowers, and the work turns to keeping Piatt County yards clipped, trimmed and tidy through the growing months. There is real satisfaction in a lot swept clean and salted while the sky is still dark, and in a lawn cut so evenly the lines hold until the next pass. Snow clearing and lawn care, Monticello and the towns around it.