At three in the morning the Edens runs empty and Willow Road is a white ribbon under sodium light. Ground Up Snow & Ice Control is out in it — plowing Northfield drives and lots, stacking piles where they will not block a sightline, treating the ice that forms in the hours after. The work is measured by what nobody notices: a driveway already open when the porch light comes on, a parking lot showing black asphalt at seven. Return passes through a long storm keep the surface from setting up again. Winter arrives fast across the flat land west of the village, and the answer is being there ahead of it.