Roots Tree, Stump, and Land

About Roots Tree, Stump, and Land

Winter dawn at the lake in O'Fallon's Community Park stays blue for about twenty minutes, the old oaks bare and black against it, everything under the snow perfectly still. Roots Tree, Stump, and Land is already moving by then — plowing driveways and lots, opening paths and walkways down to the surface, putting salt where meltwater will run and freeze again. Snow behaves differently under big trees, letting go in slabs off the limbs long after the sky has cleared, so a drive that looked finished can need another look. Making that second pass is most of the job, and it is the part people remember. Snow work for O'Fallon and the towns just up the road.