A clipper comes down out of the northwest with no warning to speak of, crosses the open prairie, and puts three inches on Orland between midnight and the first shift. CWU Contractors Inc meets it there. Lots along La Grange Road get pushed and stacked to the corners, aisles opened, entrances scraped to pavement and treated so the ice has nowhere to take hold. There is a satisfaction particular to winter contracting: standing at the edge of a finished lot at five in the morning, engine ticking, the whole thing black and dry under the lights. Then the radar shows the next band, and it all begins over.