Salt Creek runs low and dark through the west edge of Proviso Township, and in late February it carries the sound of everything melting at once. That is the trickiest week of the season: sun at noon, refreeze by seven, and every driveway that was merely shoveled turns into a rink. Binos landscaping and Snow removal plans for it — scraping down to the surface rather than leaving a polite inch, treating the shaded stretch beside the garage where the sun never quite reaches, watching the low spot at the foot of a drive where water always wants to sit. Plowing, de-icing, walks and steps cleared so a mail carrier can climb them without thinking twice. There is real pride in a property that stays walkable through a freeze-thaw week, when the block on either side does not. Winter here is less about the big storm than about the small ice nobody else bothered with.