Some of the hardest mornings here aren't snow at all — it's the freeze after a thaw, when Rockford wears a skin of ice and the ground gives nothing back. Marbros Co. works those blue-gray hours before the buses run, plowing driveways and clearing the walks and steps where a slip actually happens. On the low rise east of the river the wind finds every open corner and packs it in tight. The satisfaction is small and specific: a path down the middle of a walk, wide enough for two feet and a bag of groceries. A northern Illinois winter is long, and it gets made bearable one cleared entrance at a time.