Ottawa grew up where the Fox River hands itself to the Illinois, and the ground just south of that meeting still keeps a little river in it — soft mornings, fog off the water, sand under the sod. Mackenzie Exteriors & Landscaping works both halves of the calendar there: mowing, edging and landscape upkeep while the bluff woods out toward Starved Rock are still green, then plowing, shoveling and salting once the wind comes across open ground with nothing left to slow it. A driveway opened before the first car leaves is a small thing that changes an entire morning. Valley snow likes to arrive sideways and pile against everything upright, so the second pass matters as much as the first. Come April the same yards get raked open and cut back to green, and the year turns around again.