The hardest nights here are not the big snows — they are the ones that begin as rain at thirty-three degrees and glaze everything between Lake-Cook Road and the river in a quarter inch of clear ice. Quebella Landscaping and Snow Removal, Co. watches those forecasts and gets in front of them, salt down before the freeze instead of after, plow hooked up in case the changeover comes early. Driveways, walks and lots all get the same aim: a surface a person can cross without once thinking about their footing. Wheeling winters run long and gray and stubborn, and steady clearing week after week is what keeps them uneventful. That is the entire job, repeated until the ground turns soft in April.