Snow usually starts over Franklin at the worst possible hour, right at dusk, when the light along Pond Street goes blue and half the town is still driving home. Bastiao Landscaping & Snowplowing is out in it before the first inch sets. Plowing, clearing driveways and lots, shoveling walkways down to the surface, sanding the slopes where a car has to stop — the point is staying ahead of a storm rather than digging out behind it. Through the night the route runs and reruns, because eight inches that come slowly still have to go somewhere. Morning finds the drives open and the trucks finally quiet.