Nothing in the west end is quieter than the half hour before a storm lets up, when the streetlights are still ringed and no shovels have started. Karma Builders is usually moving by then — plowing driveways and lots, opening a clean path to the door, spreading salt on the apron where the melt likes to freeze back. Snow here tends to fall wet and then harden, so the second pass matters as much as the first. Piles get placed with a thought for where the water will run when it finally goes. A finished driveway is a small, exact thing, and there is real pleasure in it.