Gravel roads above Penobscot Bay freeze hard, thaw slick and freeze again, and by January they want sand as badly as they want a blade. Skinner Gravel & Excavation works them out of Belfast — pushing driveways and yards open, sanding grades and corners, moving banks back off the sightlines once they've grown too tall to see over. Heavy snow and long rural drives call for equipment that doesn't flinch, and there's plain pleasure in a dooryard cleared wide enough to swing a truck around in. Walks shoveled, the town-plow ridge cut back, and another trip out when the wind refills it. Belfast and the towns around it, storm after storm.