Nothing stops the wind once it crosses the open potato ground north of Presque Isle, so a February storm here does not simply fall, it travels, filling a driveway back in twenty minutes after it was cleared. Bates Property Services, LLC plows against that, coming back for the second and third pass when the drifting calls for it and pushing the banks wide early so there is somewhere to put March. Walks and entries get shoveled and sanded down to footing a person can trust in the dark. An Aroostook winter is long enough that a plow route turns into a kind of routine friendship with every yard on it. When the sky finally goes hard and blue over Route 1, the driveways are already open.