4 Little Acres

About 4 Little Acres

Just outside Avoca the old rail trestle still stands a hundred feet above Mill Creek, and in January the whole valley under it goes white and silent. That is the country 4 Little Acres plows: farm lanes, long two-tracks, village driveways, the ones that fill back in as soon as the wind finds them. Nights are for the heavy work — headlights, blade down, the drive opened wide enough for a truck to swing around by the time the coffee is on. Walks get shoveled and the ice gets treated, because in St. Clair County it is the thaw and refreeze that actually puts people down. The reward is simple: a driveway already done at six in the morning, and nobody standing in it holding a shovel.