Out in the Thumb the wind has nothing to slow it down — it crosses forty miles of bean and sugar-beet ground and arrives in Bad Axe carrying whatever it picked up along the way. In January that means drifts packed across a driveway overnight, and the answer is a plow before daylight, salt on the walk, a shovel for the steps. In July it means grass that grows fast and dries faster, mowed on a schedule that stays ahead of it and edged where lawn meets gravel. Seasons here don't blend into each other; they change over in about a week. Handling both ends of that calendar for the same yard is exactly the point.