Four in the morning, Owen Road empty, the plow lights making two cones out of the falling white — that is the shift Dan's Outdoor Services works. Storms here ride in on a west wind and usually finish before dawn, so the job is timing as much as steel: a drive pushed back to blacktop, walks shoveled, salt down before the first alarm clock goes off. A fast-moving system can drop three inches in two hours and leave a berm at the end of every driveway, and someone has to go take that off again. There is quiet pride in a lot that looks plowed rather than merely passable, corner to corner, right down to the pavement. By the time headlights start moving toward town, the work is finished and nobody had to think about it.