The Thornapple River runs right through the middle of Hastings, and on a January morning the fog off the open water meets the snow coming down over the courthouse blocks. BARRY COUNTY EXCAVATION is out in it — plowing driveways and parking lots, pushing back the ridge the county truck leaves across the end of a drive, clearing sidewalks, salting the places that ice first. Barry County opens up fast past the city limits into hills and gravel roads, and a long rural drive takes a different kind of patience than a downtown lot. The point is simple: somebody backs out at six and never has to think about it. That is the whole job, storm after storm.