Out past the last streetlight the land around Hudsonville opens flat to the horizon, and in January the wind has nothing at all to stop it. Advanced Excavating Inc. runs snow removal across those open miles, where a bare field can hand back to a driveway everything the plow took away an hour ago. The trucks are moving at three in the morning, headlights swinging into farm lanes and cul-de-sacs alike, cutting drift down to pavement and laying salt before the melt has a chance to refreeze. There is a plain pleasure in that work: a lane opened wide, a walk scraped to the concrete, a dark driveway waiting under a gray sunrise. By the time the town wakes up and puts the coffee on, the way out is already clear.