Three in the morning north of the city, out where the Alamo farm fields run flat to the horizon and the wind has nothing at all to slow it down, the snow arrives sideways in bands off Lake Michigan. Alamo Dirt Works LLC keeps a blade in it: driveways opened end to end, turnarounds widened, walks cleared, salt laid where the shade holds ice past noon. A country drive can drift shut twice before sunrise, so the route runs and then runs again. By the time the sky over US-131 turns the color of skim milk, the driveway is a clean corridor with the gravel showing at its edges. Out here, that difference decides whether a morning works.