February in Kalkaska township is measured by how far the banks have grown from the mailbox. Snow comes often and stays long in this snowmobile country, and a sand driveway running back through the pines can close overnight without anyone hearing it happen. SAVAGE SEPTIC handles the winter end of that: plowing drives and lots, clearing walks and steps, and pushing banks back before there is nowhere left to put them. The good hour is the one before the school bus, when the plow light swings across a yard and leaves a wide, clean lane behind it. Nobody thanks the snow, but a drive opened by dawn is its own small piece of luck.