When the cold finally shuts mortar work down for the year, the season does not so much end as change tools. HR&E MASONRY spends Monroe's winters clearing snow — plowing drives, opening walkways, cutting back the ridge the plow leaves across the apron, putting salt down wherever it glazes over. The same eye that keeps a wall plumb and a joint even shows up in a driveway squared off to its edges. On Monroe's older streets, where porches sit close to the sidewalk and there is nowhere convenient to put a storm, that precision earns its keep. Come the thaw the stone will wait; until then, the blade goes on the truck.